Autonomy and balance (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, June 07, 2016, 13:07 (2879 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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.-DAVID: I understand that the feral foreign animals created a new balance, but the Aussies want to return to the original 'proper balance' to protect their unusual indigenous animals.-Fine, but cut the word “proper”. There is no such thing as ”proper” balance if balance simply means the continuation of life. The Aussies want to return to the original balance.-dhw: 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.-DAVID: Agreed. There must be some sort of speciation mechanism, unless God directly dabbles.-I would like to make the hypothesis a little clearer: if we believe in common descent, speciation can only take place through some sort of autonomous inventive intelligence within the cell communities themselves, unless there is a God who directly dabbles.