Natures wonders: ecosystem under snow (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, June 02, 2016, 12:20 (3094 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: I doubt if anyone would question the claim that communities and ecosystems are one vast network of interdependencies. The problem arises when, in your preprogramnming versus dabbling mode of thinking, you use the term “balance of nature” to explain why your God had to personally “guide” billions of innovations and natural wonders - 99% of which are extinct - for the sake of producing and/or feeding humans.-DAVID: You have conflated the production of humans and balance of nature in your comment above. Let's clarify: Evolution would not have continued from the beginning unless animals could eat and had plant life to consume. Plans also had to receive energy. The balances have always had to be present. That humans finally appeared is a result of evolution supported by the balance. Nothing more.-Thank you for this clarification. It's good to hear that your God did not after all create every innovation and natural wonder, 99% of which are extinct, for the purpose of producing and feeding humans. The fact that life and evolution would have ended if there had been no food is clear, and that humans appeared is clear, and that there is no special connection between the two is clear, since the duck-billed platypus, the giraffe, the mosquito and every other living species also appeared (but not for the benefit of humans). The balance of nature is whatever balance exists at any particular time, and it is not geared to any particular species but changes according to whatever species are flourishing at that time. "Nothing more."