Evolution v Creationism: guided evolution? dhw? (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 25, 2015, 14:00 (3313 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have even said that Wagner's proposal might work, provided God designed it. The subject is what enables organisms to accelerate the processes you describe. Your own explanation is preprogramming of every single development, direct dabbling, or the inventive mechanism, all of which EXCLUDE chance. It's the origin of the inventive mechanism which then becomes the area of debate.
DAVID: We don't know if an IM exists. -We don't know if God exists either. All these explanations are hypotheses. Tony would say that evolution is a hypothesis too, but since you and I believe in common descent, at least we can agree to use it as a theoretical premise. -DAVID: It is a proposal to get around the problem of evolution only at God's direction with only pre-programming or dabbling at His disposal. P-P or DAB are directly by God, but I do not see God allowing an IM to operate totally outside of His wishes. -You are now making a basic assumption that we have not agreed on: namely, your God's purpose in starting evolution. I am thinking on two levels here: 1) the IM explains the course of evolution, whether God designed the mechanism or not; 2) if he designed it, he MAY have had the creation of humans in mind, or his purpose might simply have been to set it in motion and see where it led. That is a different subject. My point here is that once the mechanism is in place (whether God designed it or not), we can dispense with the theory of random mutations. The only chance element is changes in the environment. The rest is purpose-driven: to adapt or innovate, in accordance with those changes.
 
DAVID: We currently see a beneficial mutation rate (producing evolutionary advances) which is very slow. It has been suggested that since humans are here and very functional, evolution has stopped. It has gone as far as was intended. Perhaps this is why we don't see new speciation in the past 300 years or so that we have now become aware we should be looking for some.-This appears to be a period of stasis, and is peanuts in terms of geological time. It is understandable that with our superior consciousness, some people - especially the religious - might think we are the end product. It is also perfectly feasible that one day we shall be wiped out, and other forms of life will become dominant. In the end, maybe evolution will come full circle, and there will be nothing left except bacteria. We have no idea what form life will have taken in a billion years‘ time!