Evolution, survival and adaptation (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, September 16, 2017, 13:03 (2623 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Not a conclusion but a hypothesis, and these are not my views of your God’s limits. They are yours, as you constantly shift your ground. My proposal is that your God is NOT limited, and that he deliberately created a free-for-all, i.e. did not WANT to control every twist and turn of evolution. This removes all the convolutions that arise from your anthropocentrism, which is the theory you want to consolidate but can’t. So I am simply asking you to consider an alternative.

DAVID: I don't view myself as shifting at all in my basic premise that God is in charge. And we agree He uses an evolutionary mechanism that creates a marvelously inventive bush of life.

If God exists, then of course he is in charge, and of course we agree that he used evolution, and of course we agree that evolution has resulted in a great big bush. Where we don’t agree is that God personally designed every twig of the bush although his prime purpose was to produce Homo sapiens and his brain. THAT is the theory you keep trying to consolidate, and in doing so find yourself shifting ground with every anomaly it throws up.

DAVID: What doesn't fit your theory is the obvious driven portion of evolution. […] Why not a God who drives evolution? After all He created a life-giving universe. If He has that power why stop and watch as you imply?

dhw: My theory is that evolution is driven by the twin fuels of survival and improvement. […] Of course he has the power to do what he likes, so ask yourself why there is a higgledy-piggledy bush instead of a straight line to Homo sapiens, and why your God hides, and maybe the answer is that he wanted a higgledy-piggledy bush and once he had set the wheels in motion, he wanted to stop and watch. If he exists, he’s created a great show.

DAVID: We both know God is hidden. You can't find Him at all. As for the bush I've accepted God's approach of evolving complex organisms rather than the six day Genesis story. Note He had first to evolve a universe with exploding stars to spread around the necessary life-creating element molecules from their fiery fusion furnaces. God evolves what He wants to create. That conclusion cannot be avoided.

As above, the question concerns what he wanted to create. With my theist hat on, I suggest he wanted to create an ever changing show which perhaps he continues to watch. You suggest he wanted to create Homo sapiens, you don’t know why he had to create a higgledy-piggledy bush of whales and monarchs and weaverbirds’ nests and hominins in order to get there, and he’s hidden himself because…well, why has he hidden himself, and is he watching or not?

DAVID: As for your theory, what fuels evolution of life is a mechanism that knows how to change for the better, not nebulous concepts of survival and improvement.

Changing for the better IS improvement! And I don’t see anything nebulous in the concept of survival.

DAVID: You are touting purpose, which is fine sounding, but it is obvious that speciation requires foresight and planning by a mental process, in God's brain.

God’s brain (does he have one?) could have provided the mental process by which organisms work out their own path to speciation. And that process can be one of response and not crystal-ball gazing.