Purpose and design (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, April 08, 2017, 00:09 (2785 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: the fact that life has continued does not mean that humans were God’s only goal. I don’t see how the nest provides energy (that’s why it’s my prime example), but why design it anyway if all he wanted was humans?

The design of the nest fits the weaverbird into its eco-niche, nothing more. Humans asre the current endpoint of evolution. If nothing else appears, they are the goal.

dhw: Fine. So once again, why design the weaverbird’s nest?

So it can live its lifestyle.

DAVID: ...you keep equating bird's nests with the purpose of producing humans. The only connection, which you well know, is that humans took a long time to appear and as Tony observes constant energy was needed to get there.

dhw: Energy was and is needed for all forms of life, with or without humans, and the fact that God took a long time to achieve his one goal, though he could have done so “without any difficulty”, does not explain why he specially designed the weaverbird’s nest and the huge range of other wonders. That is the dichotomy.

No dichotomy. The range of wonders is the balance of nature supplying energy so evolution could continue. All to the purpose of evolving.

dhw: A possible explanation is either that he didn’t design it, or that his purpose was not confined to the production of humans. Either of these will remove the dichotomy.

No dichotomy just convoluted reasoning .

TONY: Balance does not mean or imply stasis. It is not a static thing. Of course things are changing. It's like a top or a tight rope walker. They are constantly in motion, making constant tiny corrections, but the end result is balance.

dhw: Balance between what and what? We are talking about Nature and life, which boils down to balance between demand and supply. I do not believe for one second that God said to himself, “I am going to design the weaverbird’s nest in order to ensure that there will be enough energy to balance demand and supply so that life can keep going until I produce humans, who are my only goal.” (Multiply this example by a few million.) THAT is the point at issue here.

The nest is to allow the weaverbird to have its lifestyle and fit into its eco-niche, nothing more. You keep insisting on a much stronger connection, which doesn't exist, except in your mind.

DAVID: I am certainly allowed to reach that conclusion.[/I[/quote]

[quote]dhw: The point of discussion is to test how reasonable those conclusions are. You vacillate from admitting that your hypothesis makes no sense to offering an explanation which you then reject (God’s limitations), and then to repeating the same hypothesis with the same irreconcilable arguments that your God preprogrammed or dabbled millions of complex designs extant and extinct before fulfilling his one and only purpose, which he could have achieved “without any difficulty”.

My vacillation was during a period of your questioning my thoughts about God and how He handled the process of evolution. I explored, not vacillated, several avenues of thought. I've now concluded that God chose a lengthy evolutionary process. There was no delay. He had no difficulty. He created the bush of life which supplies the balance of nature to have energy for life to continue to evolve over such a long period of time. It make perfect sense to me. All of your proposals fit the history, but I don't accept them as probable, only possibilities. I've been though a somewhat convoluted process, but I've made my choices. Can you make any choices?