Explaining natural wonders: bacterial intelligence (Animals)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 04, 2017, 19:04 (2728 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I think God speciates. He controls the universe, but I don't know about local weather. He certainly controlled the evolution of a living Earth.

dhw: For me “local weather” means sunshine and showers. I am talking about the kind of environmental change that demands or allows major changes to organisms. The examples we have been discussing recently are forests turning into plains, and the move from land to water. (Chixculub is another prime example.) According to you, he created hominins and whales in advance of such environmental changes. So do you think he organized them, or left them to chance? If he left them to chance, how could he have engineered those species in advance?

DAVID: For the whales the environmental change is precise. Put a paw/hoof into water and change it to a flipper. As for hominins we have had the example of Selam with a lower body more humanoid than the upper body, a transitional form. Thursday, June 01, 2017, 00:54
God never let the development of humans to chance. So far, only god can speciate. Darwin has no demonstrated mechanism for it by chance.

dhw: We are discussing whether your God controlled the environmental changes or not. Your theory is that he restructured organisms before the environment changed. I have suggested that the organismal restructuring took place as a response to environmental change. The fact that both whales and hominins underwent transitional stages suggests to me that they were responding to the new environment rather than having been prepared for it in advance. But if they were indeed prepared in advance, that would mean your God must have organized the environmental changes. He would hardly have rejigged the pre-whale or the pre-human if he didn’t know the whale was going to enter the water or the human was going to descend from the trees. Or did he look into his crystal ball to see what chance events were on their way?

Local environmental change would relate to the ice ages. Note my entry today. I'm sure God created the fine-tuned universe which gives us life. He controlled Earth's evolution and life's development. The ice ages appear to have probable natural causes due to Milankovitch cycles and for civilizations sake hopefully high CO2 levels will keep a new one at bay. I know how to compare the whale/human environmental changes. Entering water is a deliberate transition for pre-whales. Trees to savannah is a slow local change. Salam looks to be prepared for the change to come, as do the pre-whales. God undoubtedly know of the change as He got animals into the water. And He undoubtedly anticipated the savannah. Not by chance!