Why sex evolved; no one knows (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, June 19, 2016, 13:05 (3078 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: If your God exists, I don't have a problem with the idea of him dabbling to revolutionize the course of life. But I do have a problem with the idea of him preprogramming the first cells to pass on every other innovation and every natural wonder throughout the history of life, let alone the suggestion that the whole caboodle was created just for the sake of homo sapiens.-DAVID: The key to our differences revolves about just one question: how 'special' do you consider the appearance of H. sapiens? I follow Adler in thinking we are different in kind, based primarily on the development of an advanced consciousness. That we were better survivors than the other Homo types is obvious. That a scattergun hominin group appeared at this last existing stage of evolution needs to be considered in recognizing humans as a final target of progression of evolution. We came from apes and they are unchanged in the interim. We have developed the power to destroy the Earth, which we struggle to control. We are the endpoint of evolution although it is possible, given enough time we might change in form slightly. 
But finally what is there to improve, if we consider evolution as an improving process?-I can't see into the future, but no one in his right mind would deny the enormous gulf between our powers and those of other species. However, even if we are as good as it gets (I don't mean morally - plenty of room for improvement there!), that does not mean every organism and natural wonder, extinct and extant, was created just for our sake. You have separated the two parts of my sentence, but they go together. The key difference between us is your attempt to explain the whole higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution as being preprogrammed or dabbled in order to produce humans. (We discovered that “the balance of nature” just meant the continuation of life, and that does not require humans.) This is why we have spent so much time on the weaverbird's nest. Why would your God have specifically designed such wonders for our sake? And if his final target was homo sapiens, what do you mean by “we need to consider” a scattergun hominin group? Again I would ask why your God created “multiple choice” programmes for all the different hominins if he just wanted homo sapiens. It makes far more sense to me that (theistic version) he enabled organisms to do their own designing, punctuated by the odd dabble. In other words, it is your anthropocentric, homo sapiens interpretation of the whole history of evolution that is the key difference between us. (See the “Talbott” thread for more.)