EVOLUTION AND PURPOSE (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, December 06, 2015, 13:06 (3273 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You don't see the point. Many mutations cause a loss of information. Losing four toes is such a loss. Evolution works tis way, so the horses may have done it on their own.
dhw: No, I don't see your point. Whether the modification is a loss or gain, it still requires cooperation among the cell communities in their response to the environment. (And I would call the loss of four toes “the loss of four toes”, not “a loss of information”.) -DAVID: You still don't understand information. Each toe requires information for its existence and that information disappears when the toe does. In this case phenotypic information.-Perhaps there is a stage missing from this exchange. In response to your comment on epigenetics, I pointed out that epigenetic modifications still required cooperation among the cell communities - which I see as autonomous - and you said losing four toes means a loss of information. What does that have to do with the horse's autonomous ability to switch itself from pentadactyl to unidactyl? (And, in parenthesis, why bring "information" into the discussion?)
 
DAVID: [Birds] solve simple problems, not specialized nest building.
dhw: Birds build nests, but they don't actually know how to build nests? This leads straight to the unanswered question which was the whole point of my response here: “So are you saying that other birds (like, say, pigeons) have been intelligent enough to produce their own simpler variations, and only the weaverbird needed God's private tuition (or computer programme)?”
DAVID: Of course birds know how to build their own style of nest. The issue is how they developed that knowledge, weaver or otherwise.-So are you saying that other birds were able to design their own nests, but weaverbirds needed God's private tuition? -dhw: IF humans were the goal right from the start, they would certainly have required guidance, but according to you not even the weaverbird could build its nest without “guidance”, so the weaverbird must also have been the goal. In fact, apart from minor modifications like the horse's hoof, ALL innovations, complex lifestyles and natural wonders extinct and extant required God's “guidance”, and yet his only goal was humans.
DAVID: I see nothing wrong with your analysis.
dhw: That's good news for the weaverbird, except that there is a direct contradiction you have not seen, or prefer not to see, in my analysis. The weaverbird was God's evolutionary goal, but God's only evolutionary goal was humans.-DAVID: I ignored that point, since it is patently obvious you are poking fun.-I am not poking fun. It is essential to your anthropocentric view of evolution that God “guided” it towards humans. But you also insist that God ”guided” the weaverbird in the design of its nest. To an earlier question you responded: ”I'm sure God knew what he was doing.” With my theist hat on, I am happy to agree. But as I can see no logic in the claim that God had to teach the weaverbird how to build its nest so that there would be a balance of Nature to provide humans with their food, I am suggesting that perhaps you might have misinterpreted what God was doing. -DAVID: Somebody has to eat somebody. The current animals are a vast improvement over dinosaurs. What is wrong with losing 99% to create progress in evolution? What is here is complicated enough and there is just so much room for life on Earth.
dhw: Nobody has to eat anybody. Meat-eating is not essential to life. I've often wondered why your God would deliberately have invented the sheer horror of carnivorousness. 
DAVID: The dinosaurs also had plant eaters. Lions don't nibble the savanna's grass. Meat eating is built in to some, plants to others. Humans make choices as free will omnivores or haven't you noticed.-I have noticed. And I have noticed that some animals are vegetarian and some are carnivorous and some are both. I have also observed that life is possible without carnivorousness, and so - with my theist hat on - I do not wonder WHETHER your God invented the horrors of carnivorousness, but WHY.