Does evolution have a purpose? (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, October 20, 2014, 15:17 (3473 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: A challenge for the 'pre-programming' and intelligent cell theory
If either of these theories is correct, why did they STOP producing humans? Theoretically, this pre-programming would have had to be in every cell, and inheritance means that it would have continued to be passed down through each generation. If that were true, then we would still be seeing these types of transformative events happening today, and in fact would have been seeing them throughout recorded history. We do not, and have not. How do you account for this?
-I can see why this is a massive challenge to the preprogramming theory, but it provides equally massive support for the intelligent cell theory! If the first living cells were preprogrammed to produce humans, why did they produce billions of species that were/are not humans? However, if God implanted an inventive mechanism in the first living cells that would do its own autonomous inventing (no preprogramming at all), it makes perfect sense that as cell communities multiplied, so inventions multiplied, and one branch led to humans.
 
When an organism finds its niche in the vast community of living things, it may well stay as it is, and cell communities will fulfil their functions automatically. No need to change. But with a change in the environment, organisms may perish, adapt, or even innovate if conditions allow for new forms. Humans are latecomers and the beneficiaries of some particularly bright inventive mechanisms which came up with a brain capable of far greater advancement than any other pre-existing brain. It's all one long process of variation and expansion.-Why isn't it happening today? I would suggest that we are going through a period of stasis. The earth has stabilised. What we now regard as environmental upheavals are nothing compared to those undergone earlier in the earth's history (which need not necessarily have been catastrophic). The greatest threat to the natural world today is probably mankind, but the threat we pose can't be countered by the inventive mechanism because apart from the tiniest of organisms, existing species can't come up with anything to resist the devastating results of our superior intelligence.-TONY: We want to be able to explain everything without God. We want to be the head honchos of our own fate. We don't want to be answerable for the shitty things we do in this life. We want to be able to relax, enjoy the 'good life', get what you can while you can, etc...-Who are you talking about? Millions of God-fearing, God-loving Christians believe in theistic evolution, and I very much doubt whether every agnostic and atheistic evolutionist goes round denying personal responsibility, getting what he can etc. Much as I dislike his approach to religion, even Dawkins approvingly quotes from an atheist website such precepts as: “Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.” Though perhaps like many a religious believer he doesn't always live up to those principles!