dhw: big brain evolution:comparing chimp and brain organoids (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, April 15, 2019, 11:49 (1839 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I cannot explain His decisions as I cannot read his mind but can analyze his intentions from the results. He chose to evolve humans and provided the diversity for food supply until humans were evolved.

dhw: And he “chose to evolve” every life form, including all those that have no connection with humans. That is why you have no idea why he would have chosen this method if his SOLE intention was to produce humans. You use the terms “evolve” and “were evolved”, but since according to you every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder required special design either by preprogramming or dabbling, once more you skate over the problem that if he specially designed everything else, why did he not specially design the only thing he wanted to design?

DAVID: Again total non-sequiturs. First of all in God using evolution, everything preceding humans were involved in their creation from what was developed before them.

That indeed is the principle of common descent. So you claim that 3.8 billion years ago your God preprogrammed every undabbled innovation to take place in already existing organisms.

DAVID: And, of course, God did specifically design humans by carefully managing their eventual appearance, including providing the enlargement of their magnificent brains.

But you keep insisting that everything else was also specifically designed, from whale fins to cuttlefish camouflage to weaverbirds’ nests, and that is why your hypotheses clash. If his sole purpose was to specifically design our magnificent brains, why did he bother with the rest?

DAVID: You are contending He was hands off. Not at all, which is why when you propose organisms managing their own future changes thru a God-given mechanism.

That is one of the hypotheses I have proposed, and I confess that I find it more convincing than your hypothesis that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every single bacterial action, innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder.

DAVID: I've always contested that it must have God's guidelines.

And when questioned, you have conceded that “guidelines” can only consist of preprogramming or dabbling.

DAVID: Your same impatient complaint about God. My answer is above. He simply prefers evolving over direct creation.

dhw: […] he “prefers” it is no explanation at all, but simply an astonishing assumption that you know exactly what God thinks.

DAVID: So in your view God does not have the authority to choose a method of creation? Prefers equals choice in my way of thinking.

dhw: Of course he has the authority to choose! But you have no idea why he chose/preferred the purpose and method you ascribe to him, and so I have suggested different purposes and methods, all of which you agree make perfect sense.

DAVID: Of course they are logical alternatives, IF He had limitations that caused Him to make His final choice of methods. But we do not know if He found He had limitations, do we? You are the doubting agnostic and comment from your non-belief.

Limitations are only ONE of the logical hypotheses (to explain why he might have spent 3.5+ billion years designing anything but the only thing he wanted to design)! The higgledy-piggledy history also fits in perfectly with your God giving the process free rein, although leaving open the option of dabbling. Or if he really did specially design every non-human aspect of evolution, thereby making nonsense of the hypothesis that H. sapiens was the only thing he wanted to specially design, I offer a different purpose, which you once identified as being similar to the painter’s enjoyment of his own paintings.

dhw: But you “have no idea” (your words) why your God chose to separately design all the different bits and pieces in different hominins and homos at different times instead of separately designing the only homo he wanted to design: H. sapiens.

DAVID: I view God as hands on all the way. Again you unreasonably champion direct creation. That is not a requirement.

I do not champion anything. I present alternative hypotheses which you agree are logical, unlike your own.

dhw: If you can’t explain this method of achieving his one and only goal, but you cling to it and refuse to consider other possible and completely logical interpretations of goal and/or purpose, I’m afraid the last thing you can claim for yourself is open-mindedness.

DAVID: And all you want to propose is the probability of an incompetent God. What if He is totally competent?

That is NOT all I propose! I offer various interpretations of your God’s purpose, whether anthropocentric or not, and methods, whether he is totally competent or not, and ALL of them provide logical explanations of life’s history, unlike your own which you yourself find impossible to understand.