Human evolution; early ancestor probable upright posture (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 26, 2019, 08:34 (1675 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The definition of evolution is a change from one form to another, or have you forgotten? Progress has to be designed in my view , and in the fossil record are small changes and large gaps. Most species changes are after large gaps in form or physiology but obviously some are small. And as before, its not that I have 'no idea', I don't question God's choice to evolve all forms.

Since we both believe evolution happened, the disagreement is not over what evolution means but over your explanation of your God’s thinking! And you use every means possible to avoid combining the two irreconcilable parts of your theory: yes, if God exists, he chose to evolve all forms. No, evolve does not mean specially design, and no, evolve all forms does not mean that his one and only purpose was to specially design H. sapiens, but he decided not to do so for 3.X billion years and therefore had to specially design all the other forms in order to cover the time he had decided to take.

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

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

DAVID: Why should I? You are the one who has trouble with it, because it doesn't humanize God as much as you wish.

I have trouble with it because it offers an interpretation of your God’s purpose and method which even you find illogical (you have “no idea” why he would choose this way of fulfilling his one and only purpose). The illogicality of your explanation is not justified by complaining that a logical explanation entails using human logic!

dhw: …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: See the website below to understand that Neanderthal genes affect our skin and immunity and are beneficial to us. A wise God would let various homo types to contribute to the final sapiens product by developing different appropriate responses to a variety of environmental issues:

None of this justifies the illogicality of the bolded part of your theory above, and I still don’t know why you think an always-in-control God found it necessary to specially design H. sapiens by first designing umpteen different hominids and homos, with a useless 21-million- year-old vertebra here and a Neanderthal gene there. In any case, you now give us a quote which leaves wide open the effect of these genes on people today:

“But researchers cannot yet say how these archaic sequences affect people today, much less the humans who acquired them some 50,000–55,000 years ago."

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

dhw: 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: Of course it does! The bush supplies energy for evolution to continue under God's guidance.

How does that come to mean that his sole purpose was to specially design H. sapiens? All it means is that so long as there is life, there is life! “Under God’s guidance” merely repeats your fixed belief that he specially designed every branch of the bush.