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

by David Turell , Wednesday, January 23, 2019, 19:28 (2129 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Why do you think organisms cooperate if it’s not in order to improve their chances of survival?

DAVID: Cooperation helps survival, but you keep insisting survival drives evolution and that is a concept that is unproven.
And
DAVID: Survival is required for evolution to continue. Survival is designed into the process by God.

dhw: I would have thought that for most people the role of survival as a driving force is blindingly obvious etc. etc.

DAVID: Our difference is that I view God as driving evolution step by step which makes survival a non-driving force.

dhw: No it doesn’t. In your hypothesis, of course your God is the driving force behind the creation of life and evolution. The doer is the driving force behind the deed, and the reason for the deed is the driving force behind the doer. In your hypothesis, survival is the driving force behind your God’s decision to specially design whale fins, cuttlefish camouflage and monarch butterfly flight paths.

Total misinterpretation of my clearly stated position. God's driving force is His purpose to produce humans through a process of evolving ever-complex organisms. Survival must be included in the progressive designs or evolution cannot proceed. This is a nuanced view that seems to escape you, probably because you do not have a view of God similar to mine.

dhw: The fact that you believe your always-in-control God specially designed these means of survival in order to provide econiches for life forms to eat one another (= your food argument on the genome thread) so that he could fill in 3.5+ billion years before specially designing the only thing he wanted to specially design – you and me – does not alter the obvious fact that survival is the reason for inventing means of survival. The reason for doing something is the driving force for doing it. And so even in your strange hypothesis of 3.5 billion years of divine procrastination, it is absurd to claim that “there is little real evidence that survival plays any role in evolution”, which was the starting point of this particular discussion.

Your usual trope. Of course God seems to have procrastinated if He decided to chose evolution as his means of creation. Why won't you allow Him the right to make that choice? It is what history tells us, and doesn't require your fanciful theories about God wildly human desires.

dhw: You then asked me which of Darwin’s ideas I “cling” to, and I gave you a complete list of those I accepted and those I rejected.

DAVID: Fine. Common descent is a step-wize development of more and more complexity. As above I view God as the driver designer.

dhw: I know you do. Sometimes you even view God as having specially designed every step and every species “de novo” although you claim to believe in evolution and common descent. Anyway, you asked me which of Darwin’s ideas I “cling” to, and I answered you.

I don't understand you. My view of God's control is obviously a form of common descent, one you don't like, but that doesn't change its validity as a viewpoint.