Why sex evolved; no one knows (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 19, 2016, 15:25 (3078 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: 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.)-Correct. The balance OF nature is only a mechanism to let the necessary energy supply continue to provide energy so life can continue to evolve.->dhw: 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? -God used evolution as a process to produce humans. The weaver bird fits into it own balance of nature in its ecologic niche. Tying the bird to us is a straw man argument. The bird is small part of an overall process.-> dhw: 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.-Again the process He seems to prefer: what I have described as shotgun advances of complexity. Complexification is an overarching principle of the evolutionary process we observe.-> dhw: 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.)-I look at the overall impression of 'process'. I am a 'lumper' trying to see design processes existing in evolutionary history. You seem to be a 'splitter' worrying about the weaver bird, which is an inconsequential side issue that only raises the dabble issue, nothing more.