Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, December 27, 2016, 18:21 (2888 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You are looking at the balance of nature from the outside. Just as 'logic' removed wolves from Yellowstone and upset the balance of nature, returning them, after research showed they were needed, rebalanced it illustrates the futility of your position.

dhw: You are once again talking as if there were a right balance and a wrong balance, even though at other times you have agreed that so long as there is ANY form of life, that = balance of nature. This has always varied throughout life’s history, and it has always been in favour of some and against others.

Of course nature balances with whatever species are available, but the Yellowstone/wolf story shows how the wrong balance can be created, and it depends upon which top predator is there. Humans, without the right research, can make the wrong judgments and upset the proper balances. That is what I am describing and previously mentioned in Australia.

DAVID: Research may well show why whales, monarch migration, and weaverbird nests are necessary. […]

dhw: Necessary for what? It is my sincere belief that if the weaverbird - whose nest you think was specially designed by your God to balance nature - died out or suddenly designed a very simple nest for itself, life would still go on. And bearing in mind your anthropocentric interpretation of your God’s purpose in “guiding” evolution, I sincerely believe humans would also survive without the weaverbird’s nest. Don't you?

That is your belief. we don't knows that as factual. I believe that every organism is there for a reason, not necessarily apparent to us.

DAVID: That God is not a logical designer is atheistic thinking, nothing more…

dhw: Please explain why the hypothesis of a possible God who may have designed an autonomous, inventive mechanism to produce a spectacle of diverse living organisms, extant and extinct, is (a) illogical, and (b) atheistic.

You missed my point. I am discussing God as a perfect designer, with the human retina in mind. It is atheists who complain about it, while science shows how perfect it is.

DAVID: Again you are making an atheistic assumption. I've admitted they may have an inventive mechanism, but you won't let me have my God watch it for tight control.

dhw: Once again, as an interpretation of a possible God’s possible mode of running evolution, my hypothesis is in no way atheistic. Your inventive mechanism is always “guided”. What does “watch it for tight control” mean? In my theistic mode, I have made allowance for the occasional dabble, but your “tight control” removes the all-important autonomy, thereby excluding the “freewheeling” which you have admitted and then omitted, since it is the exact opposite of tight control.

Our concepts disagree as usual. I see evolution as directional toward increased complexity at all times. If organisms are free-wheeling in producing new complexity, if that drifts off course toward humans, God will guide it back. Inventivenesds and guided all at the same time.