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

by dhw, Saturday, January 26, 2019, 13:49 (2126 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Have you presented any actual evidence?

dhw: What do you want me to do? Should I cut off the whale’s fins and tail, remove the cuttlefish’s camouflage, stop the monarch butterfly from migrating, go round snipping out the web-making equipment of 50,000 types of spider, and then report back to tell you how long they survive? You claim that your God specially designed all these innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders, and did so to enable the organisms to SURVIVE until his mysteriously self-imposed waiting time of 3.5+ billion years had elapsed, and only then could he design the only thing he wanted to design. "Have you presented any actual evidence?" If the purpose of an innovation, lifestyle or natural wonder (whether specially designed by your God or not) is to help the organism to survive, it is patently absurd to say that survival plays no role in evolution.

DAVID: Twisting and turning again. I never said it played NO role in evolution.

I haven’t got time to go through all your past posts, but this has been an ongoing theme. The quote I noted down for future reference was from 11 December under “Introducing the brain; complexity: autopilot: “As I see it there is little real evidence that survival plays any role in evolution, if humans are used as an example.” At the time, this had nothing to do with the subject under discussion, and I responded: “Why you keep harping on about survival is a mystery to me, except that it is part of your Darwinphobia.” But we needn’t quibble over it, since you continue to insist, as below, that survival is not a driving force:

DAVID: To repeat: species must be designed to survive or evolutionary advances will stop. The driving force is a designer who is fully aware of the necessity of survival. I do not accept survival as a driving force, and I don't expect you to become a research scientist. Just find me a factual report that proves evolution is driven by survival. It is a Darwin concept, never proven, and I know you know that.

Nothing is proven – not even the existence of God or the theory of evolution. Why have you ignored the point I put to you earlier? If there is a God, then of course he is the driving force behind life and evolution. That is not the issue. The doer is the driving force behind the deed, and the motive is the driving force behind the doer. If you set out to make a fortune, you are the driving force behind the business, and love of money is the driving force for your creating all the elements which will make the business successful. Whatever may have been your God’s motive in starting life and evolution, the purpose, motive or driving force for creating all the individual elements (innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders) – according to your own hypothesis – was to enable the organisms to survive. If purpose or motive is not a driving force, then I really don’t know what is.

dhw: How can you reconcile common descent with “I think God creates species de novo in an evolving order” (January 16)? If he modifies existing species (= common descent), then speciation is not de novo!

DAVID: You misinterpret my use of de novo. Each species is a new species although it certainly may be a modification. It may have come from a previous form but it still is something new. I use it is the Latin sense of something new from something in the past.

dhw: …if you create something de novo, it means you create it from scratch, not that you modify something that already exists. Creationists believe that their God created each species separately, or de novo (= anew, afresh, from the beginning), whereas evolutionists believe that all species evolved out of earlier species. You are as aware of this as I am. Even with my limited knowledge of Latin, I don’t know how “de novo” can mean “from something in the past”.

DAVID: No need to argue about de novo. In Latin it is something new. Dictionaries support there usage: Roget's thesaurus : anew, afresh.

Thank you for repeating the definition I already gave you in my answer (now bolded). Absolutely nothing to do with “something from the past”, and absolutely in line with Creationism as opposed to evolution. I presume your use of the term was simply a mistake, then, and you do believe in common descent as opposed to your God creating species de novo, so we can drop it.