Does evolution have a purpose? (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, October 12, 2014, 15:52 (3693 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: The fine-tuning of the universe for life may be an argument against chance and in favour of a conscious creator, but it is not an argument against the “accidental” appearance of humans any more than it's an argument against the "accidental" appearance of myrmecophilous beetles or dinosaurs. Once the autonomous inventive mechanism (another argument against chance) set evolution in motion, all species would have created themselves out of earlier species, and in that respect humans, for all their special qualities, are no more and no less “accidental” than any other species.-I can find purpose in your description. Both fine-tuning and the IM tend to deny chance. I suggest that humans are different in kind not degree,per Adler, both in the mechanical ability of their bodies but also in the enormous mental ability. It does not look accidental to me. Again it brings me back to a semi-autonomous IM which follows some constraints and guidelines. I want my cake and to eat it also. This is just as possible a scenario as yours. It is not pre-programming. An inventor takes what exists to work with and his invention is something new. We have agreed to this. And he has purpose. To create semething useful.-> dhw: We can't prove anything, including evolution. If we could, there would be no controversy. The inventive mechanism is a hypothesis, but it explains why new animals appear as complex advancements. These may well be linked to environmental challenges and/or opportunities.-One problem I have is the Cambrian explosion. The gap is huge from Edicaran to fully functional animals with several interocking organ systems. A totally unfettered IM just inventing along, cannot have made taht jump without experimenting with intermediate forms. And so far, over the last 100 years of fossil hunting they are painfully absent for Darwin folks.-> 
> dhw: You are trotting out the same arguments that we have been over a thousand times. You were uncomfortable with your 3.7-billion-year, all-inclusive computer programme and with your God dabbling. I have proposed the alternative hypothesis of an autonomous, unpreprogrammed inventive mechanism, which you have accepted as a possibility (bearing in mind certain given constraints) and have even suggested must be within the genome. We don't know how it would work. It's a hypothesis. But if you believe in the continuum of evolution, you believe that existing organisms produced innovations leading to new species. A change in the environment during the Cambrian (e.g. an increase in oxygen levels) may have presented vast new opportunities for the inventive mechanism to branch out. See below on the subject of purpose.-Just because oxygen increased in volume, does not mean innovation advanced to the extent it did. And the only place an IM would exist is as a part of the genome which is the controller of body form and function.-> DAVID: So, did the IM invent itself? Or again, no purpose? For me the evidence is strongly suggestive of purpose.
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> dhw: Your question is not a true alternative. The alternatives would be: did it invent itself, or was it invented by a designer (your God)?-Exactly my point. The IM must have exquisite planning ability to create the Cambrian animals. A major point for considering it invented by God.-> dhw: No purpose? That is the subject of this thread. If God invented it, you will have to read his mind, which you have previously attempted to do by insisting that his purpose was to create humans. Another possible purpose might be your God setting things in motion just to see what would happen (= divine experimentation/curiosity/relief of boredom). Or on a different level, both theistic and atheistic, there is purpose in the actions of all living things: a) to survive, and b) to see what they can make of their lives. (The inventive mechanism seeking improvement for the organisms it controls.) The latter is particularly attractive, as it mirrors the purpose that drives most humans in their daily strivings.-Your explorations of God's mind are amusing. I still don't know what was on his mind when he created evolution to create us eventually. Why not just do it, instead of evolving a universe and humans over time? But as religions tell us, God is timeless and can take as long as He wants. I am just working backward from what we know. I see nothing but purpose, and you seem to struggle to champion accidental, balancing on your fence.