Human evolution: Neanderthal Y chromosome (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 30, 2020, 10:45 (1513 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: God designs what is needed for each new advance, anticipating new abilities and activities.

dhw: Understood. So now will you please answer my questions: Did your God preprogramme upright walking semi-apes, or did he step in and do a dabble on the legs, leaving chests and brains alone until the next dabble? Why do you think he would preprogramme or dabble these interim changes? What purpose would they have served unless it was to meet some new requirement?

DAVID: Your view of my God is very askew. New requirements do not drive evolution. God runs evolution I view Him as advancing evolution from one earlier stage to the next more complex stage on the way to humans. Of course they are adaptable to changing conditions, but they don't self-adapt to speciation. History tells us how God did it. Each advance allows new activities which have new requirements within themselves that may require some adaptation. The difference is I see God pushing evolution forward and you see various circumstances pulling it forward. Pure Darwin.

All of this confirms the view of God that I am challenging! You have him changing different parts of the pre-sapiens anatomy at different times, either by preprogramming or by dabbling, in ANTICIPATION of new abilities and activities. And yet you accept that organisms adapt to changing conditions!!! That means they change their structure IN RESPONSE TO and not in anticipation of new requirements. This is why I keep badgering you to agree that (theistic version) your God must have given organisms (cell communities) a mechanism enabling them to change their structure without his intervention. Perhaps your reluctance to answer is due to your awareness that the same mechanism could be responsible for the various changes in the human anatomy and for speciation in general.

dhw: You challenged my proposal – in line with Gould’s theory – that isolated groups of pre-humans would have taken to life on the ground while the rest of their species lived happily ever after in the trees.

DAVID: The grounded pre-humans would have had to make a group decision to do that. I can't imagine a whole group of apes suddenly deciding to do that. My God led the way.

Most groups have leaders who take decisions, but in any case, if the whole group of apes was under threat from changing conditions, they’d have to be pretty daft not to look for ways to survive! But I love the image of a group of daft apes sitting there wondering what do in order to save themselves, and along comes God: “Follow me, guys!”

QUOTE (under “Human evolution A whale at altitude in Kenya”): “Here, uniquely, the region’s geologic and climate histories, including the formation of the rift system that is the cradle of humankind, are preserved in sedimentary rocks. Our collaborative work will tease out how tectonics and climate come together to drive evolution.”

dhw: And they could add all kinds of localized environmental changes as the forces that “come together to drive evolution”.

DAVID: Again, your desire for natural causes.

This is your new mantra. What is wrong with the idea that there is a reason for organisms to change, and that they MUST respond (adapt) to changing conditions if they are to survive? And that by extension, they might also find new ways (innovation leading to speciation) to exploit changing conditions? You have said that by “natural” you mean without God. But you know perfectly well that what I am proposing does not exclude God, as he may be the maker of the mechanism which allows them to adapt and/or innovate.