Cosmology: Inflation theory under attack part 3 (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 25, 2017, 13:36 (2585 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: David has replied that his God may have limits. At other times he says his God is in total control. His view appears to change according to whatever objections are raised to his hypotheses.
DAVID: Not so. I accept primarily God has total control, but makes choices which make it appear He has limits. I admit He may have limits since I can't be sure.
dhw: I don’t know what you mean here by “primarily”. You “accept” that he has total control, and you “admit” that he may not have total control. And yet when I put on my theist hat and suggest that he has deliberately sacrificed control and allows evolution to run its course, you reject the very possibility.
DAVID: Of course I reject, because I also keep in mind the ultimate purposes I think guide God. Even if He cannot have full control, He will nudge the processes until He achieves what He wants.

If you agree that the processes can be out of his control although he can dabble (nudge) if he wants to, then it makes perfect sense to suggest that he actually wants them to be out of his control (i.e. allows the process to run freely) but can dabble (nudge) if he wants to. And that is the theistic scenario I have suggested and you have rejected.

DAVID: Balance of nature is logical for me.
dhw: Balance of nature means that life goes on so long as there are living organisms. It does not explain why your God, who according to you is capable of instantaneous creation of species (the Cambrian), and whose prime purpose was to create Homo sapiens, spent millions of years “mucking about” with all those hominins and hominids.
DAVID: Simple answer: God uses evolutionary processes, as history shows.

And so you jump from the irrelevance of “balance of nature” to evolution. You and I both believe history shows that all multicellular organisms, including humans, evolved. According to you, your God preprogrammed or dabbled “instant” species (the Cambrian) but for some unknown reason chose to “muck about” (reblak) with loads of hominins and hominids before producing the one species he really wanted: Homo sapiens. This apparently is explained by the fact that God’s logic is different from ours.

DAVID’S comment (on “energy and shrew brains”): Brains use lots of energy. This is an unusual adaptation to for the problem, but there is less food in winter. How the adaptation developed is unknown, but it involved reabsorption of skull plates which may have forced brain shrinkage. It is so massive a change it is akin to speciation. Research into this mechanism may unearth some information about speciation. And, if God arranges for new species, this may afford an insight into His methods.

Marvellous how organisms adapt. Looks to me like the work of those damned intelligent cell communities finding ways to cope with environmental conditions. If God exists, this would be a great example of his method of giving control to organisms to work out their own means of survival. But I suppose you will tell us that he controlled the shrewy shrinkage by dabbling or preprogramming it 3.8 billion years ago, so that life would continue until he could fulfil his primary purpose of producing the brain of Homo sapiens.