Unanswered questions (General)

by David Turell , Monday, April 22, 2019, 15:45 (1830 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: "My belief" is not a belief but a logical way that God might have controlled evolution.

dhw: Thank you for reminding me that you do not actually believe in your hypothesis of a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for the whole of life. I can’t say I blame you. I accept, however, that it is a logical way for your God to have controlled evolution. What is not logical is that you consider this to have been a logical way for your God to have fulfilled what you believe to have been his one and only purpose to create H. sapiens. That is why you have no idea why he would have chosen such a method.

Your demand that I explain God's choice to use evolution of life as a means of creating humans makes no sense, yet you persist in reverting to it. I don't have to explain it if
I simply accept it as the way He did it. I see you as having the problem.

DAVID: Our current period of no new species is the constant pattern of evolution, long periods of stasis followed by bursts of new forms, as in the Cambrian explosion, totally denying Darwin's step- by-step theory. In all of history, species last for very long periods before disappearing, most often by sudden environmental disasters as in Chixculub/dinosaurs.

dhw: That was the point of my first sentence, and it answers none of our unanswered questions. I don’t know why you constantly refer to the acknowledged weaknesses in Darwin’s theory. Darwin did not pretend to have all the answers to all the unanswered questions. You and I agree that evolution in the form of common descent happened. The disagreements are over HOW it happened, and nobody can tell us.

My only point is periods of stasis suggest God steps in to push the process along. Darwin certainly had no answers and tends to remove God from any actions.

DAVID: All of this supports my concept of an early controlling program genetically controlling development with underlying patterns to be followed.

dhw: It supports the concept of genetically controlled development harnessed to environmental conditions, and obviously common descent is sure to follow patterns laid down by earlier forms that evolve into new forms. It offers no support whatsoever to the concept of a divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every single bacterial action, evolutionary innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life past, present and future.

I was referring specifically to genetic patterns for form development, not every action in responding to daily activities.