Balance of nature: man making a bad balance (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 08, 2016, 14:25 (2725 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You are right, but, there is a vast difference between your examples: " This process may result in innovations (the Cambrian) or extinctions (Chicxulub)". Chicxulub has an obvious mechanism, while the Cambrian is unexplained. This is an important difference to think about. The Cambrian requires agency, while Chicxulub is simply an extension of objects flying around all through the development of the solar system, a physical process.

dhw: Why would the Cambrian not have been a physical process? Whatever changes in the environment - an increase in oxygen? - triggered all the innovations would surely have had a physical cause. (Or are you suggesting that there was no change in the environment?) You can argue that God was the "agency" that threw Chixculub and organized the physical factors that caused the changed environment. Or you can argue that in one case or both, the factors were determined by luck – good or bad.

You miss the point that a Cambrian rise in Oxygen does not require an advance in complexity. It only allows for it. Therefore some other force must exist requiring complexity to appear.