David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 05, 2019, 12:24 (1843 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Why don’t you just agree with yourself and acknowledge that even though your theory defies human logic, and is one of several possible explanations of how and why evolution happened, it’s the only one you’re prepared to believe.

DAVID: Please accept that I view God in change and running the show as He wishes. That is the faith you cannot accept. Remember faith jumps a chasm.

Of course if he exists he would run the show as he wishes. No faith required for that reasoning. What I cannot accept is the 3-point combination of your beliefs regarding how and why he runs the show – an explanation which in your own words requires “nothing illogical if one does not apply human reasoning to the actual history”. Yes, your faith in that illogical and unreasonable theory does indeed jump a chasm.
xxxxxx
DAVID: How does a new species survive if problems are not prepared for in advance? The predators would have a feast and the newly arrived guys would be gone.

dhw: The new species is the RESULT of the old species finding solutions to the new problems. Millions of bacteria die when we invent a new killer, but they don’t all die, and the survivors eventually find a solution. [..] Pre-whales may have entered the water because food was scarce on land; pre-eared moths may have begun hunting by night because so many were being killed during the day. The environmental change then triggered the anatomical changes which led to speciation: marine life led to flippers replacing legs; hunting in the dark required enhanced sensitivity to sound – hence the ears.

DAVID: To my knowledge, no one describes pre-ear moths. As Gould noted to his consternation, the fossil record shows giant gaps, no itty-bitty changes as Darwin assumed. You want the pipe-dream of minor adaptation morphing into new species. There is no fossil support for your Darwin hope. Darwin gave us a concept of evolution with common descent, nothing more.

Some websites say that “many moths have ears”, so presumably there are some diurnal ones that don’t. In any case, since you believe in common descent, you will agree that eared moths must have descended from some kind of moth. The whale record shows transitional forms, but can we really expect to find fossils of all stages of every new species? And nobody knows the mechanism that enables organisms to speciate. Has anyone found your God’s 3.8-billion-year-old computer programmes for every undabbled innovation, life style and natural wonder, or sliced open a bacterium and discovered a programme to resist every future as yet undiscovered bacteria-killer?

DAVID: […] The issue between us remains. How did that happen? […]

dhw: Once more, you have forgotten that the issue here […] is your ANTICIPATION theory (as opposed to RESPONSE). […] The rest of your post repeats and dismisses my theory, and glosses over the incredible complexities of your own by simply insisting that “only minds design”, which is not the issue between us.

DAVID: That only minds design is exactly the issue. Advance design is required for new species to handle new problems.

dhw: Yes, design requires minds. You say only God has a mind - apart from humans - and I suggest (theistic version) that he may have created cellular minds (though of course nothing like our own). No, advance design is not required to handle new problems. [..] When existing species are confronted with a new problem, either they solve it or they die. (New conditions may also offer new opportunities to existing organisms.) The RESULT of this interaction – i.e. the interaction only begins when conditions change - between organism and environment may be minor changes (adaptations) or major changes (innovations), though there is no clear borderline between the two.

DAVID: There is a clear line. New species have clearly unexplained new features. That they fit the new requirements of their lives is not an explanation of how it happened. That is your constant plea, which is totally illogical […]

Is the transformation of an existing leg into a flipper an unexplained new feature or an adaptation? That is why I say the borderlines are not clear. And once again: nobody can explain how the changes happened, but why is it “totally illogical” to suggest that organisms change in response to new conditions and not in anticipation of them, when we know for a fact that minor adaptations respond to changes and do not precede them? And why is cellular intelligence (possibly divinely designed) as a theoretical “how” less logical than your theory of 3.8-billion-year-old computer programmes and/or divine dabbling for every innovation, lifestyle, strategy and natural wonder?