The Dodo Problem (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, December 04, 2010, 12:31 (4913 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: The dodo may not have been any more necessary to human life than the carpet and furniture in your home. But you still have carpet and furniture don't you? [...] I can not tell you what the purpose of the Dodo was. I am sure that there was a purpose, though, even if it was only as a crunchy snack for something more important.-This is a delightful post, because you have done a wonderful job illustrating the interconnectedness of all things, as well as their value and beauty in the moment of their existence. It therefore seems almost churlish if I point out that there is absolutely nothing here that even remotely supports the argument for the first molecule being pre-programmed to create humans. At the risk of being a bore, I'd like to summarize the argument in order to encompass the beautiful observations you have made, but also including the atheist scenario.-You have stressed "purpose". If there is a God, it's fair enough to do so, but from an atheist standpoint, there's no need for purpose. Life is an end in itself, is beautiful for its own sake (just as a symphony or a painting is beautiful for its own sake), and we do not need to explain the dodo or any other form of existence. The interconnectedness of all things applied long before humans came on the scene, and it will apply long after we have disappeared. -For the sake of argument, however, I've accepted the UI scenario, but cannot see the logic in the view that evolution with its vast number of branches was geared right from the start to the automatic creation of humans. I have offered two alternative views: 1) God created life without a plan but through experimentation got to humans. 2) God did have a plan ... to create a reflection of himself ... but needed to keep experimenting in order to get closer and closer to what he was looking for. Both scenarios dispense with the need to find a purpose for the dodo, and the need to explain why God should have chosen such a roundabout route to humanity. Of course you can argue, as David does, that we don't understand God's logic, but with my two scenarios there is no such mystery. This brings me to the question which was central to my previous post but which you have ignored, and so I will ask it again: How do these two possibilities, both of which explain irrelevances and extinctions and also eliminate dependence on random changes in the environment, contradict the facts as we know them?-Again, though, let me say how much I appreciate your post.