autonomy v. automaticity (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 28, 2018, 12:29 (2430 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I simply cannot understand why you are not prepared to consider the theistic possibility of freewheeling (with the option of the occasional dabble). Of course that option would be impossible if the human brain was God’s one and only purpose, but you now believe the human brain was just a “primary” purpose, which means there are other purposes. So what stops you from accepting freewheeling as a rational explanation for the higgledy-piggledy bush?

DAVID: I will admit, as I've said, over and over, that if organisms have an inventive mechanism there might be a degree of freedom in what is evolved, which can be controlled by a 'dabble'.

You have never accepted autonomy. According to you there are always “guidelines” (i.e. preprogramming or dabbling). “Can be controlled by a dabble” is fine with me. If God exists, he could dabble any time he wanted. What is not fine with me is your insistence that all the natural wonders and lifestyles you present to us HAVE to be the result of your God’s preprogramming or dabbling, and furthermore that they are all somehow geared to the production of the human brain.

DAVID: You are pushing for fine details on how evolution is controlled by God and I do not have definitive evidence to help me make up my mind. The human brain is the primary goal, balance of nature an important secondary goal. I accept God as totally in charge, but how tight is an issue I admit I can't seem to solve. However, that doesn't change my conclusion God is in charge.

Of course if God exists he is in charge. He does what he wants to do. And maybe what he wants to do is give organisms the freedom to evolve in an ever changing variety of ways (with the option of an occasional dabble). “Totally” but you don’t know how “tight”, so you don’t know how “totally”. Word play. The ever changing balance of nature is not a goal of evolution, it is a result. One particular balance of nature is a goal in the context of humans achieving what they believe to be a healthy balance for themselves and their fellow organisms. (See your PAX under “balance of nature”.) You have offered no purpose for evolution other than the production of the human brain, and I push for fine details because of all the anomalies I listed earlier, and because the claim that your God designed the weaverbird’s nest and every other natural wonder you can think of in order to keep life going for the sake of the human brain makes no sense to me. By contrast, you have accepted that my (theistic) hypothesis makes perfect sense as an explanation for the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution. And yet you refuse to consider it.