Contingent evolution: what pushes it? (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 04, 2014, 15:37 (3672 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: Once more you are generalizing. “Explain life” is not clear. Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life (atheists plump for abiogenesis), but focuses on how the first forms of life developed into the vast variety we see today. ... No, it's not a fact, and gradualism and random mutations are highly dubious elements of the theory, but if a theistic scientist like David believes in common descent, and “the science findings strongly suggest such a mechanism”, I don't know why you can't at least keep an open mind instead of dismissing it. -TONY: I did say explain life, not the origins thereof, and that is exactly what evolution tries to do. It tries to explain (in relation to life and living organisms) why we are the way we are, and why everything else is the way it is, and how it all got to be that way. It is based on a tremendous number of assumptions, not the least of which are:
•	The efficacy of random chance
•	That the accretion of tiny mutations to create something new.
•	The the accretion of tiny mutations to create something useful.
•	That it can all be explained in mechanical terms.
•	That it is possible for a species to become a different species, even a member of a different phylogenic family of species.
•	And as a sub-premise, that all of this can happen undirected, without outside influence.
And they are more than happy to discard/overlook/otherwise ignore:
•	A fossil record that does not support the theory(Species show up fully formed).
•	No direct observation of ANY organism breaking the actual species boundary(in fact some proponents often change the definition of species depending on who they are debating)
•	The lack of time. (The explain it away with punctuated equilibrium)
•	That genetics has shown (repeatedly) that the phylogenetic tree is burnt up.
•	That the genome FIXES itself when mutations occur, thus undercutting the prime mechanism for evolution.
•	That mutations are, by the vast majority, harmful instead of beneficial.
•	That there are tremendous number of 'chicken and egg' scenarios that make a given adaptation useless without a prior or simultaneous mutation of one or more different species. (Flowers, Bees, Humming Birds, and Beetles)
Science discards a theory in part or in its entirety when it doesn't fit the data. The data doesn't fit, yet it is still held as fact. That is not science.-This is an impressive-looking list, but almost every item on it has already been covered in our past exchanges. You have quoted my point about the dubiousness of random mutations and gradualism, which some would say adds weight to the case for theistic evolution. (I still don't understand why you refuse to consider the possibility of evolution as a process initiated and guided by God, which would remove most of your objections anyway.) Evolution itself is in a period of stasis, so of course there has been no direct observation - there has been no direct observation of God creating new species either. If species are successful, their genome is bound to be fixed until something (most likely a change in conditions) triggers it to unfix itself and adapt or innovate. The fossil record clearly shows a progression from simpler to more complex organisms, and what David calls the patterns suggest common ancestry. Punctuated equilibrium explains the apparent jumps (probably associated with changes in the environment after periods of stasis). We have already agreed that the theory is a theory and not a fact. The God theory is also a theory and not a fact, and is based on a great variety of assumptions without one shred of objectively verifiable evidence, but neither you nor I would see that as a reason to dismiss it.