Trilobite eyes (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 27, 2013, 15:14 (4051 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: [...] speculation does not prove a theory, nor is attempting to do so science. Believing a theory that is not supported by the evidence or that has not been observed is faith, not science. I personally can not believe in common descent, because I have never seen a single observation that demonstrates one species becoming another. What I have observed is functionally perfect design and extreme complexity in even the earliest of organisms. 
Later, you say: See, the problem with your intelligent genome is that it presupposes evolution from a common ancestor is true. There simply is no evidence of that beyond speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely[/b]. -I accept all this. David is far better equipped than I am to defend the theory of common descent, and I will only say that unlike you I believe it because I'm satisfied with the evidence and with the logic of the argument. The above objection to the "intelligent genome" seems valid to me. I have offered it as an alternative hypothesis to chance and your God, but I'm going to defend it all the same. First, though, I'd like to thank you for the now very clear statement concerning what you do and don't believe about evolution and separate creation. It gives a far sharper focus to our discussion.
 
It appears from your various posts that if we define "kinds" as organisms that cannot interbreed, you believe God created cats, dogs, mice, tigers etc. separately, i.e. they have no common ancestor. You have "never seen a single observation that demonstrates one species becoming another." Have you ever "seen a single observation" that demonstrates a species appearing from nothing? Have you ever "seen a single observation" demonstrating God creating a cat? The criterion of observation applies to both hypotheses, in which case we must discount both evolution and separate creation! However, your understanding of evolution is not the same as mine. Common descent entails a process of branching (the higgledy-piggledy bush), with some individual organisms acquiring new characteristics. Dogs never became cats. In different environments, one of their common ancestors may have innovated a doggy characteristic, and another a catty characteristic. Interbreeding might well continue for a time, but if the innovation was beneficial, it would flourish and eventually take over. (A quick google reveals that the common ancestor of dogs and cats may have been "a shrew-like mammal called Maelestes gobiensis" that lived 70 million years ago.) As organisms spread, and conditions changed (far more drastically than in our own times), the genome responded accordingly, adapting and innovating. This process has gone on for hundreds of millions of years, i.e. through billions of generations, of innovations, and of new forms taking over from old forms. In my view, random mutations aren't enough to explain the complexities, whereas an intelligent and innovative mechanism is, whether it was invented by God, or itself evolved as I've described elsewhere. We can certainly observe this mechanism adapting ... as you have acknowledged ... but you are right, we have not seen it actually produce something new, resulting in a separate "kind". But we haven't seen God do that either. Perhaps ours is a period of evolutionary "equilibrium". -Finally, back to: "There simply is no evidence of that beyond speculation based on observations that could mean something else entirely." You have applied this argument to the "intelligent genome" hypothesis, and I understand your point of view. But when I apply it to your God hypothesis, you seem to find it difficult to grasp (even labelling it "willful disbelief"). I wonder why.