Proving common descent (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, November 16, 2012, 08:08 (4368 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: God guided the creation of life. It is a miracle, and in so doing, set up DNA to ensure evolution arrived at us. Either that or the pattern of evolutionary development is the most extraordinary set of contingent coincidences ever conceived, the odds against which are infinitesimal.-I don't see why the only alternatives are chance versus God setting up DNA "to ensure evolution arrived at us". For the sake of this discussion, let's accept the hypothesis that an intelligent power (call it God if you like) invented DNA. If it was all preprogrammed to arrive at us, the first DNA must have contained the programme for lung, legs, liver, heart, hips, head...and of course brain. But this programme also had to ensure that evolution passed through billions of totally different species because "the species that came and went were preparation for the next step".-Here are three alternative scenarios for you, beginning with the premise that God created DNA in such a way that it was capable of a vast variety of adaptations and innovations:-1) He then left it to evolve randomly in whatever directions. This flexibility resulted in billions of different species, some of which died out, some of which have survived. Eventually we evolved from one particular line of these randomly evolved species.
2) He occasionally interfered in order to push evolution in the particular direction he wanted it to go, i.e. towards humanity.
3) He did not have any particular plan in mind, but occasionally interfered in order to experiment.-These scenarios all fit in with the course of evolution as we (think we) know it, but only (2) involves a particular goal, and even that entails failures in the initial programme. Your "guided the creation of life" is too vague for me. Do you stand by preprogramming for humans from the very beginning, or are you prepared to consider any of these three alternatives?