EVOLUTION AND PURPOSE (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 01, 2015, 18:12 (3278 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: My hypothesis is based on the idea that organisms respond to (but do not predict) changes in their environment.
DAVID: We all accept this simple premise.-I was objecting to your insistence that innovations must be planned in advance. Planning entails prediction. You even have your God preprogramming them 3.8 billion years ago.
 
dhw: This is known to happen with adaptation. I take it one (giant) step forward, and apply the same process to innovation.... Yes, the Cambrian is an unexplained mystery of colossal proportions, but I do not see my hypothesis (not a belief) as any more unlikely than yours (a belief) or Darwin's.-DAVID: And the sticking point is the colossal Cambrian. Innovation from nothing to brains in 10 million years, noting that some extra oxygen appeared, is a wild bit of wishful thinking. Your logic: The living use oxygen for energy, brains need lots of energy, so of course brains appeared. Yes a giant illogical step.-Not “of course brains appeared”, but new conditions enabled existing organisms to use their intelligence inventively. The sticking point is whether they have that kind of intelligence. I note your comment in your new post on the Cambrian: "Either good planning or lots of lucky sequential chance events." Not necessarily planning or lucky. Even you don't know whether your God planned every environmental change. If organisms used the new chance conditions inventively, their innovations were not by chance. It's only luck if you insist that your God intended to produce all the new species, culminating in humans, but didn't know how to do it. Otherwise, it's a case of organisms using the new environment for their own purposes. -dhw: ...If horses had the freedom to develop their own unidactyl variation, maybe some fish worked out how to survive on dry land, and maybe insects, birds, molluscs and vertebrates worked out their own varieties of senses, appendages and lifestyles,...That would explain the huge variety we find in the evolutionary bush, wouldn't it? Organisms following their own evolutionary paths. 
DAVID: I've accepted the possibility of individual inventiveness to some degree, but not to the extent you are proposing.-So if horses were free to work out their own unidactyl variation, let's see how far we can go. Do you now think the weaverbird may have designed its own nest without being preprogrammed or dabbled with? -dhw: ...The difference here is that I don't know if God exists and you think you do. But when I put on my theist hat and consider the history of evolution, the difference between us is that I can see a variety of choices relating to God's purpose, whereas you can only see one: the production of humans (which in any case is only half a purpose, the other half of which would be the reason for producing humans)
DAVID: Excellent summary. But note, if one goes back six/million years we see roughly the same animals and plants we see now. Little is changed except the appearance of highly sentient humans. Relative stasis except for the human line. I see purpose in that. I understand you don't. But you are glad to be here, I'm sure.

If God exists, yes, I can certainly see purpose in his bringing us into existence. There is, however, no need to assume that it was his intention right from the start and the whole of evolution was geared to us. But you cannot bear the thought of your God experimenting, or not knowing what he was doing, or going wrong, so you would rather put up with the illogicality of dead dinosaurs and waddling platypuses and zillions of lifeless solar systems. However, you are absolutely right that I am glad to be here, happy to be able to discuss these matters with a dear friend, and grateful for every moment of this miraculous life.