Human evolution; early ancestor probable upright posture (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, September 26, 2019, 19:43 (1883 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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.

My meaning of the word evolve, since you brought up the word's meaning, is that new complexities developed from past complexities creating a process that advanced complexity. We differ in that I firmly think God guided the process and in doing so He actually designed what required design and gave organisms the epigenetic ability for minor adaptations. As for humans, we are such an unusual result they are an obvious goal of evolution. I am not confused about God's thinking, since I believe what happened is God's doing as Creator. He obviously chose to evolve humans over time.

dhw: 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.

Having no idea as to why God made His choice to evolve humans, means only that
I cannot know His reasons, only guess at them, and therefore is a totally logical position.

dhw: 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."

What a wild assumption. The researchers know the genes exist, but how much they affect us is still under current investigation, not that they are probably valueless as you imply.

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.

dhw: 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.

Have you forgotten the argument that we humans are so special we must be his final purpose, as Adler argues from his position as a believer philosopher. You can't ignore it!