Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 27, 2017, 18:50 (2826 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Since your own evolutionary theory, “tilted” by your conclusion, makes no sense to you...
DAVID: My theories about evolution make perfect sense to me. I don't know why you keep repeating the 'no sense' mantra like a campaign slogan. God controlled evolution as his chosen method of producing humans. What I don't know is how much pre-programming or dabbling occurred.

dhw: One of our problems is that I follow up your various statements (e.g God not having a smidgen of evil in him, or not caring what happens to individuals) and a few days later you forget that you made them. Now it is the ‘no sense’ mantra. This has nothing to do with the choice between preprogramming and dabbling.

I'm delighted you can go back and find our discussions. The problem between us is that I have general precepts which I have repeated over and over: God wanted humans. God uses evolution of the universe, Earth, and of life. He is in control except those things He either can't control or won't control, i.e., asteroids.

He either pre-planned or dabbled, probably both. He may have given organisms some freedom to try out adaptations (yes!) or phenotypic changes toward new species (an IM with His adjustment dabbles working together....possible). This is the area of your questioning, asking for some degree of exactitude, where I wander around, because I see no evidence in science to guide me. We just don't know about speciation, and Darwin is completely wrong.

dhw: The “it” that doesn’t make sense is the hypothesis I have summarized (plus the pre-programming option). Ten days later it makes sense after all. (Your defence of the non-sense is that that is how God did it.)

Exactly. God does 'it' somehow!

DAVID: Your suppositions fit the history, but doesn't mean they are correct. I think evolution is guided and yours favors chance progression.

dhw: “Chance” is misleading. If organisms deliberately design innovations, chance is only involved through changes in the environmental conditions that enable them to do so. As regards the emergence of humans, my theistic version allows for your God to dabble, or even to experiment. What it does not allow for is the hypothesis summarized above.

My God thesis has God definitely dabbling. We are still the same. chance vs. control.

DAVID: We see epigenetic adaptations, many described on this site. All are relatively minor compared to speciation.

Nobody “knows” of any, because nobody “knows” how speciation came about. That is why we can only theorize.

dhw: I am suggesting that he has given the same mechanism – though far more limited in scope – to other organisms.

DAVID: More limited scope as in epigenetic adaptations to environmental stresses. Fine.

DAVID: Autonomous IM's with follow up dabbles, as you've agreed, are fine.

dhw: One day the possibility of an autonomous inventive mechanism is fine (I agreed that your God could dabble if he wanted to, but autonomy does not require dabbles!) and a month later you can’t see any instance in which an autonomous inventive mechanism might be possible.

Same result: IMs are possible with God controlling outcomes. I've not changed. This area of theorizing has left us in the same positions.