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> DAVID: [i]Your one suggestion of liking to experiment may apply to God. all we know is He took His time. Endpoint always the same, the most complex result in the universe: the human brain.[/i]
> 
> dhw: [i]“All we know”? We don’t even “know” if God exists. If he does exist, we don’t even “know” what he’s like or what he thinks, so how can you “know” that the human brain was his one and only purpose and constitutes the “endpoint” of evolution, and therefore he “took his time”, though you don’t know why! Too many basic premises taken for granted. But the design argument remains your strong point. I stand by the limerick.[/i]
> 
> DAVID: [i]We do know the brain took a very long time to appear, and for no good reason based on competitive survival or environmental pressures. And it appears designed. I've picked a cause, you haven't.[/i]
> 
> As usual you ignore the fact that if competitive survival and/or environmental pressures were the ONLY factors, there would have been no need for ANY evolution beyond bacteria. ALL living things “appear designed”, and you keep telling us that your God did ALL the designing, even though there was only one thing he really wanted to design! What “cause” have you picked? That your God wanted to produce the human brain and therefore he designed a few billion other organisms, lifestyles and natural wonders until he was able to do it, though being all-powerful he could do anything. Non sequiturs ad absurdum. Here’s a different possible cause: organisms strive to improve as well as to survive, though the two purposes may coincide, since an innovation may improve an organism’s chances of survival. The sapiens brain is the result of a natural progression from earlier brains as hominins sought improvement, though we cannot know whether the brain’s expansion was caused by or was the cause of enhanced awareness (because nobody knows the source of consciousness). If you are talking about a first cause, three equally problematical options: chance, your God, matter and energy with evolving consciousnesses.