Human evolution; "Little foot's" balance mechanism (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, January 18, 2019, 10:22 (2134 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID’s comment: For me this study shows the vast number of ways humans differ from apes, and why design is required.

dhw: It is perfectly reasonable for you to make such comments, but I think it is also perfectly reasonable for me to respond. There is no doubt that we differ from apes in a vast number of ways, just as we resemble them in a vast number of ways. Every complexity suggests design, but do you believe your God deliberately designed Little Foot’s cochlea and then separately designed your own? And if so, why do you think your God deliberately designed a different cochlea for Little Foot when all he really wanted to do from the very beginning was design your cochlea?

DAVID: Because God used an evolutionary method requiring little steps and big jumps/gaps as history of evolution teaches us.

dhw: I’m glad to hear that you incorporate little steps in your theory. Unfortunately, what we now have is that your God deliberately designed Little Foot’s cochlea, and then separately designed your cochlea, although he only wanted to design your cochlea and could have done it if he had wanted to since he is in full control. The reason why he used this method is that this is the method he used. Furthermore, what you call an “evolutionary method” is in fact a method of separate creation. I’m sure you will understand why I don’t regard this explanation as very enlightening!

DAVID: I'm concerned with analyzing God's works and methods. The little steps are adaptations within species and the big steps are speciation. Little Foot is a definite new species compared to previous forms and the cochlea is one of changes in the new species.

And so you have your God separately designing Little Foot’s cochlea, and then separately designing your cochlea, although he only wanted to design your cochlea and could have done so if he’d wanted to because he is always in full control. The reason why he separately designed the two cochleas is that his method was to separately design two cochleas.

DAVID: In evolution we don't find God leaping from stage one whales to stage eight whales all at once, therefore it is stepwise as Darwin imagined, but not designed by a drive from survival, but designed as surviving by design in advance of the new step.

Transferred from my earlier post under “Big brain evolution”, so do please re-read:

dhw: I don’t know how you can possibly stick to your dogma that survival “never pushes evolution”, when even your own unproven hypothesis claims that your God deliberately designed one innovation after another to enable organisms to survive under new conditions, and their purpose was to enable life forms to survive until he could produce the only life form he actually wanted to produce, which was you and me. The difference between us here is that you have the innovations/adaptations being designed (by your God) in anticipation of their being needed for survival under new conditions, whereas I have them being designed (by intelligent cell communities) in response to their being needed for survival under new conditions. In both cases, survival is the prime reason for each innovation.

DAVID: And that response to natural demands for survival is pure Darwin.

Firstly, why do you think your God specially changed pre-whale legs into fins and then made them go into the water if the fins were not designed to improve their chances of survival in the water? Secondly, you seem to think that the name Darwin automatically negates any argument. What do you find so unthinkable in the proposal that organisms change in accordance with the requirements of their surroundings, and that these changes are made because they might improve their chances of survival?