David's theory of evolution: Stephen Talbott's view (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, November 10, 2019, 15:30 (1838 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: This is a Darwinian article about primate femurs as adaptation to environment. It is pure supposition which parallels dhw thinking:
https://phys.org/news/2019-11-fossil-apes-world-monkeys-ancestor.html

QUOTES: a new study that analyzes the first well-preserved femur of Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, a common ancestor of Old World monkeys and apes, suggests that as far as locomotion goes, bbbapes and Old World monkeys each evolved a way of moving that was different from the ancestral species as they adapted to different niches in their environments.
The results indicate that the ancestral hip joint is, from an evolutionary perspective, as far from the hip joint of modern Old World monkeys as from those of the great apes—suggesting that each group evolved a distinct way of moving as they specialized for success in different environmental niches. (dhw’s bold)

DAVID: it all sounds very logical, but it is pure conjecture, since it does not explain how the new species were designed. See next entry re' Stephen L. Talbott on natural selection.

dhw: I greatly appreciate your willingness to publish articles that support my proposals and directly contradict your own. Thank you. Of course nobody knows what is the mechanism that engineers the changes, but how refreshing to hear you accept the logic of what you always try to dismiss as “Darwinian” thought – your only reason for rejecting it being that it is “Darwinian”.

Darwinian thought generally presents natural selection as a magical force of creation. Talbott derides That form of thinking.

QUOTE: “'Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create.” (Lynn Margulis [2011].

dhw: The perfect summary by a remarkable scientist who, incidentally, was a champion of cellular intelligence.

TALBOTT: "And yet, even Walsh, wonderfully insightful as he is, proceeds to characterize the organism’s agency in a strictly materialistic manner, as if it could be understood without accepting at face value the inner dimensions of life — cognition, thinking, intention, volition. We are given agency without agency, life without life. Such is our way today. It is my intention in the following discussion of evolution to articulate a different point of view, taking life in its own terms. And I see no reason to exclude what we know most directly — and in a higher key, so to speak — through our own existence as organisms.

DAVID: Talbott is brilliant and beloved by ID folks, where I found this reference. Environment does not make new species, though it might demand them as he notes. And why shouldn't we accept agency outside biology? The entire chapter is worth a read.

dhw: I have never claimed that environment makes species, but am delighted to read that Talbott confirms the proposal that the environment might demand new species – rejected by you, since you believe that your God makes all the changes in advance of environmental change. Of course it is perfectly acceptable to take into account the possibility of agency outside biology – as I myself do when allowing for a God to have designed the intelligent cell. There is absolutely nothing here that I would disagree with or that contradicts my own views of evolution.

I don'think you have read all Talbott proposes. What he says is we know new species fit new requirements and we have no idea how that might happen. Talbott literally demands that we include agency on an equal basis.