DILEMMAS: A Response to DHW (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, November 22, 2014, 13:25 (3655 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Some birds and butterflies migrate and others don't, depending on the climate. Therefore the only basic pattern is the butterfly/bird deciding for itself whether to migrate or not, and deciding for itself where to go. 
DAVID: How do you know that God only developed generic butterflies, and not two kinds of butterflies, ones that migrate and ones that don't. Note that Mexico is mild. why should the monarchs fly north at all?-Do you really believe that the decision to migrate is unconnected with changing climates and is simply the result of God preprogramming the first cells with two kinds of birds/butterflies (along with countless millions of other organisms and lifestyles) - migratory and non-migratory, regardless of conditions? Butterflies have been around for at least 40 million years. Do you think the climate has remained stable in all that time? (Parts of Mexico still have severe winters.) -dhw: Unless it has been given ALL the information (preprogrammed) right at the very beginning to cope with or exploit (= adapt or innovate) every single conceivable environmental change, either it has to exercise its own inventiveness, or your God has to dabble.
DAVID: That is the point of Spetner and my view: most of the information is on board from the beginning. An IM or NREH can provide adaptations as nature and environment challenge because they have the information and guidelines to do so. I'm accepting the idea that God doesn't have to dabble.-Yesterday you agreed that no one knows how much autonomy the inventive mechanism might have. Today you're back to your adaptations prescribed by your usual nebulous “information” and “guidelines”. Before your semi-conversion to the concept of cells containing the equivalent of a brain, you used to accuse me of entering the realms of fantasy. Do you not find the concept of the very first cells being preprogrammed with every single species (broad sense), innovation and “complex lifestyle” - along with all the information necessary to cover every environmental change that chance throws at them - just a teeny bit fanciful?-dhw; My point here was that the balance of life argument is a tautology, which is a different subject. 
DAVID: You view the 'balance of life' issue differently than I do. Of course it goes in and out of balance, but the balance is required for life to continue. Tautological, not really, required since all but the highest forms eat or are eaten, and the lower forms must be available in proper ratios.-Not “the” balance, but “a” balance. A balance is indeed required for life to continue, and that balance is constantly changing. Humans need the right amount of oxygen in order to survive. We have it, so we survive. If we didn't have it, we wouldn't survive, whereas other organisms would. The history of life is the history of changing conditions, whereby some species survive and some don't, because there is no constant balance. What does that prove?