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

by dhw, Thursday, April 30, 2015, 21:13 (3493 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You look for the rational answer to the problem of the whale. You don't know it, but when I offer a rational answer, I'm told not to look for rational answers.

DAVID: You are playing with just-so Darwinian gamesmanship like they do. What the whales did is totally unexplained, if one thinks that natural selection is a way to find improvements. The whales completely complicated their life's struggle for no good reason I can see.-I never mentioned natural selection, which we both agree never created anything. The fact that you cannot see a reason is why I am questioning your theory that it is all part of God's masterly plan to produce human beings! Set against that is my suggestion that all the extraordinary organisms and lifestyles that have come and gone are the result of interaction between individual inventive mechanisms and an ever changing environment. No master plan. Ongoing adaptations and innovations for the sake of survival or improvement. (See also “Evolution: a different view”)-dhw: As for the grip story, I'm deeply, deeply sceptical. I really don't think for one minute that our ancestors suddenly found they had a new grip but didn't know what to do with it. It seems far more likely to me that the grip developed because our ancestors needed it for one purpose or another. I suspect that the same applies to all so-called exaptations.
DAVID: The word was invented by Ian Tattersall, a world-renowned paleontologist, who was surprised by how many are in evidence.. Until you have reviewed a group of them, as I have, don't be so quick to poo-poo the idea. I recently mentioned the descent of the larynx, long before language. "I suspect" suggests you don't know the subject.-And I have suggested that the descent of the larynx came about because our ancestors needed new ways of communicating. Once again we have a chicken and egg problem. Even the experts find it difficult to distinguish between adaptation and exaptation, but I was poo-pooing the grip example, not the whole concept. You always cling to your pre-planning, and I really don't see how the grip example proves anything. We know organisms can change their structure in order to adapt, and so it is not illogical to hypothesize that they might also change their structure to improve. -DAVID: I believe I was hired on to combat your stance, and make your picket fence a very uneasy position.
dhw: The lady who invited you did a great job! And I am happy to award you the dhw Medal for Persistent Picket-Pocking.
DAVID: I've built many a ranch fence. I'm building one around your pre-conceived agnostic ideas to gradually exclude you from them.-Your concept of fences is incomplete. Fences can be built to keep people in or out. I seem to spend most of my web-time knocking holes in those that theists (and in earlier times atheists) keep building in order to protect their own preconceptions!