More Denton: Reply to Tony (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, August 04, 2015, 14:15 (3399 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: Why would God create a programme that requires intermediaries? If he is capable of creating new organisms from scratch, do you think he is incapable of creating them through a programme that immediately transforms existing organisms?
TONY: I never said he couldn't, but that I didn't think he did because of a lack of evidence supporting that line of thought.-There is no more evidence supporting your hypothesis of separate creation than there is for David's hypothesis of a 3.8-billion-year computer programme.-TONY: 4) Again, this is possible, but I find it unlikely. The reason is that the underlying nature of the environment as a whole changed substantially, and the creatures coming after the Cambrian generally do not have any identifiable precursors.-Dhw: This version has God personally transforming organisms instead of doing it through a computer programme (3) or creating them from scratch. If he could do the latter, regardless of the environment, why couldn't he just as easily do the former?
TONY: Again, I do not think it is a matter of *could*, I think it is a matter of "did". i.e. Having the power or ability to do something a particular way does not necessitate that would do it that way because it may not be the best way to do things. -Agreed. That puts your hypothesis and this one on an equal footing.-TONY: (re the inventive mechanism): Again, while possible, I find this unlikely. The number of changes are simply too great.
DHW: That would depend on how much inventive power God gave the mechanism. 
TONY: The problem is in the overall balance of things. You aren't talking about programming 1 creature to change, or 10. You are talking about pre-programming every possible variation of every possible variant into every single organism. While that may be *possible*, it is not very efficient or logical. All evidence in nature indicates that God is incredibly efficient, and logical. It would be dramatically more efficient to recreate a small subset of organisms to deal with changes they weren't designed for than it would to try and pre-program every single thing for every possible scenario. Further, the evidence is heavily in favor of the fact that every single organism is not pre-programmed for every single scenario. For example, most creatures will die if their environment changes even marginally.-I couldn't agree more. This is the argument I have used against David's hypotheses (3 and 4) over and over again. Thank you for your support. Of course it is not an argument against the inventive mechanism (a “brain” - possibly provided by God) in all organisms. When the environment changes, some (maybe most) “brains” will not be able to cope, others will adapt, and others may use the changed circumstances to invent new ways of exploiting the new conditions.-TONY: I do not accept common descent because it is a virtual impossibility in the given time frames.
DHW: You have no precedent by which to judge what time frames your God needs for his programmes (3), his personal interventions (4) or his inventive mechanism (5) to work.
TONY: I only have what we see, what evidence there is. I see no evidence of innovation or speciation.-What does this have to do with time frames? If the Cambrian produced organisms without precursors, we have innovation. Hypotheses 3, 4 and 5 offer different explanations for the same result as your separate creation (all speculative). Speciation is difficult to pinpoint: as you said yourself, our classifications are not “a sound basis for rational judgement”.
 
DHW: Are you claiming that all the hominid/hominin fossils are in fact modern humans, but the palaeontologists are covering this fact up in order to keep their posts?
TONY: Of course they aren't modern. They died thousands of years ago. Were they HUMAN absolutely. Were they monkey's/apes? No. But I see their morphological differences as being no different than the morphological differences between modern races.
Dhw: I'm not sure what you mean by “Were they HUMAN absolutely”. Are you saying that all the hominid/hominin fossils belonged to one species of human, but that species was not homo sapiens (modern man)? [...]
TONY: Look, I have already conceded that we will see variation within a species. I.e. Not all apes will be identical, but they will all be apes. Not all humans will be identical, but they will all be human. 
[...] I am not arguing against genetic inheritance. But what you are saying is no different than saying "Blacks are a different species than Whites, Asians, Arabs or Hispanics."-It is totally different. The very terms hominid and hominin and pre-human indicate that palaeontologists see the differences as far greater. It is easy enough to google “hominin” for details. Even if you really believe the australopithecines, for instance, were simply a different “kind” of human, you are faced with the questions I asked earlier: Why would your “incredibly efficient and logical” God specially create one form of human, and then...what? Let it die out and specially create another form? Or are you saying homo sapiens evolved from another form?-After this discussion on common descent, I hope you will acknowledge that many scientists and religious people genuinely believe the theory to be true, and are not using it as an excuse to keep their jobs or to somehow exclude God.