Convoluted human evolution: a branch is missing (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, August 06, 2017, 08:51 (2667 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: You have not stopped. And so once again with my theist’s hat on, I must point out to you that it is not a dilution of your God’s powers to suggest that he deliberately engineered a system that enables organisms to work out their own modes of survival and improvement. Why “should” he always be in control if he chooses to give his creations freedom? You accept that concept of freedom with your belief in human free will, so why not extend the principle to the whole process of evolution? In your own words (another of your unguarded moments): “Perhaps God set a genetic explosion in motion and let it run its course.” No dilution whatsoever, and at a stroke you remove all the anomalies I keep listing.

DAVID: Our free will is a result of the brain/consciousness we were given. All other organisms simply live, survive and reproduce. Your 'anomalies' are the result of removing God in control. The 'genetic explosion' refers to my comment about all the hominins that appeared as the only advance in evolution, which I would believe was totally under God's control.

Free will is an example of your God’s willingness to give up control. The anomaly of your God designing eight different types of pre-whale when all he wanted to do was produce the human brain has nothing to do with “removing God in control” and everything to do with the fact that, as you have admitted, even you can’t make sense of your own hypothesis. Setting something in motion and letting it run its course is a strange way of describing total control.