Darwin & Wallace (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, October 02, 2015, 14:13 (3338 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw:If you reread my post, you will see that you have simply expanded on my point that “only adaptation, not innovation, was needed if organisms were to survive environmental change”. However, here you give humans as a “prime example”, whereas elsewhere you have used the “need” argument to suggest that humans are the exception and indeed the purpose. My point, once more, is that EVERY innovation, whether related to humans or not, was “against need”, and so that argument offers no justification for your anthropocentrism.-You are missing my point, and perhaps I'm not expressing it well: evolution advances by speciation, and we are not sure simple epigenetic adaptations result in speciation. Therefore if new species arise when 'need' is not there, to my way of thinking this is why a God-guided process is required. Theistic evolution, a form of Tony's view, is my view.-> dhw: Over and over again I have conceded the possibility that the autonomous inventive intelligence was your God's invention. I am an agnostic. The discussion between us has always concerned how evolution itself has progressed, and I have pitted this form of “guidance” against your “guiding”, 3.8-billion-year computer programme and/or dabbling as an explanation for the whole higgledy-piggledy history of extinctions and what you call the “odd twigs”, which would include every non-human innovation, lifestyle, nest and natural wonder.-Your view wants to give some credence to God in control, but not completely in control. He has the power to fully control if He cooked up this life-permitting universe, and your approach does not tell us where the new genetic information needed for new species comes from.
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> dhw: This is where you have to decide whether the weaverbird's nest, the monarch's lifestyle, the wasp's egg-laying required your God's preprogramming/dabbling or not. “Guidance” won't do.-I don't have to decide, and guidance will do, because I don' see how species arrive for no good reason of need.
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> dhw: The thanks are reciprocated. These discussions have arisen out of the marvellous array of scientific articles that you provide us with, and long may the exchanges continue!-As long as I can think to counter your objections.