Human evolution; early ancestor probable upright posture (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 25, 2019, 11:31 (1676 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Dr. filler's point is mine. Why a tiny inconsequential lumbar change 21 million years ago? It didn't change the lifestyle of that monkey and wasn't necessary at that time.

dhw: How on earth do you and he know about the lifestyle of a monkey that lived 21 million years ago? Maybe the monkey spent a bit more time on the ground than in the trees because it found a greater variety of food that way, and so it had a bit of a lumbar change. […]

DAVID: Of course I don't know the daily habits of the monkey, but I do know that slight changes in one vertebrae didn't change the animal. It demonstrates god's pre-planning for future evolution and demonstrates God's tight control using His chosen method of creation.

So 21 million years ago your always-in-total-control God, whose only purpose was to design H. sapiens, went to all the trouble of specially changing one vertebra, which was of no use whatsoever to the monkey concerned, but this demonstrates his chosen method of designing the only thing he wanted to design. No wonder you have no idea why he chose such a method!

DAVID: That I don't question God's choices is your problem, not mine.

Once more: my problem is that you don’t question your INTERPRETATION of his choice of purpose and method!

Under “Human evolution”: According to archaeologist Dr. Eleanor Scerri and geneticists Dr. Lounès Chikhi and Professor Mark Thomas, the quest for a single original location for modern humans is a wild goose chase.

dhw: Which means there were multiple locations, […] and it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that variations would have been the response to different conditions.

DAVID: The point was 90% were in Africa, not scattered all over. And you are correct, there were different conditions in all part of Africa.

And so, I repeat, it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that the variations would have been the response to different conditions, as opposed to your God specially designing all of them in anticipation of different conditions and as steps along the way to specially designing the only species he wanted to create.

DAVID: Cell committees cannot plan and design. That is obvious. You can invent all you want about 'my God'. I view it as pure invention, not supported by my view of a purposeful, in-control God.

dhw: In my hypothesis, cell communities react to new conditions by redesigning themselves, and we know they can do this by adapting. It is not “obvious” that they can’t achieve major changes, but that remains an open question. Once again the invention of such a mechanism would be purposeful, and it would indicate that your God deliberately chose to give evolution free rein.

DAVID: "Free rein" in no way supports a purposeful God who knows what He wants to evolve. Still humanizing God.

Free rein supports the idea that a purposeful God’s purpose was the higgledy-piggledy bush which constitutes the history of life on Earth. The higgledy-piggledy bush ”in no way” supports the idea that from the very beginning God only wanted one species and yet was in total control of every branch!

DAVID: (under “early fossils”) No wonder H. sapiens ancestry is so confusing. Expect many more specimens before it clears up.

No wonder you have no idea why your always-in-control God would specially design all these confusingly different specimens when all he wanted was just one.