Revisiting language and brain expansion (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, February 10, 2020, 20:38 (1531 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Control over the activities of one desired species to which He purposely gave consciousness and the right of choice in managing their lives. That is all the issue entails. God knew when He decided to produce us what our attributes would be. Please let Him the right to choose.

dhw: You keep refusing to see the point. You object to my suggestion that your God might willingly have sacrificed control over evolution itself, as if somehow this belittles him. If he is willing to sacrifice control in one area of life (free will), why do you discount the possibility that he might have been willing to sacrifice control in other areas, and why do you refuse to give him the right to choose uncontrolled evolution rather than controlled?

Because my God is not the God you constantly humanize. My God has specific purposes. He has created the universe and extremely advanced humans. I view Him as knowing exactly what He wants.

dhw: Why don’t you focus on the rest of the paragraph which vividly illustrates exactly the same process you are trying to ignore: cells RESPOND to new requirements and do not change in advance of them.

DAVID: Yes, in a new environment there are new demands that require major design and physiological changes. Let's look: the legged mammal jumps in the watery environment and major changes MUST happen because that is what the fossil record tells us.

dhw: Exactly. You've got it!

But I don't buy your theory about it.

DAVID: […] it must be germ cells changing the next generations through reproduction. At your theory level they receive pleading messages from somatic cells to please fix things.

dhw: Reproduction doesn’t make the changes – it ensures that the changes are passed on. I wish I knew more about stem cells, as they might be the thinkers that make the changes in the first place. What is clear is that there has to be intelligent communication between all the cells involved in any change. […]

DAVID: Those miracle living cells, designed by God, produce and receive all sorts of myriad molecular signals, responding automatically and in so doing living beings appear! Those are you cell communities, not the magical cell committees which can design anything as you conjure ways to avoid God designing when He has to

dhw: The appearance of living beings in the form of intelligent cells may well be the work of your God. And there is no question that once we have life, there are automatic processes at work. But automatic processes do not explain variation from the original life form. Hence evolution from single cells to sharks, eagles, ants, elephants, the duckbilled platypus and humans. I do not regard it as beyond your God’s powers to have created an autonomous intelligence that enabled the original cells to evolve as they have done. You may call it magic if you like, but I would suggest it is scientific, whether your God created every species individually or created the mechanism enabling organisms to adapt and innovate autonomously.

As usual I am sure He would not give up control to a process that did not have guidelines. My God is purposeful, not like yours.