Chimp vs. human brain (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, December 16, 2012, 12:53 (4158 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 2) God's purpose was to have fun with a totally unpredictable game of higgledy-piggledy; 3) God's purpose was to experiment with life to see what he could do with it, creating this, destroying that; 4) God had no particular purpose in creating life, and left it to sort itself out; 5) Life is one big, purposeless series of coincidences. All of these hypotheses could explain why what we see is a higgledy-piggledy bush of comings and goings from tiddly-pops to homo sapiens.-DAVID: My view of evolution is that it got complexer and complexer with great directionality. I don't see anything of 2-5 in it. -"Complexer and complexer", yes. "With great directionality" is faith, not science. That is why you can't see anything of 2-5 in it.-DAVID: We descended from early primates and became quite different. Our posture is totally different. We have much more useful hands with our opposible thumbs, and our brains are enormously different.-I agree that we are different. Since you think we are different in "kind and not degree", do you think 1) God interfered, 2) God preprogrammed the very first cells to pass on the information through umpteen billion generations of non-humans, or 3) some intelligent cells in some early primates had a stroke of inspiration?
 
dhw:The idea that this vast variety (most of which are extinct) was from the outset designed to produce one single species does not[make sense to me]. -DAVID: Remember that we eat each other. I think the variety of life idea encompasses the balance of nature. The species are set up to thrive off each other. When the balance is thrown out of kilter there are sad results. [...] The variety and availability of edibles is very important.-No controversy here. How does it prove that evolution was designed to produce homo sapiens?-DAVID: And remember convergence. Evolution is set up as very inventive and very creative. Nature's wonders are another example. It is no surprise we have the bush, not a tree.-No controversy here either. How does it prove that evolution was designed to produce homo sapiens?-DAVID: I think your viewpoint is too narrow.-Your view is that the bush was designed to produce homo sapiens. I have offered four alternative and equally likely/unlikely explanations for the bush. What is your definition of a "narrow" viewpoint?