Innovation and Speciation:baleen whale feeding (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, June 24, 2017, 11:49 (2708 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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.
DAVID: 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.

The balance of nature means nothing more than life continuing, no matter what organisms exist at the time. In respect of the eight or so stages, you wrote (13 June) “If it’s God's method it does not have to make sense. The whales present evidence that the simplest path is not always used, for reasons not clear to me, or you.” That’s the point of view I remember.

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)?
DAVID: 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.

You have suddenly dismissed your own dabbling alternative to preprogramming because you say major changes require advanced planning. If you are not limiting God’s powers, what stops him from intervening and making major changes IN RESPONSE to environmental changes? Might not responsive divine dabbling be the correct interpretation, with no need for advanced planning?

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.
And
DAVID: 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.

Human free will is an example of your belief that God ceded control. Your dogmatic statement that he maintains control over evolution has no more authority than the proposal that he set the whole process in motion and then sat back to watch what organisms would do with the autonomy he gave them.

DAVID: Conscious organisms willing themselves into consciousness. They cannot even imagine that consciousness exists!

As usual, you are now trying to equate consciousness with human self-awareness in order to ridicule the idea. And the concept of cellular intelligence does not mean that cells/cell communities will themselves into consciousness. We do not know the source of ANY level of consciousness, but God is one possibility.