[note: the author formatted this is a way that did not leave space for a page break. So I am inserting the break at the top — NR]
- Paley’s teleological argument is: just as the function and complexity of a watch implies a watch-maker, so likewise the function and complexity of the universe implies the existence of a universe-maker. Paley also addressed a number of possible counterarguments:
- Objection: We don’t know who the watchmaker is. Paley: Just because we don’t know who the artist might be, it doesn’t follow that we cannot know that there is one.
- Objection: The watch (universe) is not perfect. Paley: Perfection is not required.
- Objection: Some parts of the watch (universe) seem to have no function. Paley: We just don’t know those functions yet.
- Objection: The watch (re universe) is only one possible form of many possible combinations and so is a chance event. Paley: Life is too complex and organized to be a product of chance.
- Objection: There is a law or principle that disposed the watch (re universe) to be in that form. Also, the watch (re the universe) came about as a result of the laws of metallic nature. Paley: The existence of a law presupposes a lawgiver with the power to enforce the law.
- Objection: One knows nothing at all about the matter. Paley: Certainly, by seeing the parts of the watch (re the universe), one can know the design.
- Hume’s arguments against design:
- Objection: “We have no experience of world-making”. Counter-objection: We have no direct experience of many things, yet that never stops us from reasoning our way through problems.
- Objection: “The analogy is not good enough. The universe could be argued to be more analogous to something more organic such as a vegetable. But both watch and vegetable are ridiculous analogies”. Counter-objection: By definition, no analogy is perfect. The analogy needs only be good enough to prove the point. And Paley’s analogy is great for that limited scope. Hume’s followers are free to pursue the vegetable analogy if they think it is good enough. And some [unconvincingly] do imagine the universe as “organic”.
- Objection: “Even if the argument did give evidence for a designer; it’s not the God of traditional Christian theism”. Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding.
- Objection: “The universe could have been created by random chance but still show evidence of design as the universe is eternal and would have an infinite amount of time to be able to form a universe so complex and ordered as our own”. Counter-objection: Not possible. There is nothing random in the universe that looks indubitably designed. That is why we use non-randomness to search for extraterrestrial life and ancient artefacts.
- Other arguments against design:
- Darwin: “Evolution (natural selection) is a better explanation”. “There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.” — The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. Counter-objection: “Natural selection” would be an alternative hypothesis to Paley’s if it worked. But it demonstrably doesn’t, so there is not even a point in comparing the two.
- Dawkins: “Who designed the designer?” Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Dawkins: “The watch analogy conflates the complexity that arises from living organisms that are able to reproduce themselves with the complexity of inanimate objects, unable to pass on any reproductive changes”. Counter-objection: Paley is aware of the differences between the living and the inert and is not trying to cast life into a watch. Instead he is only demonstrating that they both share the property of being designed. In addition, nothing even “arises”. Instead everything is caused by something else. That’s why we always look for a cause in science.
- Objection: “Watches were not created by single inventors, but by people building up their skills in a cumulative fashion over time, each contributing to a watch-making tradition from which any individual watchmaker draws their designs”. Counter-objection: Once we establish that the universe is designed, only then we can [optionally] discuss other aspects of this finding (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Objection: In Dover case, the judge ruled that such an inductive argument is not accepted as science because it is unfalsifiable. Counter-objection: Both inductive and deductive reasoning are used in science. Paley’s argument is not inductive as he had his hypothesis formulated well before his argumentation. Finally, Paley’s hypothesis can absolutely be falsified if a random draw can be found to look designed. This is exactly what the “infinite monkey” theorem has tried and failed to do (see counter-objection to Hume).
- Objection: Paley confuses descriptive law with prescriptive law (i.e., the fallacy of equivocation). Prescriptive law does imply a lawgiver, and prescriptive laws can be broken (e.g., speed limits, rules of behavior). Descriptive laws do not imply a law-giver, and descriptive laws cannot be broken (one exception disproves the law, e.g., gravity, f = ma.). Counter-objection: Of all the laws with known origin, all (100%) have a lawgiver at the origin. The distinction between descriptive and prescriptive laws is thus arbitrary and unwarranted.
- Objection: It is the nature of mind to see relationship. Where one person sees design, another sees randomness. Counter-objection: This ambiguity is present only for very simple cases. But all humans agree that organisms’ structures are clearly not random.
- Dawkins: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Counter-objection: Just a corollary: since organisms indeed appear designed, then they are most likely designed according to Occam’s razor.
- In conclusion, Paley is right and his opponents continue to be wrong with not even a plausible alternative hypothesis.
Links:
Yes, wisdom derived at the cost of a great many failures unseen and unseeable.
But I don’t think anyone actually says that.
Why do mice build homes? https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/science/mouse-study-discovers-dna-that-controls-behavior.html
Why do beavers beaver? I’m sure somebody is looking!
OMagain,
I think you’ll find the grammatically correct form is “beave”.
Oddly enough, I agree with you here. Saying Goddidit is as useless as saying it happens by magic. And I see no effective difference between magic and “blind evolutionary forces.” In this universe, everything that happens presumably has some preceding causal factors, even though everything that happens “just happens, we can never know, so why bother trying to understand anything.”
On the contrary, I think we are capable of understanding and explaining a great deal about our universe. And so we have evolved a unified theory of how life develops and changes over time, which is both explanatory and comprehensible. I’m going to guess that, belong to the “god did it, let us pray” school, you cannot help but see competing explanations, no matter how coherent or well-evidenced, as blind dead ends. And accordingly, you cannot notice that a very large number of very informed and intelligent people have spent many careers enquiring (and doing so successfully), rather than ceasing to enquire.
And I’ll bet that they will continue to do so and have continued success no matter how many times the god-botherers tell them they’re wasting their time doing something whose description (“blindness”) fits the devout ignorami, rather than fit their efforts.
False. As Paley showed, my (&his) faith in intelligent design is much more scientific than the retard Darwinist bullshit. But what would you know?
Illogical. I there anything beyond biology? Is there anything beyond physics (is biology for real)? Not according to some of your other claims. So, Baron Munchausen, you pull yourself and your horse out of a swamp by pulling your own pigtail (your “own making”). If you believe that, Darwin (the slightly bigger liar) is within the credulity reach.
Then which job is compromised? That of the observer for sure.
So you keep up the faith by not answering tough questions. Got it.
False. Read comment-274347, and read Paley’s argument again:
“just as the function and complexity of a watch implies a watch-maker, so likewise the function and complexity of the universe implies the existence of a universe-maker.”
False. Paley talks about ‘universe-maker’. Also, not “for legal reasons”, but because they were accused of not being “scientific”, as if Darwinist bullshit is, so now they talk like Darwinist idiots (complete with “microevolution” and “natural selection” mumbo-jumbo).
And you debate it at TSZ. That’s enough.
When you get stuck on “robot”, as you often do, better have that hammer handy.
But where is the science then?
What is the Intelligent Design equivalent of Darwin’s ‘Origin’ nonlin?
Is it your website?
Paley’s argument and mine are as scientific as the purest science.
You mean an intellectual fraud as that? No thanks, you keep that.
That all depends on what you regard as a failure. For instance would you consider a failure the thousands of your skin cells that die every minute? Countless seeds might be considered failures in a Darwinian sense because they do not reproduce, but they are vital for our survival. Success and failure are relative so you will need to be specific in what you regard as failures.
Are you saying that evolution is not blind to the future?
How does this DNA control the behaviour of these mice? As far as I can tell they doen’t say. They discover some sort of connection between genomes and behaviour and from there we get the headline that DNA controls tunnel building behaviour
Nonlin.org,
Responding to your blog:
Point 3. The appearance of design does not necessitate design. Those “inclined due to their dogma” are simply unwilling to call your assuming design “evidence.”
Point 4. Your comparison of intelligent design to human design (i.e. software) is flawed. The rules of software are necessarily limited by the imagination and abilities of the human designers. Your deity is unlimited (omniscient, omnipotent). And yet, biological systems show evidence of physical limitations an omniscient, omnipotent designer simply would not have.
Point 5. “We have never confirmed necessity without a designer.”-you. We have not confirmed a designer (aside from in your mind) therefore necessity has not been confirmed with a designer. Further, natural designs don’t have to be explained by laws that we currently understand; at one point, we didn’t understand lightning, and now we do.
Point 7. Parsimony is not a universally confirming method. It is often useful, but is insufficient in the face of multiple varieties of analysis, incl. Bayesian and Max Likelihood. For instance, a person moves from point A to point B. You have no knowledge of the journey. Parsimony dictates they moved in as straight a line as possible. However, this is not necessarily true. This assumption violates parsimony. This is the reason multiple statistical methods are in use today; they all rely on assumptions, and those assumptions are often violated. Also, what could you possibly mean by stating that organs aren’t found in the nonliving? Do you really think that the fact that nonliving entities don’t evolve actually violates the theory of evolution by natural selection? You sure you don’t want to take that back? You also don’t explain at all how convergent evolution confirms design. Once again, simply stating something without proof does not count as evidence.
Point 8. ID opponents can continue to claim that fitness peaks are functionade thal islands, but experimental and theoretical evidence has proved otherwise.
Also, don’t think we didn’t notice your complete inability to respond to the vast majority of arguments presented to you. I understand it’s close to finals time, but can you commit to at least attempting at a future date?
And are we ever going to hear about your evidence for atheism and evolution, or is this your admission (Nonlin’s Final Word Law) that you absolutely just made that up and can’t justify it?
Well, probably because I know what science is and you don’t. Someone apparently told you that “scientific” means “good” or “correct” or something, and since you KNOW your faith is good and correct, it must be scientific.
But until you can produce an operational definition of your god (meaning, until it’s defined in such a way that it can be TESTED), your faith is not scientific. In the world of science, someone must perform the test, and consensus must be reached as to whether (a) your definition of god is adequate; (2) the test properly applied this definition; and (c) whether the test passed or failed.
And please do recall that I told you your faith might be entirely correct. But since you’ve demonstrated no willingness to think about what you read, I’ll repeat. Many true but unscientific claims can be made, and many scientific but false statements can be made. THIS time, I’ll try a little harder. Scientific claims must be capable of being tested (even if current technology can’t perform the test). Faith claims can’t be tested in this way, which doesn’t make them wrong. It only makes them unscientific.
(And yes, I expect either no response, or your usual “reject before thinking” reaction.
Moved a post to guano.
Corneel,
Evolutionary Genetics: The Impossible Discipline.
I did smile a bit when Nonlin denied a link between genetics and evolution.
Those are good questions, and I imagine these are very important questions for some people. But those questions are not very relevant for establishing whether species are evolving or not, are they?
Nonlin, you are denying obvious stuff again. His book has “theology” and “deity” in the title, for crying out loud!
A skeptical OM asks: But where is the science then?
Non-lin replies: Paley’s argument and mine are as scientific as the purest science.
Paley cannot have been making a counter-argument to Darwin’s theory of natural selection as he published it in 1802. Your argument? What does that amount to?
A scientific theory is a model of reality. Some models turn out to be accurate enough to be useful, though all models are wrong. But we don’t know what your model is? What is it?
The Darwinian view sees the present variety of life and looks for the cause in a linear progression reaching back to simple beginnings and beyond to lifeless matter. The Goethean approach is different. It doesn’t matter where we choose to examine along this .evolutionary sequence, every stage is an equal expression of an overarching living form which in the case of animal life, he termed the typus.
Scott E. Hicks gives a brief account of this idea in this video if you care to watch it. He begins by quoting Steiner from the book, Goethean Science
Animal forms are not just accidental results of life’s history, they are limited, living expressions something which in its dynamism encompasses every earthly form that could possibly appear in flesh.
This is not a new idea. We can see it in the myths and art of various cultures. The sphynx is a representation of this, that is its riddle. It is a compendium of all animal forms. The myth of Noah’s ark is another example of the same idea. The ark is a vessel which contains all the animal types. This vessel represents the typus. To imagine this ark as an actual physical boat is just the result of materialistic thinking.
If we examine a watch, we are looking at the physical manifestation of an original idea. The material has been brought together and combined into the physical object but the form has its origin in a mind. The difference being that we can separate the watch from the designer in a way that we cannot do with the animal and the typus.
Can you prove that?
How would you know? Also false and ignorant. You obviously are not aware humans also build with limitations (including obsolescence).
This is stupid. That’s what Paley’s watch does. It confirms a designer.
Bogus promissory note.
A strong “useful”. Crushing-strong considering you got nothing of that caliber.
All you got is a long winding story that never checks and therefore gets more and more complex to cover its failures.
I show that the only thing that has organs/mechanisms AND has a confirmed origin is designed. Therefore it make sense that even those with unknown origin that have organs/mechanisms are also designed:
Furthermore, complex machines such as the circulatory, digestive, etc. system in many organisms cannot be found in the nonliving with one exception: those designed by humans.
Basically same argument against “natural laws” being different than designed laws.
“Convergent evolution” has no justification in the Darwinian random walk. But design reuse is very much a rule of design.
Not my argument. I argue there’s not even such a thing as a “fitness”. Even Corneel, Falsenstein, Jock, etc agree… Ain’t that right boys? …considering they’re not producing any “fitness” function to disagree with me.
Busy indeed. But good questions are never left unanswered. Like yours today.
It’s not math. It’s social sciences. So you know, historical links, correlations, studies, and such. You too are a living proof.
Good work, Schizo! Unexpected too.
Moved a post to guano.
The author can try removing all of the insults, and then reposting.
Are you asking me to prove a negative? The burden is on you to prove that it does. Your assumption will not hold without evidence.
I am aware. Re-read my comment; I specified exactly this. It is only logical that an omniscient omnipotent designer would not possess those same limitations, hence omniscient and omnipotent.
You’re assuming that this debate is settled before it’s over. The discussion is clearly still going strong.
Not a true response to a valid point. Why would it be the case that everything must already be explained by science or that it cannot be? Many phenomena that were once unexplained are now explained.
There are literally thousands of studies relying on a wide variety of statistical methods. Many earlier studies even used parsimony, though it’s now outdated for many uses given stronger but more computationally intensive methods of analysis.
This is one option which has been presented. That does not make it proven.
It is among human designs, with human limitations. If one had infinite imagination then design reuse would seem unnecessary.
Not all things which exist must have a function, and referring to earlier argument, not all things which exist must have a function at this moment. Before velocity had been defined mathematically objects still had a direction of movement and a speed of movement.
I don’t remember having claimed at any point to be an atheist.
I’m not sure I’m following this. I think the fact of evolution implies that all life forms are constantly either eligible for some transition or branching, or in the process of it. There’s nothing linear about it. However, the biosphere resembles a logical bush, because branching events aren’t restricted to any one lineage. I’ve read the rest of your quotes and comments, and I can’t make more than word salad out of them.
But I’ll say that I don’t see anything like “progress” in evolution. I see organisms tracking environments. In fact, more than half of all branching events produce species LESS complex than their ancestor species; they become parasites.
And I’ll add that the process had to start somewhere, with something simple. But given endless niches, branching processes, and selection, you rapidly get every niche filled. After that, it’s just speciation, adaptation, extinction, and endless splitting. Pretty much a steady state.
I laughed my socks off!
Posts sent to Guano don’t count towards victory by the last-post rule, right?
If all of life has a LUCA then each individual has an unbroken line of descent from that ancestor and it is in that sense that I used the word ‘linear’
That’s a pity. Did you follow my links? Maybe they would give a bit of clarity to my words. At least then you would have something to argue against.
There has been a progress towards individual self awareness and creativity. This aspect of life has emerged over the course of evolution.
Each of us started from a relatively simple single cell which divided and diversified. Soon these cells had filled every niche in the multiplicity that made up the human body. After that the body pretty much reaches a steady state. But this now enables the mind to continue to develop.
The speciation, adaptation, extinction, and endless splitting that you describe can be seen as equivalent to the processes of body development at a higher level. Speciation is equivalent to stem cells becoming specialised. Adaptation is like neural connections being made as a result of inputs and interactions or muscles growing larger through use. Extinction and endless splitting can be seen in the constant death and turnover of body cells during life.
The development of an individual can be seen to follow a certain path. You don’t believe that there is an equivalence in these two levels, I believe that there is such a relationship. That is not to say that this progress and development cannot and could not have been thwarted at an given point. Just as any human life can be curtailed or diverted from its natural course by external events beyond its control.
We would not expect an individual termite to have any inkling of the overall progress in the construction of a mound. Its limited awareness does not stretch to being able to comprehend the overall picture. If we are to get any idea of the overall picture of evolution we need to develop a higher awareness and that is what I believe Goethe was doing when he said that he could perceive the archetype. Along with Blake, he saw the world of plants in a grain of wheat. What his eye could see his mind could expand upon.
You have to remember that Nonlin did not check the book, or anything by Paley for that matter. Nonlin based the first part on some course materials, and the second and third on wikipedia. So Nonlin cannot know what Paley was talking about. Nonlin also mistakes what Nonlin intended to do in this OP for what Paley intended to do with his book. Nonlin also mistakes your conversations with someone else for comments on her/his OP.
Nonlin’s infantile mentality indicates that (s)he is underage. That would explain a lot.
What’s had me shaking my head is that you need only read the first two chapters of the book to get Paley’s argument (and to see that Nonlin has not gotten it).
Agreed.
CharlieM:
I think your analogies are more than stretched, they are misguided. I would suggest that you completely omit human beings from your analysis, since these seem to be skewing your results beyond recognition.
You mean I should be using my human consciousness to ignore human consciousness, to pretend that it doesn’t exist?
You would understand evolutionary theory much better if you understood that it is not a teleological process: evolution did not have the goal of producing rational self-consciousness. By taking rational self-consciousness as “the highest” or “most fully evolved” stage of organic life, you are rather completely missing the entire point of evolutionary theory.
You need to read something besides Steiner and Barfield. They have misled you.
Haha. Not how “prove a negative” works. I am asking you to prove your own statement.
This is what you said:
“And yet, biological systems show evidence of physical limitations an omniscient, omnipotent designer simply would not have.”
What were you saying if not that? What limitations? The creation is limited, yes. Are you saying the Designer is limited? How so?
Not really. Just stating the obvious: all designs with a known origin, have been originated by a designer. IOW, YES we have always confirmed a designer when the source is known. If you disagree, just come up with a counterexample.
I am not saying that. Just that your claim of “natural designs” (aka “design without a designer”) is 100% bogus as of today.
Studies of what? And what’s your point?
Fair enough.
This is stupid. And how the fuck would you know this?!?
This one MUST… if it were a real concept. Else, how would you justify this statement: fitness(x) > fitness(y)?
You DO argue for an un-designed universe. That makes you a what?
Haha. Perhaps Paley was an ardent Darwin precursor in disguise. And perhaps Darwin, Dawkins, Hume and other such morons were arguing with the windmills. Watchmaker? What watch? What watchmaker?
No teleology? Then how does “convergent evolution” happen? Is that a “one in an infinite” lucky win?
It’s the niche. Living in the open ocean, for instance, requires the ability to swim. Sharks and dolphins show similar adaptations that serve them well in that niche.
Not what I meant, and not at all what I said either. I have no problem with you using your consciousness to evaluate evolution. But it’s entirely possible to understand evolution, in every detail, without paying the slightest attention to one (of millions) single species, even if it’s yours.
I agree (I think) with KN that evolution has no goals, not even to produce you. You are no more “highly evolved” than a sponge or a snail, since both are results of an ongoing process and the current time is simply a snapshot of where all these things stand now, as they are all in the process of changing from what they used to be to what they will become.
The ocean is composed of an enormous number of niches, and I would guess a minority of species living in it can swim. However, organisms that CAN swim well thrive in certain niches, and they need not be related any closer than birds and bats.
Flint,
Forgive me a broad brush. I’m prone to it. I was thinking of the opportunity to predate smaller free-swimming organisms.
Sharks, teleosts like barracuda, dolphins, penguins, seals.
Gannets
Truly, nonlin is that smart.
Heah, well, you did not understand Darwin, Dawkins or Hume either. After all, you didn’t read what they wrote, just like you didn’t read what Paley wrote. You read wikipedia, and not that well.
Nonlin, you display an infantile mentality. Too obvious. I’d advice you to stop already. Not making any good arguments, just showing that you don’t know the difference between misreading a wikipedia entry and reading some books for understanding. That you don’t know the difference between your poor arguments and science either.
I don’t see the point of explaining things to you because you fail at the most basic. I have to wonder if you truly think you’re an amazing genius, or you just cannot stop out of some misplaced infantile pride. Nobody knows who you are. You will not lose anything if you stop and wait until you’re mature enough to follow a conversation.
My prediction is that once you notice but one of your many mistakes, you’ll jump all the way to the other side and become as ardent defending atheism as you’re defending the magical-being-in-the-sky. You won’t do that very well either though, because what will take you the longest is to understand that the world doesn’t revolve around you and that you’re very far from being the genius you imagine yourself to be.
I doesn’t matter if that was the goal of evolution or not, the fact is that rational self-consciousness has evolved just the same as eyesight has evolved and chemotaxis has evolved.
Modern science is built on trying to be objective To do this it was thought that the human experimenter needs to be excluded as much as possible from the experiments. But modern physics has found that this is impossible.
We have progressed from a time when humanity was the centre of existence, by way of Copernicus and Darwin to a point where we are insignificant specks of living tissue in an insignificant solar system in one galaxy among countless others. In the grand scheme of things we are meaningless blips in an ever expanding universe of dead matter.
To have a certainty of this view entails treating anybody who thinks that humans are significant in the great scheme of things as a heretic. Why should we claim to be any more significant than slime mould?
I do see the point of the standard evolutionary theory, I just don’t happen to agree with it.
In my opinion, over the past few centuries, human activities based on human consciousness have been the most prominent source of evolutionary changes occurring on the planet. This cannot be ignored. Can you give me an example of anything you think might of had a greater effect?
Do you understand Steiner’s monism?
Steiner
Goethe also opposed the teleological thinking of his day.
Would you say that humans occupy a niche which is no wider than that of snails? Or would you agree that snails have travelled a much more specialised path? And such a loss of generalisation has restricted their ability to change significantly over time?
Some creatures retain a stable and static form over vast periods of time while others have changed significantly over the same period. Recognisable snail ancestors can be dated back to the early tertiary and beyond. How far back can we recognise the ancestors of humans?
So observable change is one feature of evolution where there is a marked difference between primates and snails. What about the evolution of advanced nervous systems, do you think that has been a significant evolutionary change?
Gastropods are a taxonomic class, whereas humans are a species. If you want to play it fair, ask yourself how far back you can trace recognizable ancestors of mammals.
Okay, I’ve looked a bit closer.
At the ‘order’ level, the oldest known primate fossil found in China was dated at 55 million years old.
The primate lineage ‘is thought to go back at least near the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary or around 63–74 (mya)’,
The order, Stylommatophora (Land snails and slugs) dates from the Valanginian age, 139.8 ± 3.0 Ma and 132.9 ± 2.0 Ma (million years ago).
Of course there are other more distinct comparisons that can be made. Certain extant animals are termed ;living fossils’ precisely because of how little they have changed over long periods.
At the ‘class’ level mammals, the first mammals (in Kemp’s sense) appeared in the Late Triassic epoch (about 225 million years ago),
The gastopoda class appeared in the Furongian, which is ‘the fourth and final series of the Cambrian. It lasted from 497 to 485.4 million years ago’.
Would you say that an octopus was no more advanced than a snail?
Nonsense. Plenty of organisms do just fine in water without looking anything like sharks and dolphins.
Are the turtle squid and penguin in the same “niche” as the dolphin? Because they’re all great swimmers.
The question remains: how is “convergent evolution” not teleological? Looks like design it is.
This equivocation is somewhat annoying. A design is a what? To design is to do what? Is designed means what?
What does non-lin mean by “is designed”? Seems to me use of the passive voice is intended to avoid the question who or what is doing the designing and how and when it is happening.
I can say quite openly that the designing in biological evolution happens when the niche selects individuals in a population via their individual and differential ability to survive and reproduce.
What can non-lin tell me about “Design”? Who is his designer and how does he work?
I was referring to benthic predators. I apologise for not being clearer.
… which hopefully made you realize that your claim that snails retain “a stable and static form over vast periods of time” is utter nonsense. Gastropods have diversified into (and I quote wikipedia) “a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number”, and occupy “an extraordinary diversification of habitats. Representatives live in gardens, woodland, deserts, and on mountains; in small ditches, great rivers and lakes; in estuaries, mudflats, the rocky intertidal, the sandy subtidal, in the abyssal depths of the oceans including the hydrothermal vents, and numerous other ecological niches, including parasitic ones. “.
It should be obvious that, contra your claim, their ability to change has not been restricted in the least. Gastropods easily survive the comparison to mammal diversity.
Which octopus? Which snail? Why do all non-human species get lumped into generic categories (“dolphin”, “snail”, “octopus”)? You keep using a human-privileged viewpoint to argue that humans are more advanced.
And advanced in what way? Neither octopuses nor snails will be solving sudoku’s, which makes them less advanced than humans sensu Charlie, I suppose. But can you perform photosynthesis? Why wouldn’t that make this species evolutionary advanced? Is that perhaps because only those things humans do count as advanced?
From the article Cretaceous amber fossils highlight the evolutionary history and morphological conservatism of land snail:
This demonstrates my point. While these snails have been able to adapt to a very wide range of habitats their morphology has been relatively conserved. They have no need of further morphological evolution precisely because they are very successful at surviving as they are. But their success has come at the cost of not developing a more sophisticated nervous system which would have given them greater individual awareness.
The octopus that is considered to be the most primitive and the snail that is considered to be the most advanced.
There must be something in the fact that many people consider the human brain to be the most complex structure in the known universe. The fact that we do have a privileged viewpoint must tell you something.
No, I believe that plants are much more advanced than us in being able to harness the sun’s energy to produce chemical energy and to grow. If we were as adept as plants at this there would be no energy crisis. We would not be here if it weren’t for this ability of plants. The plant’s ability to grow and produce carbohydrates meant that we could develop the advanced nervous system required for human consciousness.
Through plants nature grows and thrives. Through humans nature can be conscious of herself.
I see. So you were specifically referring to morphological stasis in the superfamily Cyclophoroidea, and not to snails in general? Then the question becomes why all the other taxa within gastropods didn’t develop the ability to solve crosswords.
You’ve got me there. There are 300 species of octopus and tens of thousands of snail species.
If it makes you happy, I’ll confess it fills me with wonder. However, it fails to prove that evolution is advancing towards this particular goal.
Photosynthesis is not the exclusive domain of plants. That nitpick aside, does that mean that “plants” are also a goal that evolution is advancing towards? You are always talking a LOT about how smart humans are, but somehow rather silent about plants.
Because they took on a specific form too early to advance further. In other words they specialised into a niche which had a confining effect on their further progress. Only those that remained less specialised could continue to develop in novel ways.
It has been estimated that central nervous systems evolved independently no less than five times in molluscs in general. Many scientists think that neurons themselves have evolved multiple times.
In my opinion this shows that there is a trend towards the increasingly complex nervous systems required for higher conscious awareness. The evolution of individual higher consciousness is like the building of a pyramid. The apex could not exist without the support of a wide base.