Evolution: whales defy explanation (Evolution)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Thursday, August 16, 2018, 12:41 (2289 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: If all living organisms are likely exceptions, the author is rejecting common descent altogether. And yet there is sufficient evidence to have convinced you that common descent is true, so in what way is his "neat view" parallel to your feelings? He certainly hasn’t specified that he believes in your 3.8 billion-year-old computer programmes or even your dabbling. He merely falls back on the generalisation that speciation requires design – and both of us agree. NOBODY knows how speciation took place, and that’s why there are different theories. All three of us reject random mutations. You propose divine preprogramming and/or dabbling. I propose cellular intelligence (possibly designed by your God). The author doesn’t offer us any theory at all. So where does that leave us? Since there is no consensus, “the story is still mysterious”, and if there weren’t gaps in all the theories, one of them would be fact and not theory.

Note the authors comment on the lack of transitional fossils, and the implications for the two theories you mention here.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.