Autonomy and balance (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, June 06, 2016, 12:44 (2875 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: After an extinction it [Nature] changes its balance. If balance = life continues, it is pointless to claim that balance is “out of adjustment” so long as there are still living organisms - as there are, for instance, in Australia. You have constantly given “balance of nature” as a reason for your God dabbling in order to create innovations and natural wonders, but life would continue without the whale's blowhole and the weaverbird's nest. I suggest that if there is any purpose at all, it would appear to be diversity and change, and since you now accept the possibility that your God gave organisms the intelligence - though you still refuse to use that word - to organize their own innovations (and of course I also include the natural wonders), we have a clear explanation for the seemingly random history of the bush. Your God may occasionally dabble, but the rest is worked out by the organisms themselves in conjunction with the ever changing environment - which (theistic version) he may also have designed to come up with its own higgledy-piggledy comings and goings, apart perhaps from his occasional dabble. (“Let's do a Chicxulub!”) - DAVID: A very acceptable summary, aside from the fact you do not understand Australia. They know what proper balance should be, but feral foreign species are damaging severely the original species balance. - Thank you, but if “balance of nature” only means that life continues in no matter what form, there is no such thing as “proper balance”. The feral foreign species are just as much living organisms as the original species, and so we simply have yet another change of balance. - dhw: Where is the contortion? I have granted the possibility that your God gave organisms the mechanism. You have granted that the mechanism may run on its own. If so, it is the organisms that create the bush, not God. 
DAVID: God is still the prime mover. Presuming He gave organisms a complexification mechanism (CM) - If he gave the organisms the mechanism, it is clear that he is the prime mover. Our long, long, long discussion has been about the existence of the autonomous inventive mechanism, not about whether God designed it. - dhw: But if you think your God had to dabble to fix it all [the whale], that's OK with me. It is the autonomy of the mechanism with the bush spreading “as it wishes” that is my point of focus.
DAVID: It may have worked that way.
dhw: And that is the concession I have been pleading for. Thank you.
DAVID: Agreed. - Bring out the champagne!