Evolution and humans: Neanderthal lungs larger (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 06, 2018, 15:13 (2207 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: As for God knowing what He wants, you've forgotten that God used evolution to produce all the results we see.

dhw: If your God exists, I am happy with this. The result that we see is an ever changing spectacle of life forms extant and extinct, which suggests to me that your God wanted an ever changing spectacle of life forms extant and extinct.

DAVID: As before, purposefully useful for balance of nature.

dhw: As before, the balance of nature constantly changes as life forms come and go. How can an ever changing balance of nature be useful for balance of nature?

Balance of nature is not useful for itself, which I view as a strange off the point comment. Any presently existing balance of nature supplies energy for on -going evolution which takes time to create new forms.

dhw: Let me really stick my neck out. I truly believe that life would have continued even if there were not 50,000 different types of spider web. And I truly believe that H. sapiens would have evolved and would continue to exist if there were only a dozen webs, or no spiders at all, or even..wait for it...no weaverbird’s nest! Are you shocked?

DAVID: No. Not shocked. The operation of an evolutionary system allows experimentation in many directions. We have only one result to study, but I can imagine others leading to H. sapiens, with different diverse organisms in a different sets of balances of nature.

dhw: What are you saying now? Experimentation implies either that you want a particular result and don’t know how to get it, or you are trying out new things to see what they will lead to. Your last remark suggests that your God specially designed 50,000 different spider webs in the hope that they would somehow lead to his longed-for H. sapiens. (The alternative would be that he designed them to see what would happen as a result.) And you absolutely refuse to consider the possibility that spiders, using their possibly God-given intelligence, simply designed their own webs to give themselves the best chance of catching their prey.

Why can't I 'absolutely refuse' to believe tiny spider brains can design for the future? All I have said is God may have tried out different approaches on his way to Humans. I have no idea how rigidly He followed a direct plan or a more fluid one.