Theistic evolution vs. Darwinism (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, February 28, 2014, 16:09 (3704 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: A major issue is where do body plans come from and then last 500 million years. Is this evidence of guided evolution?:
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> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/science/26essay.html
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> dhw: I find all this very confusing. First, I don't know why David has put it under the heading "Theistic evolution vs. Darwinism", which is a highly misleading heading in the first place. As we have repeated over and over again on this website, and Darwin himself also emphasized, Darwinism does not exclude theism. -The answer to dhw's question is simple. Darwin did not exclude theism, but the Darwinists of today do; they espouse Darwin's theory as the only correct one, which is what I mean by the term Darwinism, as a living faith, and therefore vs. theistic evolution.
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> dhw: Secondly, if a body plan is successful within a given environment, why would it NOT last? As we keep saying, the key to "how biodiversity grows" (i.e. evolutionary development) has to be innovation, but you seem to want to have it all ways: stasis suggests guided evolution, innovation suggests guided evolution. Even higgledy-piggledy would suggest guided evolution if only you could find a way to explain it!-If we look at the Cambrian, and especially the latest Cambrian find in the Canadian Rockies with organ systems visable, one has to recognize that these animals with all organ systems working in conjunction, came out of nowhere with a planned set of equipment. Sure they survived, but the huge question this fossil find makes is how without precursors? Therefore it raises the theistic question of who made the complete body plan. By chance? Think of the number of coordinated mutations that had to take place. The latest theory based on virus studies is the viruses did it!-http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129583.300-origin-of-organs-thank-viruses-for-your-skin-and-bone.html#.UxCTC_mQyM5 -Since self-sufficient life had to start first, viruses came later as partial copies of life, and then they pushed evolution? Quite a reach for a new theory.
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> dhw: However, thirdly, the conclusion to this article seems to me to be just as confusing: 
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> QUOTE: Does all this add up to a new modern synthesis? There is certainly no consensus among evolutionary biologists, but development, ecology, genetics and paleontology all provide new perspectives on how evolution operates, and how we should study it. -No wonder they are confused. They want natural chance mechanisms and to me that is wishful "pie on the sky".
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> dhw: I really don't know what this article is trying to prove....... There is always a scintilla of hope for alternative theories if existing theories remain so flawed.-That was my point in presenting the article. Theistic evolution is another way of theorizing