Convoluted human evolution: a branch is missing (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, August 04, 2017, 21:58 (2668 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: And I suggest that constant change runs contrary to the hypothesis that he started out with the sole purpose of creating a single species. But we have been over this a thousand times, and so if you will stop telling us that the higgledy-piggledy bush was God’s method of fulfilling his sole purpose of producing the human brain, I will stop proposing alternative interpretations of the bush and your God’s intentions.

DAVID: Sorry, your objection has holes. Evolution is change. In the case of the human evolutionary bush, the brain kept growing and developing more advanced functional hominins until humans appeared. Looks like a teleologic plan to me. Perhaps God set a genetic explosion in motion and let it run its course. Just as logical has your stories.

dhw: That IS my theistic story: that your God may have set the whole process of evolution in motion and let it run its course. Hence the great bush. But you won’t have it. According to you, God is always in control, and his sole purpose is to produce the brain of Homo sapiens! With my theist hat on, I’ve even allowed for the possibility of a special dabble, in order to accommodate the acknowledged specialness of Homo sapiens, but that’s not enough for you. Instead you have him personally designing the pre-whale, the weaverbird’s nest, the monarch butterfly’s migratory lifestyle, the parasitic wasp, dinosaurs, various types of nervous system, various brands of hominin and homo, and the duck-billed platypus, although all he actually wants to do is design Homo sapiens’ brain. Of course evolution is change. On a vast, bushy, higgledy-piggledy scale, not in a targeted straight line. Recently in a weak moment even you admitted that you couldn’t understand why your God would design all the different pre-whales if his sole purpose was to produce Homo sapiens. But then back you slide into the same old groove. And back I have to come with the same old objections. If you stop, I’ll stop.

I'll stop. God should always be in control. That is why He is God. You can imagine Him any way you want to in order to dilute his powers.