Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, January 18, 2017, 12:52 (2866 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Brain power is a consequence of neuron count and network complexity. Based on their ganglion size, the dinosaurs were dumb. They had one in the head and one back at the base of the tail. Most other survivors of Chicxulub are not as complex as mammals.
dhw: but you always leave out the fact that evolution so far has also “advanced” to the mosquito, the duckbilled platypus, the parasitic wasp and barnacle, the camouflaged cuttlefish, the migratory monarch etc. etc., all deliberately planned or dabbled by your God. All more complex (and more intelligent) than the dinosaurs?
DAVID: It is my belief, based in part on milk production, live birth and brain power, that mammals are much more complex than the animals you have listed.

I agree. Thank you. It is therefore absurd to argue that “evolution advances to the most complex survivors” when evolution has clearly led to survivors at all levels of complexity, and in your version God has deliberately guided it all the way to the weaverbird’s nest, the parasitic wasp and barnacle, the camouflaged cuttlefish etc. as well as to mammals.

DAVID: We haven't found the inventive mechanism beyond epigenetic modifications of existing species. I work with what we know from scientific research. I cannot accept your supposition until a methodology for speciation is found. As far as I am concerned God invented and is in control of evolution. He invented the DNA code and it is His to fiddle with.
dhw: My hypothesis allows for your God to have invented evolution and to have invented the DNA code and to fiddle with it.
DAVID: A statement I can completely accept.

I hope you will also accept that your rejection of my hypothesis on the grounds that the autonomous inventive mechanism has not been found reeks of double standards, since your own version of the mechanism (the undiscovered computer programme plus the unobserved divine dabbling – both of which are unknown to scientific research) has not been found either.

QUOTE: (from "Fine-Tuning": ...a benevolent God would want to create the physical laws so that life-conducive universes would be overwhelmingly likely. (David’s comment: A poor argument from religious belief. He may not be benevolent, and He may continuously guide the process until He has his desired result. His argument sounds like Deism: God started the process and then let it continue on its own.)

I like your agnosticism concerning the nature of God. Why is it more likely that your nobody-knows-what-he's like God guided the process than that he let it continue on its own?