DAVID: Physical designs are mental. not phenotypical as in speciation.

dhw: We are not talking about speciation but about the evolution of the brain. [...] If God exists, he gave us the ability to design our machines, art, institutions etc. He did not preprogramme these into the new cells of 300,000 years ago.

I then asked why your God could not have given the same autonomy to other cells.

DAVID: God could have, but there is no evidence other types of cells than neurons can act like neurons.

dhw: Thank you for agreeing that he could have. There is no evidence that your God fiddled with every other type of cell. Your God’s role in evolution – if he exists – is as unknown as his purposes and his nature. All our theories, as you keep telling us, are guesswork.

At least I stick to reasoning from the available science of His works.

Free will and a free-for-all
DAVID: God gave up total control by giving us free will.

dhw: And that is why it is perfectly possible that (if he exists) he gave up total control by setting in motion a free-for-all, whereby organisms did their own designing.

Not answered.

DAVID: No need. Previous discussions found no evidence for that theory.

dhw: Once more: there is no evidence for ANY of our theories, including yours. We can only discuss feasibility.

Your form of God has feasibility for anything human

DAVID: God used evolution to create us, no matter what the Raup statistics show.

dhw: If God exists, he used evolution to create every organism that ever lived, whether directly or indirectly.

Of course.

“De novo” (The Cambrian)

DAVID: You are stuck with a real gap. Only a designer can explain it.

dhw: That is your rigid but unproven belief, which requires what you yourself acknowledge to be a leap of faith.

DAVID: I just added another new Cambrian, making the gap bigger! Whet proof do you need in your wishful blind hope. It is no longer a theory, but a huge gap.

dhw: Nobody has said that the Cambrian Gap is a theory!!!

DAVID: You did: "dhw: First of all, “de novo” creation in the Cambrian remains a theory." Tuesday, July 23, 2024, 18:15

dhw: Your Mr Hyde is making a fool of you. The theory is “de novo” creation!!! That is your guesswork solution to the mystery of the Cambrian Gap.

dhw: The Cambrian Gap is a real mystery, and there are theories which try to explain it! We have considered three: the fossil record is bound to be incomplete; cellular intelligence may be sufficiently advanced to make major jumps when conditions allow them; there is an unknown, sourceless mind which designed species “de novo”.

DAVID: Such new complex organisms with brains, eyes, guts, demand a designer to explain them.

dhw: You have chosen the third of the three theoretical explanations.

Yes, there is a gap followed by enormous unexplained complexity. Nothing here is gradual. For more than 160+ years later, now with many deposits of Cambrian animals found all over the world, no new fossils of precursors! Only a designer fits.