EVOLUTION AND PURPOSE (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, November 29, 2015, 15:54 (3280 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: My hypothesis is that the same intelligent inventive mechanism may be responsible for both adaptation and innovation.-And my objection to your hypothesis is that you are implying an enormous inventive mental capacity to pre-plan the jump in the Cambrian explosion. I feel you need to factor in the enormous gap in your thinking. Darwin knew this, but never got the solution he wished for.
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> dhw: Patterns are inevitable if all organisms descended from earlier organisms. Once the pentadactyl pattern had been invented, different organisms would have varied it for their own purposes. Are you now suggesting with your “partial” that your God stuck the first limbs on the protowalker and then gave all subsequent organisms the freedom to develop their own versions? -Yes, that is my concept. For example the horse walks on one toe on each leg. Penta- to unidactyl.-> 
> dhw: You are the guy who keeps telling me to look for a reason for everything, by which you mean your God's “arrow of purpose”. Apparently dinosaurs are dead, the wasp lays its eggs on the spider's back, the duckbilled platypus is still waddling around, and zillions of probably lifeless solar systems come and go in order to balance nature just so that we humans can exist. No, sir, I am the guy who challenges your reason for everything.-That is correct. You want me to have a reason for everything, and I admit in some areas the reasons are not obvious, but the overall purpose is. I ask you, is there a 'natural purpose' in the universe and in evolution of life or a specific purpose? Is there evidence of planning or simply a chance progression of change? There is our basic major difference.