Practical Consequences (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, October 31, 2009, 19:12 (5501 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George & David,-While I cannot disagree with the basic logic: Why posit something when you don't have to, I have a few things to say specifically regarding her article, on "Guided Evolution":-Quite the contrary. If there had been a divine hand tinkering with the process, we would expect evolution to have proceeded radically differently than it has. We would expect to see, among the changes in anatomy from generation to generation, at least an occasional instance of the structure being tweaked in non-gradual ways. We would expect to see -- oh, say, just for a random example -- human knees and backs better designed for bipedal animals than quadrupeds. (She said bitterly, putting an ice pack on her bad knee.) We would expect to see the blind spot in the human eye done away with, perhaps replaced with the octopus design that doesn't have a blind spot. We would expect to see the vagus nerve re-routed so it doesn't wander all over hell and gone before getting where it's going. We would expect to see a major shift in the risk-benefit analysis that's wired into our brains, one that better suits a 70-year life expectancy than a 35-year one. We would expect to see... I could go on, and on, and on.-The metaphysical counter of an imperfect God neatly deals with this issue. I would agree, why then posit an imperfect creator? I ask "What's the point?" I'm sure David would be much better equipped to answer that...-This next portion is much better:
What we see instead is exactly what we would expect to see if evolution proceeded entirely as a natural, physical process. We see "designs" of living things that are flawed and inefficient and just plain goofy: "designs" that exist for no earthly reason except the slow incrementalism that's an inherent part of the physical process of evolution. We see anatomical adaptations severely constrained by the fact that each generation can only be a slight modification on the previous generation, with no sudden jumps to a different basic version. We see anatomical adaptations severely constrained by the fact that each new version has to be an improvement on the previous version (or at least, not a deterioration from it). We see a vast preponderance of evidence showing that evolution proceeds very slowly, very gradually, with the anatomy of each generation being only slightly altered (if at all) from that of the previous generation.-To me, it appears that Turell's strongest evidence for "jumps" in evolution lies soley in fossil-type questions, such as the Cambrian Explosion. I've seen no modern evidence that supports any kind of rapid speciation that happens without several generations. She handles that portion quite well, actually.-And I still don't know how RNA-mediation would "speed up" evolution when you consider that the trait still needs to be passed on to the next generation... RNA might just trigger that bit of random character that everyone displays in their human phenotypes. -As for the majority of the argument, she operates under a different definition of "supernatural" and "natural" than does our David... to David, there is no difference between the two: The distinction is meaningless. (Correct me if I'm wrong, David.) -Her assault on a cosmological consciousness is thoroughly demolishing... I can't find any wriggle room in her logic.

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"