Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, January 12, 2017, 23:19 (2872 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: That is why I keep repeating that your God may have provided organisms with the intelligence to complexify and coordinate. Why is it obvious that he did not do so, and that their complexification and coordination were only possible through divine preprogramming and/or dabbling? Or is it obvious? Our next exchange illustrates the constantly shifting patterns of your thinking:

DAVID: Something or someone created the existing complexity. I still insist the planning has to be at the level of a brilliant mind.

dhw: So please explain how an organism can be “free” to make its own changes (which God either approves or rejects), without having its own autonomous inventive intelligence to make changes?

God is behind all of the evolutionary process. I've agreed that organisms can make some changes through epigenetic mechanisms. But God is in final control.

dhw:You forgot to mention that you think the whole process was geared to the production of humans. I agree that if God exists, he must have set up the process of evolution, and of course the advance from bacteria entails increasing complexity. However, evolution has not provided a balance in nature supplying food for all, because 99% of species have gone extinct.

They are extinct because evolution advances to the most complex survivors. How would you otherwise define evolution? The balance is always there, we've agreed.

dhw: But do please untie the knots for me through just one simple example, and explain once and for all what you see as the logical connection between your God’s personal design of the weaverbird’s nest and the provision of “food for all” so that humans could evolve.

The weaverbird is part of a niche ecosystem, in balance in nature, nothing more.