Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 20, 2017, 17:45 (2833 days ago) @ dhw

David: I'm sure God knew of the problem issues. He gave us the big brain to deal with it.

dhw: According to you, he created the problem issues, and yet according to you he does not have a “smidgen of evil” in him. Also according to you, he doesn’t care what suffering his diseases and natural disasters cause. Let us for a moment forget the beauty of the world (for which due credit must of course be given), and tell me how you would describe a being who deliberately created the causes of appalling suffering but didn’t care?

You've twisted my concept again. I have suggested He had to accept the problems and could not avoid them. Please review my comments.

DAVID: Not just dabble. It is my bedrock position that God planned for humans. As you know, everything I propose is based on that starting point.

dhw: I thought you believed your God dabbled with pre-human brains. But it makes no difference whether he dabbled or included a human-brain programme in the millions of programmes you think he inserted into the first cells 3.8 billion years ago. Your bedrock position is still the same.

Yes, the same. Of course He had to dabble with early primate brains to reach the current brain size and complexity.

DAVID: God used a very long, a 3.8 billion year process to produce humans.

He used a very long, 3.8 billion year process to produce millions of species, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct, and the argument that he had to do so in order to produce humans makes no sense to you, but it is your bedrock position that this nonsensical scenario is true.

Again twisting. I have said I don't understand why He used such a long evolutionary period of time. It appears He either wanted to or had to. That is the way I make sense of it, as I have said before.

DAVID: Frog's tongues are just part of the amazing balance of nature.

dhw: An “amazing” process by which 99% of species die out because the balance of nature means nothing more than there being enough energy for some organisms to survive but not for others. Lucky old frogs – but that still doesn’t explain why their tongues had to be specifically designed so that humans could evolve.

I don't accept your style of description of of balance of nature. I view it as absolutely necessary. The frog tongue is specialized to help him live in his balance of nature.

DAVID: The process had to be taken from very complex bacterial cells, still here, to the very highly complex big-brained humans, who appeared in big jumps in complex forms and functions. Our research does not tell us how those giant speciation gaps were crossed but design is so obvious its consideration cannot be avoided, since the gaps require intense advanced planning. All you've come up with is maybe organisms could design their own advances, an ability not yet demonstrated.

dhw: Adaptation has been demonstrated over and over again, but neither my autonomous inventive mechanism, nor Darwin's innovative random mutations, nor your divine 3.8-billion-year computer programme for every innovation, nor your divine dabbling have yet been demonstrated. If the objection applies to one hypothesis, it applies to them all.

Correct. All we know is adaptation does not lead to speciation. I'm sure you've noticed the gaps are too big.

DAVID: If we keep unearthing increasing living complexity, but no intrinsic organismal design mechanism , only God is left to consider. That is the main thrust of my argument. Planning mind is required.

dhw: An “intrinsic organismal design mechanism” (previously known as an autonomous inventive mechanism) does not exclude God, since we are still left with the origin of the mechanism itself. You constantly shift the subject from what you yourself consider to be the non-sense of your 100% preprogramming/dabbling hypothesis to the existence of God.

It is obvious you cannot get rid of God in your own thinking with your own God-lite
IM proposal. Chance or design (not God-lite) is all there can be.