An inventive mechanism (Evolution)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 21:42 (3725 days ago) @ dhw


>DHW: One should therefore not reject any hypothesis simply on the grounds that no-one has observed it happening.
> -Direct observation is not a requirement, no. However, indirect observation IS a requirement or your speculations become wilder and wilder, which is exactly what has happened with the theory of evolution. Change within limits is very reasonable, and have been observed repeatedly. Extrapolating those minute changes to serve as an explanation for everything that ever lived is a fairy tale.--> TONY: Life depends on life. True. 
> Life depends on cellular communication. True.
> Cellular communication does NOT mean cellular planning, however, and that communication is very, very limited.
> 
> DHW: That is David's argument too. But it is limited to programmes already devised. There is no innovating going on at present - this is an unpunctuated period of equilibrium - and so there is no evidence now that cells can create something totally new. However, there is plenty of evidence that they can adapt, which might suggest an autonomous mechanism that can work out different ways of coping with different environments. There is likewise no evidence of your God separately creating new species, or devising new programmes. All three hypotheses remain speculation.
> -The evolutionary version of Punctuated equilibrium you refer to, as an idea, only has value if evolution is true in the commonly accept form. (i.e. we all crawled out of the slime) But, at least you acknowledge "there is no evidence now that cells can create something totally new." However, then you go on to state: "There is likewise no evidence of your God separately creating new species." I would like examine this for a moment. -If separate creation were true:-


• We would observe no definitive transition between species in the fossil record. (Observed)

• We would observe that extreme environmental changes wiped out the majority of existing life because it lacked enough freedom and flexibility in its code to adapt. (Observed)

• We would observe no new species spontaneously cropping up. (Observed)

• We would observe species remaining remarkably unchanged over time. (Observed)

• When new species DID crop up, we would observe them coming into existence fully formed and fully functional.(Observed)

• We would observe some mechanism that prevented creatures from deviating too far, a self-correcting function to ensure their stability.(Observed)

• We would be able to discern designed patterns and commonalities for all creatures of a given environment.[Observed]

• We would likely see highly efficient patterns repeatedly used for the same purpose.[Observed]

• The observed elements of life, once understood, would make logical sense and lack random messiness of random chance evolution.[observed] 


-Now, you tell me which one has less evidence from observations, evolution or creation. -
> 
>DHW: In the name of Occam, wouldn't it be simpler for God to create a mechanism that can devise its own programmes as and when they're needed throughout 3.7.billion years so far of changing environments (see below)? 
> -As David has repeatedly said, life, even the so-called 'simple' forms of life, are still incredibly complex. How much latitude and freedom to deviate could be given if that life were going to remain stable? If your inventive mechanisms were true, why did ANYTHING remain virtually unchanged for billions of years? Logically, there wouldn't be any simple life left on earth. All we would observe would be cell communities constantly growing in complexity. Yet, in every domain we see creatures that are virtually identical to their far ancient ancestors. 
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>DHW: So interaction isn't much of a problem anyway. If I were a 4 or 5 theist, I'd be more bothered about why God programmed the obliteration of so many of his programmes. -Would you be bothered by an architect removing braces that he had constructed to support a building until the free-standing framework was completed? Does the fact that airplanes use hydraulics now instead of pulley systems bother you? (When the Wright brothers made their plane, there did not exist any infrastructure to support hydraulics.) Does it bother you that we no longer use CRT monitors for our computers?-One of the key points of being a theist is trusting that God knows what he is doing. Giving even a cursory thought to the way that biological history has played out tells us WHY some events had to happen. When you stop treating god like Houdini or a Djinn that snaps his fingers or twitches his nose to make galaxies *poof* into existence, then what he has done makes perfect sense. -Unlike the Djinn, God didn't twitch his nose and make things poof into existence. Things had to be prepared at each and ever step, and he used life to do that. Sometimes it was the simple machines (single-celled organisms), at others it was more complex life. Regardless, each necessary step was planned and implemented in such a way that it achieved the desired results, whether those results were terraforming the land, altering the atmosphere, or filling a niche in the ecosystem that needed to be filled in order to maintain homeostasis.

--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.