DHW: However, I accept what you say about structure, and if God set it all up, then clearly he set it up to allow for variation. Eventually, we are told, it will indeed fall apart and self-destruct – even solar systems have a limited life. Meanwhile, the system allows for continual falling apart and self-destruction on a micro-level (99% of species are extinct), but life goes on as long as life goes on, regardless of what form it takes.

Tony: That 99% figure is an unprovable, unsupported speculation.

The figure applies to more advanced species than bacteria which are excluded from the estimate. David Raup's book, Extinction, Bad Genes or Bad Luck , 1991, on page 3, places the rate estimated at 99.9%, of all animals and plants that ever existed.

[quote]DHW:David wants to know if you think God is in control. If God exists, I myself have no doubt that the system we have is the system he wants. The question then would be the extent to which he gives organisms the ability and freedom to control their own way of life: that applies just as much to their coping with or exploiting the environment as to humans choosing whether to be nice or nasty to one another.[/quote]

[quote]Tony: I do not think there is one right answer to that question. Yes,God is in control, but that does not mean he exercises that control at all times. A parent sometimes let's their kids play without interfering, and sometimes the reason for their doing so is not readily apparent to the child. Maybe there is other work to do, or they just want the kids to enjoy life for while. Perhaps, the parent feels that there is a lesson to be learned in having to play with others. Sometimes parents even let kids go their own way just to allow them to figure out that they are wrong and should listen to their parents.[/quote]

I interpret this as God is in complete control but chooses to relax it from time to time.

[quote]Tony: As far as evolution goes, the evidence indicates that it is dependent on the life form. Humans have more freedom than animals, who're are driven by more tightly constrained instinct. In all cases our genetic make up is tightly controlled, constrained, and self-correcting within those constraints.[/quote]

This issue is can a 'better' human evolve, and how are they better?

DHW: However, I accept what you say about structure, and if God set it all up, then clearly he set it up to allow for variation. Eventually, we are told, it will indeed fall apart and self-destruct – even solar systems have a limited life. Meanwhile, the system allows for continual falling apart and self-destruction on a micro-level (99% of species are extinct), but life goes on as long as life goes on, regardless of what form it takes.
TONY: That 99% figure is an unprovable, unsupported speculation.

I’m not bothered about the figure. Whatever it is, the system involves destruction, by eating, extinction and, we are told, eventually by the end of our solar system. I’m not complaining, though! Just saying that what you and David like to call the balance – whether between energy supply and demand, or between chaos and order, or between creation and destruction – is constantly changing. I really don’t know what it has to do with the subject of God’s sole purpose being to produce humans and everything else being related to that – but David and I at last seem to be reaching agreement on this thorny topic.

DHW: David wants to know if you think God is in control. If God exists, I myself have no doubt that the system we have is the system he wants. The question then would be the extent to which he gives organisms the ability and freedom to control their own way of life: that applies just as much to their coping with or exploiting the environment as to humans choosing whether to be nice or nasty to one another.
TONY: I do not think there is one right answer to that question. Yes, God is in control, but that does not mean he exercises that control at all times.

I’ll leave out your parent child image, as I think David’s concern – and certainly my own – is more with the control your God exercises over the course of evolution.

TONY: As far as evolution goes, the evidence indicates that it is dependent on the life form. Humans have more freedom than animals, who're are driven by more tightly constrained instinct. In all cases our genetic make up is tightly controlled, constrained, and self-correcting within those constraints.

Sorry, my post wasn’t clear, as my reference to human choice was misleading. You have said that you “do not believe in macroevolution, i.e. speciation. I have no issue at all with variations on a species...” David goes a lot further. He believes that his God specifically designs such variants as the weaverbird’s nest, the fly’s compound eye, the monarch butterfly’s migration. Wearing my theist’s hat, I am more inclined to think that God may have given organisms the autonomous intelligence to work out their own variations and lifestyles. It boils down to borderlines, and of course whatever one believes has important ramifications for one’s image of a Creator God and his possible purposes. That’s why I’m interested (David too, I think) in your views concerning the extent of your God’s control over the course of evolution.

As a convinced atheist, it always troubled me that while creationism offered an explanation of life and evolution whatever I thought of it, atheism did not. It clings to the idea that it was all a million’s to one series of chance events.
This always distressed me but not being an important person, I thought that if 'they' had no answer ... Then one day, loafing in my chair (aged 76), I resolved that if I believe/know that all things are subject to physical law, so must be life and evolution.
Suddenly excited by a flash of (rather clouded!) inspiration, I decided upon a dialectical approach to this conundrum. Having pondered in this way, I realised that my starting point must be (as it were) as if I were Mother Nature! There is nothing and no-one to help Mother Nature in this scenario.
It was obvious that while evolution was, thanks to Darwin et al., partially understood, the same cannot be said of life to any real extent. I have never considered chance – an arithmetic equation not engaged by nature – as affecting evolution. Mother Nature doesn’t ‘do’ arithmetic so chance barely exists.
All ‘events’ are the essentially automatic result of a current ‘pre-condition’. There are usually, probably two or more automatically acceptable outcomes in the terms of the then pre-existing conditions. Thus this process in not totally deterministic as it allows marginally different, immediate outcomes. These, in turn, will result in widely varying further outcomes.
So, I thought, it’s essentially atomic – must be if nature is automatic: complex (at this stage) would be impossible. Atoms, to become materials must be governed by laws (properties) that set the boundaries of their differing structures and capabilities including – most importantly – the acceptability of conjoining with other atoms that are’sympathetic in their structure. A simple example sprang to mind.
H2O !! This is the result of the interplay of entirely natural forces and materials. Before the advent of Homo-Sapiens, as far as we know, absolutely everything has been formed automatically.
So, for certain, we know that inorganic materials can and do form automatically! Life would seem to be formulated in like manner but there are other quite natural possibilities. No useful purpose for airing them here, unfortunately.
Evolution, however, is a different case.
The very simplest form of life as yet, eludes us, leaving only speculation. Nonetheless, it is possible that all life has developed from it. Assuming this to be so, that lifeform further developed when some member/s automatically accepted an additional atom or atoms. The addition/s altered the pre-existing ‘State’, just marginally and this ‘change’ modified the automatically the range of further ‘acceptability’.
In a nutshell, this process, automatically functioning in varying conditions, must inevitably result in all the lifeforms that have ever existed and any yet to appear.
Simple can only deal with simple, but, eventually, complexity is formed but is still limited to operating with only the simplest available choices. In Homo-Sapiens-Sapiens is displayed the amazing capability of the brain. Many feel that this level of complexity cannot arise in this seemingly ‘iffy’way.
What they fail to understand is that chance (iffyness!) plays no part! These bits of brain are already at a stage where the ‘rules of engagement’ can only accept very particular new configuration. The already existing ‘configurations’ take, as they must, account of the ‘directing balance’ of the organism (i.e. what it has become) in accepting further ‘additions’.
On 7th July 2007, ten full years ago, I sent the main body of my idea (in a pages long essay) to The Society for Interdisciplinary Studies. Mrs Jill Abury (Sec) the Soc. biologist added the title ‘The Genesis of Evolution’. Sadly, for me, it was rejected.
Analogies are, unfortunately rarely if ever fireproof, but, if we assume here that the letters of the alphabet are incontrovertible parts of natural law and that letter ‘A’ can conjoin wth any other and all the others have limitations, I can say that A, B, C, may be an example of a natural automatic attracted set of atoms.
This base will not accept some dozen of the others but can unite with half a dozen of the remainder. Other letters may form other bases, but only with a limited selection of letters that will then influence strongly further additions. Later, the more complex word may be able to absorb what were hitherto unacceptable letters.
An example: the word Verb can become Verbal or Adverb, but the word Verb cannot retain its initial structure if it accepts letters a,d or l. ‘Verbatimly’ would represent that later complexity. I hope this is sufficient to convey my meaning.
I should, I think, make the point that are no physical laws plural. Physical law is a totality, the so-called laws are simply shades of its intrinsic all-embracing nature. I would be happy to discuss any views I post, via john.kalber@yahoo.com .

So your God did not say to himself: “I’ll design the weaverbird’s nest in order to provide energy to keep life going until I choose to produce humans.” He said: “I’ll design the nest so that the weaverbird can fit into its eco-niche and live its own lifestyle. Nothing more.” Thank you. Now the only open theistic question is whether God designed the nest or the bird designed it.

Slightly twisted interpretation. Something more: The nest fits into the concept of balance of nature supplying energy for life in evolution. Each eco-niche fills the balance. All I can say about your theistic question is God helped the bird with the design. The bird could not do it on its own.

What you are saying that you believe, David, is that God, through the bird's own consciousness, guided the bird to design this particular new type of intricate nest, correct? So that anyone observing this very first process of the bird building this new nest, would say, wow...look at that strange new type of nest that bird just built! Obviously you do not mean that God directly chose a particular bird and sent him to God's 'School for Nest Building', right?

Dhw: So your God did not say to himself: “I’ll design the weaverbird’s nest in order to provide energy to keep life going until I choose to produce humans.” He said: “I’ll design the nest so that the weaverbird can fit into its eco-niche and live its own lifestyle. Nothing more.” Thank you. Now the only open theistic question is whether God designed the nest or the bird designed it.
DAVID: Slightly twisted interpretation. Something more: The nest fits into the concept of balance of nature supplying energy for life in evolution. Each eco-niche fills the balance.

I still don’t know how the nest itself supplies energy (unless, I suppose, you eat it) – that’s why it is my prime example – but of course I agree that all forms of life, regardless of which ones hold the balance of nature at any time, both need and supply energy, and energy is required for life to evolve.

DAVID: All I can say about your theistic question is God helped the bird with the design. The bird could not do it on its own.

All your versions of “help” are dealt with under “Genome complexity”. However, I acknowledge that complexity is a problem and we do not know how far organisms are capable of doing their own designing. But I am obviously far more open than you to the possibility that from bacteria upwards they may have sufficient (God-given?) intelligence to do it themselves.

DAVID: Humans are the current endpoint of evolution. If nothing else appears, they are the goal.
dhw: At last we now have an “if”. “Current endpoint” is a slightly odd expression, since endpoint = completion (and in any case it is not synonymous with goal).
DAVID: My 'if' is a cautionary comment. Frankly I cannot see any further evolution except some minor changes in humans, such as bigger, stronger, which we are seeing now. No major reconstructions like over the last eight million years.

I am not prepared to make predictions for the next thousand million years. But I suspect the “endpoint” is more likely to be bacteria than humans!

DAVID: No dichotomy. The range of wonders is the balance of nature supplying energy so evolution could continue. All to the purpose of evolving.
dhw: Yes, the purpose would be evolution, which certainly makes sense, since evolution is what we have – the coming and going of a vast range of organisms, the majority of which have no link whatsoever with God’s apparently “sole purpose” of producing humans.
DAVID: It seems you do understand my thoughts. The bush supports the energy supply needed.

Yes, as above, all life provides the energy needed for life to continue and to evolve, and no life can survive without some form of energy. This is self-evident. It is your God’s “sole purpose”, plus everything else being related to it, that I have objected to.

dhw: Again I am delighted that you have now chosen to accept the possibility that my proposals might be correct, i.e. that humans were not God’s only purpose, and that “everything else” was not specially designed to serve that one and only purpose. That is all I have ever asked for in this discussion.
DAVID: I've said might be possible and do fit the history. They do not presume God's existence.

Two of the hypotheses (God experimenting to produce a being like himself, and God thinking of humans later on in the course of evolution) do presume his existence. The autonomous inventive intelligence does not presume his existence, but it allows for him to be its inventor, and also allows for him to dabble if he does exist. I prefer all three of these to the concept of a God who designs every life form so that he can put off designing the only life form he wants to design.

dhw: Can I make choices? Definitely not on the macro-level – i.e. the existence of God. But I can certainly express preferences on other subjects. For instance, with my theist’s hat on, I prefer the hypothesis that he deliberately created a system that would lead to the vast variety of life forms and wonders that mark life’s history – not for the sake of producing humans, but for their own sake. I find the vast variety (including those that are extinct) absolutely fascinating. Why shouldn’t he? However I accept the possibility that your God may have intervened at times, and that humans (who I agree have very special levels of consciousness) may be the result of one such intervention.
DAVID: That is about as close as you can get to me. Good.

I have offered you this hypothesis many times, and will now raise my glass to you in celebration of the fact that you have finally agreed it is possible.