Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, June 23, 2017, 15:12 (2709 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I’m glad our discussions are as helpful to you as they are to me in our quest to explain the inexplicable. One of the problems I have with your theories is that they fail to connect all the things we are trying to explain.... And we mustn’t forget that God’s one and only purpose was to create homo sapiens, which leaves you floundering to explain why he preprogrammed eight or so stages of whale.

I've explained the whale as part of the balance of nature in the oceans, a theory you totally reject, therefore you've forgotten my point of view. God could just as well have started with aquatic animals to make whales. He created sharks there. Maybe to prove His prowess to us He took on the tough task of putting modified mammals in the water. This fanciful theory, just as fanciful as most of yours, is really quite logical. Proof of his powers on exhibit!

dhw: As for dabbling, I don’t agree that it is not important. The implication of what you have written above is that your God is not capable of reaching into existing organisms and restructuring them in order to take advantage of new conditions. Now apparently all the big changes had to be planned in advance. Why are you suddenly limiting his powers (again)?

I'm not limiting Him. The 3.8 billion years of programming from the beginning might be the correct interpretation and that is not a limit.

DAVID: Mental states are not physical states. Our free will is a one time mental concession to allow us free use of the gift of our giant brain. God maintains physical control of evolutionary processes for all physical changes. It is the only example where He has allowed freedom, and doesn't fit as a glaring exception.

dhw; Your authorative declaration that “God maintains physical control” is the premise I am questioning! Free will may not be an “exception”. It may be an extension of a pattern in which God creates a system that allows organisms themselves to devise the vast variety of forms, lifestyles and wonders we see throughout the ever changing history of life. What evidence do you have for your dogmatic statement? You cannot even make up your mind from one day to the next about the extent to which your God controls the environment. “Physical control” of evolution is another guess, and it has no more authority than mine.

We remain totally apart. Equating free will as a gift to humans cannot be stretched into allowing a free wheeling evolution run by the organisms being evolved. Conscious organisms willing themselves into consciousness. They cannot even imagine that consciousness exists!