Human evolution; early ancestor probable upright posture (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, September 23, 2019, 11:29 (1886 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: […] on page 258 of my book, Atheist Delusion is Dr. Fuller's exposition of a transitional vertebrae of a hominid form from 21 million years ago in a monkey fossil. Again well before descending the trees.

Dhw: How do you know it was “well before descending the trees”? Even monkeys descend from the trees! We have absolutely no way of knowing how long all these different apes and hominids spent up the trees and down on the ground!

DAVID: Exactly. Chimps are constantly up and down for six million years and they are still chimps. There has to be driving force to create humans and the fossil changes point to preparatory, unnecessary at the time, early changes by the driving force, God.

You seem to think that all animals live under the same conditions at all times and in all places or, if there are changes, they all respond in the same way. All we know is that some of our earliest ancestors began to develop traits of bipedalism! Instead of your God saying: “I want to specially design a totally upright H. sapiens, and so I’ll start by specially designing bits and pieces that aren’t necessary yet”, I suggest we have local conditions in which particular groups of “chimps” (or whatever) find that there’s more to life than living in trees, and there are even better prospects down on the ground. Hence various species of hominids and homos over approx. 21 million years according to Dr Filler.

Dhw: No wonder you have no idea why he would have chosen this method of “evolving” (= special designing) the only thing he wanted to evolve.

DAVID: As usual 'I have no idea' why God chose to evolve, but there is much evidence of pre-planning, with slight unnecessary changes in advance of full changed new species. New species are fully changed, as Gould always claimed.

There is evidence only of change. What do you mean by “fully changed”? All of these species were fully changed in the sense that they were individual, functioning life forms. And what on earth would be the point of your God preprogramming or dabbling unnecessary changes? I suggest that these changes would only have come into being and survived if they had been useful. And yes, that is Darwinian – and it is also sheer common sense.

QUOTE: Preliminary work on the pelvis of the recently discovered 1.98 million-year-old hominin Australopithecus sediba found it to possess a unique combination of Homo and Australopithecus-like features.

dhw: All complete in themselves, but suggestive of convergent evolution as each “species” works out its own evolutionary course.

DAVID: The 'homo' features are pre-planned preparations for a full new species. And of course re' my comment, you have no answer for birth canal changes to accommodate a bigger baby head, when it involves three individuals with their individual DNA's: father, mother and baby itself.

The ‘homo’ features worked perfectly well for that particular “fully changed” “full new” species! You claim to believe in common descent, and so every single species in which there is a father, mother and baby had to coordinate their DNA to accommodate whatever changes led to speciation. You have your God dabbling or preprogramming ALL changes in advance of their being needed! In the theistic version of my hypothesis, I have your God designing the autonomous mechanism which enables the cell communities to cooperate and reconstruct themselves according to new demands as they arise. Change in response to need, not in anticipation of it.