More Denton: A new book (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, February 28, 2016, 13:30 (3191 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have missed the point that the IM I am proposing is AUTONOMOUS. An autonomous mechanism is not guided directly or indirectly. Once more: my alternative definition of theistic evolution is that your God deliberately invented a mechanism that would enable organisms to do their own inventing instead of him preprogramming or personally supervising every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder. This is analogous to the human brain, which does its own inventing (unless you believe that God also preprogrammed the internal combustion engine and the works of Shakespeare). You are welcome to believe in your favoured scenario, but you and the reviewer do not have a monopoly on possible forms of theistic evolution. - DAVID: You are allowed to invent any fairytale you wish. My view remains God can invent an independent IM to do his work for him, but that is exactly what it will do; follow His pre-planned instructions coded into it - I don't know why you've changed autonomous to independent, but if something simply follows instructions, it is neither autonomous nor independent. “Pre-planned instructions” = your 3.8-billion-year computer programme, so you are only muddying the waters when you equate it with an “independent IM”. Nor do I know why you should consider such a mechanism to be any more of a fairy tale than a fixed programme for the whole of evolution, but I presume you will not deny that if God can create such a programme, he is also capable of creating the AUTONOMOUS mechanism I have described above.