David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, October 06, 2019, 19:36 (1873 days ago) @ dhw

Under “monarch adaptation”:

dhw: I agree with you that these mutations could not have been by chance. But I don’t understand why a designer whose only purpose was to design H. sapiens would, 3.8 billion years ago, have provided the first cells with a programme for these three mutations in the monarch butterfly. Clearly the cell communities of the monarch’s immediate ancestor are what changed (mutated), and so an alternative to divine programming and/or dabbling might have been the intelligence (possibly God-given) of the cells themselves enabling them to find new ways to survive.

DAVID: That is your theory, not mine. The monarchs are necessary part of their econiche and therefore part of God's design.

dhw: Yes, the alternative is my suggested explanation, and yes, all organisms could be called a “necessary part of their econiche” until they become extinct and the econiche changes. You seem to have forgotten the theory which I find so illogical, so let me remind you yet again: “He knew these designs were required interim goals to establish the necessary food supply to cover the time he knew he had decided to take”, i.e. 3.X billion years NOT fulfilling his actual goal, which was to specially design piece after piece of hominin and homo until he finally specially designed H. sapiens – and you have “no idea” why he would have chosen such a method to achieve such a goal, but it’s quite logical provided we humans don’t try to figure out its logic.

DAVID: You've simply repeated your illogical distortions, implying God should have been humanly impatient and gotten right to His goal of producing humans. Instead it is obvious to me God, in charge, chose to evolve us over time and had to design the bush of life to arrange for the energy needed for the time period involved, 3.8 billion years. Note the bush is also the result of evolving life from bacteria to humans. His choice of methodology is obvious, and yes, we do not know His reasons, nor can we. You like to guess and complain about Him, when it is clearly what He has done.

dhw: I am not implying that your God should have been humanly impatient, I am not querying the known fact that evolution has so far lasted 3.8 billion years and that humans came very late on the scene, and I am not complaining about God. I am complaining about your illogical assumption that he only had one goal, but for reasons you cannot imagine decided not to pursue it for 3.X billion years and therefore “had to design the bush of life”, with each non-human innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder being an “interim goal” in order to cover the time he had decided to take. I have offered you several perfectly logical alternative reasons for the bush, all of which by your own admission fit in with the history of life. I see no reason why you should reject them all because of your assumption that your God has a purpose and method which by your own admission defy human logic, especially since you even agree that “he very well could think like us”.

Another example, under “Nature’s wonders: echolocation”
"Remarkably, the researchers found that their unbiased analysis homed in on the cochlear ganglion as the single most affected tissue among echolocating mammals. In particular, 25 "convergent" amino acid changes occurred in 18 genes known to be involved in the development of the cochlear ganglion. Only two of the 25 changes had been previously identified in past echolocation studies." (DAVID’s bold)

DAVID: Chance evolution with chance mutations could not have achieved this result where diverse species all develop the same changes in the same genes; this is what Simon Conway -Morris calls convergence as a proof of God's control.

dhw: An excellent example of convergent evolution. I don’t know why it has to be “under God’s control”. It makes perfect sense for organisms to work out similar solutions to similar problems, and if God exists, then he would have set up the mechanisms that enable organisms to do this. What doesn’t make perfect sense, yet again, is to argue that God only wanted to design H. sapiens, decided not to do so for 3.X billion years, and therefore either did one dabble after another, or provided the first cells with programmes to be passed on for each of these examples of echolocation in order to cover the time he had decided to take before pursuing his one and only goal. This is the illogical “guess” which I keep complaining about.

Same brief logical response. I assume God is in charge of what happened historically as He created our current reality. That humans are an extremely different result expected from a natural process of evolution makes them extremely strong evidence as to God's intent from the beginning. I know you have not read Adler and have rejected his religious philosophy, but he cannot be rejected out of hand.

As for convergence, a similar result with similar genes is not like to be the result of a chance mutation method of evolution, and reeks of design.