Innovation and Speciation: whale changes (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, June 03, 2017, 14:27 (2729 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Of course evolution occurs step by step. Only they are giant steps.

dhw: I was replying to your theory that change preceded use, i.e. that it was fully formed hominins that jumped down from the trees, or fully formed whales that entered the water. I find it more logical to hypothesize that the giant steps were initiated by the change of environment, driven by the desire for survival and/or improvement (though you prefer complexity), and implemented improvement by improvement.

DAVID: Your same response to look for an internal organismal drive, instead of an external force.

dhw: Your same response to look for an external force instead of an internal organismal drive possibly implanted by your God. When you talk of a drive to complexity, you offer us two possibilities: 1) a 3.8-billion-year programme, and 2) dabbling. The programme would be an internal organismal drive implanted by your God. Only dabbling would be external. So are you now saying that your God personally dabbled every single complexification in the history of life?

We are at the end of the line on this issue. From the beginning I've said God controls evolution by either or both mechanisms. Your suppositions about internal drives to cover the gaps in the fossils never explain how the mental planning is done. I firmly state God is the cause. You suggest he might be.