DILEMMAS: A Response to DHW (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, November 15, 2014, 15:13 (3659 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: When you talk of balance, you need to say what is balanced against what. Some species are more successful than others, so some go extinct, or a catastrophe obliterates 90% of them. Is that balance? Why (and by whom) should some species be regarded as more important than others?-"The term balance of nature is a recognized scientific concept:
The balance of nature is a theory that proposes that ecological systems are usually in a stable equilibrium (homeostasis), which is to say that a small change in some particular parameter (the size of a particular population, for example) will be corrected by some negative feedback that will bring the parameter back to its original "point of balance" with the rest of the system. It may apply where populations depend on each other, for example in predator/prey systems, or relationships between herbivores and their food source. It is also sometimes applied to the relationship between the Earth's ecosystem, the composition of the atmosphere, and the world's weather."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_nature-I view this concept as fitting Tony's comments and it fits Darwin's agony over the fact that cruel animals eat other animals. All life must consume energy to continue. It must be in balance, which is always restored after catastrophes. Dinosaurs, Chicxulub, us as examples.
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> DAVID: There is no evidence of improvisation in the clear picture of step-wise development from single cell to us. 
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> dhw: Can you really trace a clear picture? If so, the Nobel Prize awaits you. No improvisation? What about the bush? Do bacteria to trilobite to dinosaur to mosquito to boa-constrictor to dodo to elephant to duck-billed platypus to gorilla to monarch butterfly suggest to you a clear, step-wise development from single cell to us?-Patterns at first, then adaptations that flair out in many directions, creating a living balance in each niche in nature. Spetner even quotes the Talmud on this point! More of that later as I finish the book. The rabbis had this figured out 300 years ago.
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> dhw: I think one of your dilemmas is that although you have reached the logical conclusion that life is too complex not to have been designed, you are aware that any attempt to characterize the designing power is a human fiction. However, your anthropocentric view of evolution leads to another dilemma, because if your God directed evolution so purposefully, leaving nothing to chance, you have to assume that he specifically planned or created every species (broad sense), extinct and extant, that had features in common with humans. And if organisms could not control their own development, every non-human-related species (broad but sometimes even narrow sense) also had to be specially programmed. .... The reasoning becomes more and more convoluted as you struggle to fit the historical bush of life to your anthropocentric theory.-I have arrived at a conclusion that is easing the dilemma. God started life with a vast input of information on how to create the emergent phenomenon of life itself. Then patterns were setup in a basic set of organismal families, and adaptive modifications created the bush. God did put an IM into the basic mechanisms of life. The IM follows constraints in the initial information programs. Recognizing there are thousands of natural niches in nature, which must stay in balance, it is no surprise there is a bush of life with many inventive results.
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> dhw: You said earlier that you were “bothered” by both the preprogramming theory and the dabbling theory, but any alternative clearly bothers you even more because it would cast doubts on your anthropocentrism. You don't get rid of the bother that easily, though. It will continue to give you a dilemma, no matter how hard you try to ignore it. Your dilemma, however, lies in the detail. Mine is on a far broader scale!-My 'bother' is coming to an end as I mull. I'm sorry you are stuck in dead-end thinking. But your challenges have been very helpful.