Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, December 31, 2016, 15:48 (2884 days ago) @ dhw

David: There are only two choices, chance or design. There is no third way.[/i]

An excellent summary of the case for design, and a major reason why I am not an atheist. However, if your God endowed living cells with intelligence, as some scientists claim, and if this intelligence enabled cells/cell communities to do their own designing, we have a logical, theistic explanation for the history of life as we know it. The fact that you reject the hypothesis does not make it illogical or atheistic, which was the point I objected to.

I strongly object to your theory, as usual, since I feel any advanced designing requires a conscious mind, as in proceeding from early whale one to early whale two, with tremendous physiological changes from one to the other.

DAVID: But I have suggested that they might have an epigenetic free-wheeling mechanism. Something drives the increasing complexity we see in advancing evolving life.

dhw: No evolutionist would disagree that something drives the increasing complexity from single celled organisms such as bacteria to multicellular organisms such as the whale, the duckbilled platypus and ourselves. The whole discussion concerns the nature of the “something”. You insist that your so-called “freewheeling” mechanism is guided and God is always in control. That is not freewheeling. Either the mechanism can act independently or it can’t.

I've not been clear, based on your comment. The freewheeling concept is to be seen stepwise. First, the organisms have a mechanism that allows them to try something (freewheeling), but then, secondly, God steps in and alters the change to a direction of evolution He likes.

dhw: “Epigenetic” simply relates to the interplay between genes and environment and tells us nothing about whether evolutionary advancement results from divine programming/dabbling or from an AUTONOMOUS/ ”freewheeling” inventive mechanism possibly designed by a possible God. The latter offers a perfectly logical explanation for the higgledy-piggledy history of life as we know it, and dispenses with reliance on chance factors other than those relating to environmental change. And it is not atheistic.

I used 'epigenetic' in the loose sense that any alteration of the genome is epigenetic. Freewheeling in my sense is explained above.