An Alternative to Evolution: Expounded Upon (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 25, 2018, 13:00 (2311 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Our difference is in the definition of the term 'common descent'. From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent
"Evidence of common descent of living organisms has been discovered by scientists researching in a variety of disciplines over many decades, demonstrating that all life on Earth comes from a single ancestor."

DAVID: This could have been done by God and still be common descent by definition.

dhw: I have already quoted a Wikipedia definition of common descent, and there is no difference whatsoever between us! Last week you wrote: “I don’t reject the separate creation Bible theory, since I also think God stepped into the process continuously or at various points (dabbling). None of me is on your picket fence.” You don’t seem to realize that separate creation means that all life does NOT come from a single ancestor! It is the opposite of common descent. And so you believe in common descent but you do not reject separate creation, which may even have been continuous, but you are not on the fence!

DAVID: IF God started life and then designed every subsequent stage of life until He arrived at humans, that is descent from a common ancestor. It is not natural common descent, it is theistic common descent. Common descent looked at from that perspective is common descent. It would just like the history of evolution we see today. No fence involved here.

We are not arguing about theism versus naturalism. You know as well as I do that the Bible teaches separate creation, which means your God created each species separately, and the theory of common descent caused such a stir because it went against the teachings of the Bible. You can believe in God “designing” each species out of preceding species, or setting up a mechanism whereby each species develops out of preceding species, all the way back to the first forms of life, and either of those will be theistic common descent. But then you cannot believe in separate creation, which means he created them separately and not out of preceding species. Please stop pretending to be ignorant!

DAVID: We all know there is no proof. Some of us want a reasonable explanation, not fence sitting.

dhw: I consider adaptations as evidence of cellular intelligence, and so the hypothesis that the cell communities are also capable of major innovations seems to me at least as reasonable as the hypothesis that these came about through random mutations, or that an unknown designer fiddled with the anatomy of pre-whales before they entered the water, and then kept fiddling and fiddling, because he needed all these changes to provide food so that life could continue until he was able to produce the brain of Homo sapiens.

DAVID: Back on the fence.

dhw: You have missed the point. Do you really and truly believe that all the non sequiturs of the third hypothesis make it reasonable?

DAVID: I don't find a third hypothesis in the above discussion.

1) Cellular intelligence, 2) random mutations, 3) your sequence of non sequiturs. Do you really believe that 3) is “reasonable”?