More about how evolution works: multicellularity (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, November 04, 2016, 12:42 (2729 days ago) @ David Turell

Part One

dhw: This is the first time I have known you to turn to mainstream religion for support!
DAVID: Yes, I have to turn to the religious thought I've read. After all great thinkers have recognized that God keeps himself concealed, and it does present a problem that you recognize.

It doesn’t take much great thinking to recognize that if God exists, he is concealed and, as you know, many great thinkers believe that “concealment” in fact means non-existence. It does indeed present a problem which both of us recognize.

DAVID: The book a concealed God explains a great deal of the discussion and comes down on the side that only God explains what we see in reality. Remember I have to deal with the concealment in making my choice to accept that God exists, and I do it on the basis of what I see in His works.

I respect this as a good reason for believing in him: the works are too complex to attribute to chance. This is one reason why I am able to wear a theistic hat.

DAVID: As for your hypothesis which is obviously anthropomorphic, I see purpose, not a spectacle for enjoyment.

This is a total non sequitur. The purpose you see is your hidden God designing every form of life and natural wonder in order to produce humans so that they and he can have what you call direct relations. (You refuse to answer how one can have direct relations with a hidden being.) Enjoyment IS a purpose, and it would explain why your God remains hidden and why he might invent a mechanism that provides the unpredictability so essential to a good story. And you still haven’t explained why my hypothesis is more of a supposition than yours, and what aspects of it do not fit in with life as we know it. ”Anthropomorphic” is a non argument. Nobody knows God's true nature, if he exists, but many of the religious books you have read will tell you that “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 6). That's as good a speculation as any, and your idea of having relations with God presupposes common ground, doesn’t it?

dhw: It is certainly true that animals are adequate until they are inadequate. The problem for you is whether their inadequacy was by design or by “bad luck” etc.

DAVID: I simply accept that God is in control and fully knows what He is doing. You are still anthropomorphizing him by suggesting He can lose control.

Anthropomorphizing is a non argument (see above). But you have missed the whole point. He can sacrifice control if he wants to (and will fully know what he is doing). My hypothesis is that he did precisely that, because the unpredictable is more enjoyable than the predictable. You believe he gave humans free will. That is the same process of sacrificing control. I presume you think he did so because he wanted to test their faith in him. How anthropomorphic is that!

dhw: The basic contradiction lies in the fact that one day you conclude that the course of evolution depends on luck, the next day that God is in tight control, and the next day that it’s only possible that God is in control.
DAVID: I brought up Raup's idea about luck to show you that 90% of extinctions were due to sudden environmental changes, the organisms could not handle. "Luck" is his term in his book.

You know that I know that most extinctions were caused by sudden changes in the environment. Raup's "bad luck" was your attempted explanation! (But see below)

DAVID: Extermination of certain organisms allowed for the appearance of new organisms, advancing on the evolutionary bush. That is obvious. My guess is God is in tight control, but every time I admit I have no proof I have to show my position also relies of a conclusion of faith. And then you jump on it, because you have concluded there is no positive answer for you. But surprise, some of us have a positive answer that satisfies us. No contradictions.

I don’t have a problem with faith in tight control. I only have a problem with your refusal to consider the implications. Firstly, if he is in tight control, don’t tell me extinctions were the result of bad luck. (Of course, you have now disowned the Raup explanation you quoted.) Secondly, if he is in tight control, don’t tell me that the organisms which he designed and which died through being “inadequate for the stress” (your words) were not designed in such a way that they were inadequate for the stress! If he is in tight control, and organized their extermination, he must have known that their design would not stand up to the new conditions. This is not a matter of faith or of not having a positive answer. It’s simple logic. As for positive answers: Chixculub was Raup's "bad luck" for the dinosaurs and good luck for the survivors; or God got fed up with dinosaurs and decided to try something different. They both fit in with what happened, don't they?