Proving common descent (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, November 10, 2012, 13:09 (4398 days ago) @ David Turell

David and I have been discussing how the Cambrian Explosion fits in with evolutionary theory.-dhw: Meanwhile, which sounds more feasible to you: 1) chance mutations creating legs, jaws, brains; 2) God going through a purple patch in his hands-on creativity; 3) existing organisms (communities of cells) responding intelligently and inventively to new environments through adjustments to the genome?-DAVID: No chance for one being correct. Both two and three are possibilities. I view evolution as programmed by God to create humans so either one, or both, would work.-dhw: Acceptance of 2) aligns you with the Creationists in so far as you think God created all these new organs and organisms separately. That makes me wonder why, if humans were what he really wanted, he didn't create them at the time, instead of poncing about with all those other species.-DAVID: Remember my proposal: God created/used evolution as his method, and DNA is coded (we haven't found it as yet) to create complex organisms with various complex coodinating organs. We are still uncovering the functions of DNA as in the ENCODE research. Evolution at the universe level and at the living level is what we observe.-What you have described comes under 3), with the proviso that God designed the mechanism. It is emphatically not 2), which = God intervening. But you are always hampered in your responses by your belief that you can read God's mind ... i.e. that it was his purpose to create humans. 3) leaves open the possibility that God programmed evolution, or that he started it off and sat back to see what would happen, or that it simply proceeded in accordance with what the environment demanded/allowed, irrespective of how it started. These options all fit in with the idea that the Cambrian Explosion was the result of new potential being made available to existing communities of intelligent cells.