Convoluted human evolution: H. naledi ; recent (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 10, 2017, 12:01 (2505 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This branch has been dated, and the burial sites are not more than 300,000 years old, which means they existed at the same time as when H. sapiens appeared:
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/homo-naledi-likely-existed-alongside-early-human...

We have discussed naledi before, beginning on Friday July 7 2016 under “Convoluted human evolution: H. naledi branch”. Here are some quotes which I find highly revealing in the light of your current belief in God’s unlimited powers and full control:

DAVID: All the species of Homo being found fits my theory that several varieties of a new type are produced to allow survivability (natural selection) pick out the winner/winners.
Dhw: […] I don't think many evolutionists would disagree. Several varieties of homo came into being, and natural selection picked out the winner. Evolution has resulted in millions of organisms and varieties, and the survivors were/are/will be the winners. Darwin had a similar idea. But the theory you have proposed is that God personally directed the production of countless natural wonders and species, including various homos, although he actually set out to produce homo sapiens. […] if he knew that homo sapiens (his apparent purpose) would survive, he must have fixed it that way, so what do you think was the point of his organizing the competition? If he didn't know, he was not “in full control” (your theory, not mine).

David: […] Perhaps He is not in full control. […] He may simply stimulate the evolutionary process until He gets humans. […]
dhw: […] “perhaps he is not in full control” is the concession I have been asking for. In my theistic hypothesis, he CHOOSES not to be in full control. And that choice may extend to the whole process of evolution, with the concession to you that he might sometimes dabble, e.g. to produce humans.
DAVID: I can't go as far as you do. I suspect He watches over evolution quite closely but takes a hands off approach, and I would especially favor that thought if we could find a speciation inventive mechanism in the genome. That would allow for a variety of complexity and survival competition.

The “hands off approach” which you “suspected” has to entail at least a degree of control being sacrificed, which in turn requires an autonomous inventive intelligence which he can dabble with (= hands on) if he wants to. Now, however, under “Explaining natural wonders” we have the following:

dhw: Why are you so afraid to acknowledge the POSSIBILITY that he enabled organisms to do their own designing (though with the option of dabbling when he felt like it)?
DAVID: Not 'afraid'. God is in charge no matter how it happened. 3.8 billion year program or dabbling remain the only possibilities.

“No matter how it happened”, but it can only have happened your way, and the “hands off” approach disappears. In that case do please give us your new answer to my original question and comment:
…if he knew that homo sapiens (his apparent purpose) would survive, he must have fixed it that way, so what do you think was the point of his organizing the competition? If he didn't know, he was not “in full control” (your theory, not mine).”


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