Convoluted human evolution: Speedy HARs (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, August 14, 2016, 11:43 (3024 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We have DNA areas that are 'human accelerated regions' which developed our special evolution:
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/46643/title/Decoding-Human-Accele...-DAVID: This is why we are not chimps. Looks like God dabbled here to create us. 
DAVID: (Under “dolphins”:) Dolphins and whales have complex lifestyles as mammals living in water. One must wonder why the evolutionary process drove this complex development.
DAVID: (under “humming birds”): Could this have developed while sustaining many crash landings? Doubtful. How about direct design?
DAVID: (“dolphins” again): Is any of Darwin's theory correct? Is survivability (natural selection) a major factor? Why do we see amazingly complex developments like aquatic mammals? I'm just puzzling over it. The complexity of physiologic requirements is mind boggling. -BBella (re the chimp and dabble reference): That's a giant leap!-It certainly is. We are not chimps. Nor are we whistling dolphins. Nor are we humming birds. Every species (broad sense) is different from other species, and many species have extraordinary talents. And every single talent among your truly amazing natural wonders, David, brings forth the same comment from you: it must have been specially designed by your God. If your God had to specially design the humming bird's collision-avoidance system, like the weaverbird's nest and the billions of other natural wonders extant and extinct, why do you single out humans for “special evolution”? They are ALL examples of “special evolution”!-BBELLA: (re dolphins) Every thing is a complex development. How can a process drive? Sometimes a term will seem like a logical term (like "evolutionary process drove/drives) until you try to imagine it actually taking place.-Spot on again! If you believe in common descent, every development has to take place in existing organisms, which will cope with (= adapt to) or invent new ways of exploiting current environmental conditions. The "drive" for survival is clearly WITHIN organisms, and I would suggest that this is sometimes accompanied by the drive for improvement. But according to you, David, every innovation and every special talent was separately created by your God. So evolution means nothing more to you than God taking one specially created organism and tweaking it so that it becomes another specially created organism or develops a special talent. Again I agree with BBELLA: 
“Whether there are many more questions that will never be asked or many more answers than can ever be found, it doesnt automatically mean there's a God that designed it all which holds all the answers. But not sayin' there aint, not sayin' there is.”-Even if there is a God, that is no reason for assuming that he directly designed every innovation and natural wonder. He could have given the first life forms the instinct for survival and improvement, plus the means of pursuing those two purposes. Why must every new step require his personal attention? As we have seen throughout our long discussions on God and evolution, with all the intellectual contortions necessitated by your anthropocentric slant on the process, that raises far more questions than it answers. But of course, I acknowledge that unanswerable questions are the raison d'être for this forum.
 
It's great to have you back!