Back to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, May 31, 2020, 12:28 (1419 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID (re leaf-biting): You are having Miss Bee reaching a solution relating the two very separate events on one observation! No true scientist would make that obvious mistake. Nor would any rational human.

dhw: I’m pleased you have realized that Miss Bee was not a true scientist or a rational human. In my hypothetical scenario, she passed on her one observation, and when other bees tried the trick, it worked. If it hadn’t worked, my guess is that they wouldn’t have bothered any more. What’s your problem?

DAVID: Total irrationality. How can one make any observation of two disparate events and reach a conclusion of any connection? It requires multiple munchings and multiple early flowerings to realize the connectionality at the human level, much less the little bee level. Simply repeating your fairy tale is no real answer to my point, which means you have no answer.

Initially it’s not a conclusion! It’s just a one-off observation of possible cause and effect. So then it’s repeated, and if it continues to work, it becomes an established strategy. The same process would apply to the origin of thousands of other “natural wonders”, in which organisms establish strategies, lifestyles, survival techniques – think of symbiosis - no doubt often from chance beginnings. So now let’s hear your explanation as to how bees got started on the trick.

DAVID: Autonomous intelligence comes from the appearance of automatic but reasonable reactions.

dhw: Try telling that to yourself when you defend your belief in free will. “Autonomous” means free to control itself; “automatic” means not free to control itself.

DAVID: Free will doesn't apply here.

Free will shows that autonomous intelligence does not necessarily come from the appearance of “automatic but reasonable reactions”. To use your own favourite method of dismissing theories other than your own: you have no proof for your belief, though you state it as if it were a fact.

dhw: The three ideas I have bolded and numbered above are unproven guesses. And you cannot even guess why your all-powerful God (guess no. 3) would directly design every non-human life form etc. (guess no, 2), although his only purpose was to design H. sapiens (guess no. 1). The distortion lies in your refusal to recognize that your theory is based on irreconcilable guesses. The only “fact” we agree on (some people reject it, though) is that life developed from single cells through a vast bush of diverse forms, culminating (so far) in humans.

DAVID: You have never fully explained why you think parts of my theory don't stick together. If I understood your reasoning perhaps we can have a real debate.

I'm surprised, but here we go again. Please bear in mind that individually, your three guesses make perfect sense. However, if your God’s one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, and if he had the power to design H. sapiens any way he wished, there is no conceivable reason why he would first have directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, lifestyles, econiches, strategies and natural wonders which have no conceivable connection to humans.

You cannot think of a reason yourself, and so you say that any reason for linking your guesses would be a guess, God thinks logically like us but our human logic can’t follow his logic, and any attempt to replace any of your three guesses entails “humanizing” your God, although your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours. I hope this makes it clear why I find your theory illogical, and at the same time why I find your objections to my alternatives equally illogical.

DAVID: And the next distortion about similar thought patterns. The similarity I accept for God and us is only logical thought.

dhw: But you have no idea what logic could lie behind the combination of your three guesses above, so that’s not much help. And you persistently try to disown your own statement that “He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logical thought” – which is a perfectly reasonable proposal, since even you have proposed that our consciousness is part of his consciousness.

DAVID: What I disowned out of context is beside the point. He may have similar patterns of thought, but that doesn't tell us His reasoning for his goal, the main issue.

There is no “out of context”. Either God may have thought patterns similar to ours or he may not, and you have just repeated that he may! We do not “know” any of your three guesses, including his goal, and that is why I have proposed different theistic theories to explain the only fact we have - single cells developed into a vast variety of largely extinct life forms etc., the latest of which is H. sapiens. These theories include two that allow for the specialness of H. sapiens.

DAVID: Our difference is our individual concepts of human specialness.

dhw: You accuse me of distortion, and then persistently run back to this distortion of your own. Once more, I have NEVER disputed the huge gap between our consciousness and that of other organisms, and I accept the logic of the design argument.
I trust we’ve seen the end of this line of attack.