Natures wonders: ants and other insects farm (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, May 17, 2020, 15:27 (1649 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Maybe he saw to it that life either would or would not survive by endowing cells with an autonomous means of controlling their genome in such a way that it could (or could not) adapt or change according to different conditions.

DAVID: Remember, God is still here. I don't believe in deism, So I view Him as constantly on the watch to make sure everything goes as He planned. Total planning from 3.8 bya is unlikely, as too many factors are involved. I don't think volcanoes erupt on schedule, or tornado paths are plotted exactly, or that continents drift apart according to exact plots, as examples.

dhw: I don’t have a problem at all with the idea that God may still be watching the spectacle he devised. I’m glad you are slowly giving up on the 3.8-billion-year-old programme for the whole of life, though I don’t know why you’ve suddenly switched from organic evolution to the environment. “Everything goes as He planned” leaves open the question of what he planned. According to you, his whole plan was to directly design H. sapiens but first to directly design every other extinct non-human life form, lifestyle, natural wonder etc. so the life forms could eat one another until he directly designed the only thing he wanted to design. I prefer last week’s theory: “Once set in motion some events simply evolve, others are designed.” And “Any evolved process God set in motion is under His control, since he can let it continue or stop it as He wishes.” But for some reason, you want to limit this to geology.

DAVID: I also mentioned weather. I just had to give examples.

dhw: Excellent. So you now agree that the bold may also apply to the evolution of species. Thank you.

I simply view God as always watching and correcting courses if necessary.

Under "Venus flytrap":
DAVID: This is a good example of how God can step in and produce new adaptations. The convergence illustrates how evolution can then proceed on its own, once God sets the course and understands where it is going.

dhw: I really don’t know why your God would have wanted to step in and mess around with the Venus flytrap’s genome when all he wanted to do was design H. sapiens. I would have thought it was a good example of how organisms devise their own ways of survival (i.e. "develop many different ways..."). Theistic version: The whole process illustrates how evolution proceeded on its own once God gave all organisms the mechanism to make their own changes to their genome (though dabbling would still have remained an option – e.g. through mass exterminations). “Once God…understands where evolution is going” is a really weird variation on a God who knows and plans everything in advance and has only one aim (sapiens) in mind. Does God say: “Now that I've stepped in and made Venus carnivorous, I can let her do her own thing, because this make me understand that evolution is going towards the design of H. sapiens.”

DAVID: You get so involved with God's thoughts. The fly trap is just part of the necessary econiches of life.

dhw: It is part of its particular econiche. All econiches are/were necessary for the life forms that depend/depended on them. I don’t know why you consider them all to have been necessary for the design of H. sapiens and his food.

Where would his food come from if they didn't exist in large enough supply?