EVOLUTION AND PURPOSE (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, December 06, 2015, 16:10 (3273 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Perhaps there is a stage missing from this exchange. ...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?)-Loss or deletion of information is an easier task than gaining or inventing information which is a problem is evolution, searching among trillion protein molecules to find the right ones for the function desired.-> DAVID: Of course birds know how to build their own style of nest. The issue is how they developed that knowledge, weaver or otherwise.
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> dhw: So are you saying that other birds were able to design their own nests, but weaverbirds needed God's private tuition? -Neat twist of my words. I've simply said all birds know how to build their own. How they learned initially is the separate issue. We have no answer. The weaver nest is exceptionally complex, a woven bag with the entry at the top, so it becomes a prime example of the general issue, an extreme case to make the point.-> 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.
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> DAVID: I ignored that point, since it is patently obvious you are poking fun.
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> dhw: I am not poking fun. It is essential to your anthropocentric view of evolution that God “guided” it towards humans. I am suggesting that perhaps you might have misinterpreted what God was doing.-Very likely. What you have done in our conversation is to demand that we delve into God's methods, looking at His most intimate operative details in producing evolution. I can only make the most simple of guesses, following my general and I think logical conclusion that if I accept evolution, and I have, God guided it. You want to understand God's methods exactly before you decide to accept Him. He doesn't work that way.
 
> 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.
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> dhw: 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.-Another example of your attempt to justify every aspect of the bush of life to fit your form of logic, before moving forward to some type of conclusion. You have just questioned God's motives. We might as well discuss why terrorists kill people. By your lights God could forbid it and stop them. I think lions have free will or at least freedom of action. And back balance of nature, it works best with both herbivores and carnivores. Wolves have been re-introduced to parts of the American West because the balance was way out of whack.