Teleology & evolution: Stephen Talbott's take (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, June 17, 2016, 00:15 (3082 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: That means every single innovation and variation (multiple choice/pathway) in the history of evolution had to be handed down through every generation of organisms and every change in the environment. The only freedom you have allowed organisms is to choose between different sets of on-board instructions, and the higgledy-piggledy bush is explained by God providing every higgledy-piggledy variation for them to choose from. - If God created the universe and everything living, it is reasonable to assume, since he uses an evolving technique of common descent, I would think He would be watching carefully and stepping in as needed. I do not favor a deistic God.
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> dhw: Do you not think it more feasible that all these higgledy-piggledy innovations, variations, convergences have come about through the organisms themselves finding their own individual ways to cope with or exploit the environment, instead of your God having to provide them with every single solution? - Answered above, and I would again state that a complexity drive can make a h-p bush,
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> dhw: With our big brains we don't have the capacity to invent these amazing mechanisms, and the reason why cells without brains can invent them is that bacteria do not have the same level of inventive capacity as….as…what? - When nature is smarter than humans in creating complex mechanisms, something brighter than humans is at work, and it is not the descendants of the original bacteria from the start of life. - > dhw: Once again: do you really believe that your God personally dabbled or preprogrammed the first cells to pass on every single natural wonder, from prickly burrs to weaverbirds' nests, as well as every single evolutionary innovation from eukaryotes to humans? - Very likely.