Innovation and Speciation: pre-planning (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, May 26, 2014, 20:19 (3623 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You write: "Still smells of purpose to me." So are the sea anemone, shark, camel, elephant etc. NOT part of God's purpose? Then why did he "allow for" them? You always tell us not to attribute thoughts to your God, so may I ask why it is so important for you to impose your view of his purpose on what you have agreed is the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution?-DAVID: If all those organs appeared against no obvious need, why did they appear? Purpose is the only answer to me. You assume complexity is all by chance.-No, not by chance. I'm suggesting that once the mechanism (origin unknown) for adaptation and innovation was in place, organisms adapted and innovated in accordance with the needs and opportunities presented by an ever changing environment. The mechanism (possibly invented by your God) works by its own intelligent design, not by chance. Nothing was "needed" beyond the first forms of life, and so every innovation goes back to the inventiveness of the cell or cell communities. I do not see how you can claim that the adipose fin, or the sea anemone's nervous system, or the higgledy-piggledy comings and goings of evolution denote pre-planning for the single purpose of producing humans. Why should not "spraying inventions in every direction" denote that all these life forms arose without any overriding purpose, simply for their own sake, with the sea anemone going its own way to serve its own ends, just as every other form of life has gone its own way, including ourselves, our contemporary species, and their and our predecessors? Once again, may I ask why it is so important to you to read this anthropocentric purpose into your God's mind, whereas otherwise you always warn us NOT to impose our ideas on him?