More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 12, 2024, 12:08 (14 days ago) @ David Turell

Examples of Darwinist thinking: Insect adaptations

DAVID: The headline called within species adaptations evidence of evolution! Phony Darwin speak.

dhw: There is nothing whatsoever in the headline about evidence! The headline is: “Astonishing study shows evolution really does repeat itself”, and the article gives us examples to show how evolution repeats itself. It simply takes for granted that evolution happened, just as you do in your own wacky theory of evolution.

DAVID: The article is at the level of species adaptation, not speciation which is the real evolution. You always defend Darwinists.

The article deals with an aspect of evolution which clearly opposes Darwin’s theory of randomness. Do you disagree that the process of evolution includes repetitions? There is nothing pro or anti Darwin in the title, so why do you claim that the headline is phony and “totally overblown Darwin-speak propaganda”.

Cyanobacteria

DAVID: this is one of the major Gould contingencies that led to us. For me there is an issue as to what advantage cyanobacteria gained from increasing the range of chlorophyll activity? It allowed a larger range of ecosystems. This is why I look at purpose as a driving force from a designer.

dhw: Of course purpose is a driving force for any action! That does not mean that every action in the history of evolution was driven by the one and only purpose of creating us plus food.

DAVID: Purpose is the result of mental activity. Thank you.

dhw: Obviously. How does that prove your God’s one and only purpose was to create us plus food???

DAVID: Obviously. No other proof indicated.

dhw: The fact that purpose indicates mental activity proves nothing except that if you believe all living things pursue the purpose of survival, you will have to agree that this indicates mental activity on their part. Enter James A. Shapiro.

DAVID: Purpose is built into all of life's activities by design.

And I have no objection to the theory that the means (autonomous cellular intelligence) of fulfilling their purpose (survival) may have been built into all life forms by design. Shapiro is still with us.

Oxygen and the Cambrian

QUOTE: "It seems these bursts of oxygen, assisted by the worms' excavations, helped life's spectacular diversity boom on Earth."

DAVID: an interesting theory based on solid work. To be clear, oxygen allowed diversification, but was not the cause of the Cambrian Explosion or the later diversifications.

dhw: It is interesting, and I agree: an increase in oxygen won’t CAUSE speciation unless there are already species present which can use the oxygen to diversify. Or, in your theory, to enable your omnipotent and omniscient God at long, long last – after designing and culling all those irrelevant species - to create “de novo” the only species he actually wanted to create (us plus food) from the very beginning.

DAVID: Yes, God works in mysterious ways.

dhw: Ways which you describe as imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient. But you prefer your own theory to others which suggest that he accomplishes exactly what he wants to accomplish. Mysterious indeed.

DAVID: You humanized version of God's actions are not worth any preference.

dhw: An eternal, immaterial, sourceless mind which enjoys creating, learning, discovering, experimenting, and always does precisely what it wants to do, seems to me to be at least as feasible as an omniscient, omnipotent mind which has to use an imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient method of achieving its one and only purpose. But as you have so wisely observed, there are as many forms of God as people that invent them.

DAVID: A purposeful God created humans. The many forms come from a major problem. Whoever God is, is up for grabs. We are faced with a totally unknown personage.

A purposeful God must have had a purpose for all life forms, including the 99.9% that had no connection with humans.Your acknowledgement of “up for grabs” and “totally unknown” completely demolishes your prejudiced insistence that your God is certainly not human in any way. Dealt with on the other thread, but worth repeating here, as I shall keep note of it for whenever you present your own preconceived ideas and object to any alternatives.