Natures wonders: walking fish have not evolved (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, January 23, 2020, 22:25 (1764 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Environmental change may have made it necessary for survival, or may have offered new opportunities to improve chances of survival. I like Raup’s interpretation, and if we follow the theory of cellular intelligence, what we have is that some cell communities are capable of adapting, some are even capable of innovating, and the rest are unlucky enough not to have the intelligence (though luck may also play a vital role, largely depending on the nature of the environmental change) that would enable them to adapt or innovate. If we follow the Davidian interpretation, those that die are lucky enough to have been preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago to come into existence, but unlucky enough not to have been preprogrammed to survive the new conditions.

DAVID: Or the Davidian view also states that God is on watch and helps along the way in dabbles.

dhw: Sorry, I should have added your belief that your God pops in to fiddle with anatomies or hold classes in strategies etc.I note that you have not commented on my explanation for the advances.

My usual answer: environmental change if not uncomfortable or dangerous (Raup) doesn't cause anything to happen to advance evolutionary adaptations. We do not know what causes animals to make new species if there are no pressures, since they are not required to change..

DAVID: Yet evolution proceeded to complexify all along at a steady rate with large advances in the gaps. [dhw: hardly “steady”, since you keep harping on about gigantic gaps.] Thus logically most species cannot make the advances by themselves, so self-improvement is a very doubtful theory. Therefore, logically a designer is required to maintain the process of producing very complex advances.

dhw: What sort of logic is this? As above, it is perfectly logical to argue that some intelligent cell communities will find ways of surviving or improving and others won't be so intelligent (or lucky). And personally I find it more likely that the mechanism for intelligence was implanted from the beginning rather than individual programmes for every single innovation, life form, natural wonder, econiche, strategy, extinction etc. in the history of life.

DAVID: And who did the implanting? Your view of God thinks He wanted to set everything up and just watch, with no further participation, a sort of a Deist view.

dhw: Do I really need to keep repeating that your God may have done the implanting? I don’t have a fixed view of God, but yes, Deism is one possible view that fits in perfectly with the history of life. Even you have told us that your God is hidden. Do you have any logical grounds for rejecting the Deist theory?

To be honest, yes. I assume if He did all that creating He'd like to follow the results and as I view God as supremely purposeful, it is most likely He is still actively interested in what He produced. To do it and leave seems odd.