Innovation and Speciation: aquatic mammals avoid bends (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, December 12, 2020, 09:00 (1232 days ago) @ David Turell

Shapiro’s theory
dhw: He specifies “evolutionary novelty” You may disagree with him, but at least you can stop pretending that he does not mean what he says.

DAVID: Evolutionary novelty means what? Not variation within species.

Correct. It means innovation, which is what is needed for speciation! That is the whole point of his theory.

Aquatic mammals
DAVID: There is one reason to assume God has to experiment. He doesn't know how to create, i.e., a weak god.

Not “how to create”, but how to create what he wants. According to your latest proposal, he knows how to create all the non-human life forms that ever existed, but: “God’s ability to directly create humans was limited. That involves two considerations: 1) God had some personal limitation…” Experimentation seems to me to be a feasible way of your God dealing with the weakness YOU have attributed to him, and it would explain all the life forms that have no connection with humans..

“Fine tuning of water” and “new extremophiles”
DAVID: I see God as purely creating, and reviewing what He did. We cannot know His reaction to it.

dhw: Strange. A couple of days ago you were sure he was interested in his creations, and you were sure “He likes what He creates, and that He is satisfied in His results as the inventor.” And all I’m suggesting is that if he’s interested in his creations, likes them, and finds satisfaction in them, then maybe that’s what he created them for. And all I ask is why you don’t regard this suggestion as feasible.

DAVID: Accept that you and I have totally different views of God's personality and capabilities. Neither of us can know if we are right or wrong about our opinions. We allowed to differ.

Of course we are, but each of defends his own theories and looks for faults in the reasoning underlying the other’s theories. I have based the above theory on your own beliefs and simply ask why you think it’s not feasible.

Sea turtles
DAVID: Surprise!! Food supply.

dhw: A quick google suggests that the modern sea turtle goes back about 100 million years, so I suppose you could argue that this was part of the 1% of your God’s direct designs to evolve humans and their food supply (never eaten one myself, but luckily I've survived so far). That just leaves 99% to be accounted for.[…]

DAVID: Your usual distortion of evolution as conducted by God. You don't know His reasons either. Why should I? I'm simply following known history of evolution.

Nobody knows whether God exists, let alone what his reasons might have been. However, your theory that he taught the turtles to navigate so that they could provide food for the humans who would arrive millions and millions of years later is not part of the known history of evolution.

Theoretical origin of life:
dhw: I don’t think you need to be a brilliant scientist to “see the problems in trying to understand the origin of life”. Nor do you have to be a brilliant philosopher to see the problems in trying to understand how the mystery of life’s origin can be solved by attributing it to an unknown inventor who never had an origin.

DAVID: And yet you are always puzzled by the need for a designer. It is a problem you will never get around.

I think you’re right. And I’m always puzzled by the ability of theists and atheists to ignore the problems raised by their beliefs and disbeliefs. But I am not unhappy on my fence, and I learn from the arguments of both sides.

Egnor’s latest
dhw:…please stop pretending that evolution involves gazing into a crystal ball. The theory I have proposed involves REACTING to conditions, not forecasting them. The problem of fossil gaps would be solved if there were a continuous fossil record of every creature that ever lived.

DAVID: The crystal ball is required for animals to jump into aquatic life. They are my strongest argument for design being required.

dhw: I would suggest this is your weakest argument – complexity being your strongest. If an animal sees that there is more food in the water than there is on the land, and it has a better chance of surviving in the water, then it will enter the water. The necessary adaptations will then follow.

DAVID: The problem unsolved is how does that happen. I'll stick with God designing.

Of course nobody knows how the process of adaptation/innovation works. That is why we have theories. My closing comment on your theory was: “I find it quite absurd to picture an animal happily munching its supper on the seashore, dozing off, and then finding that its legs have turned into fins, and a voice says “Go thou into the water!” What other way do you think he might have designed the process?