The Dodo Problem (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 30, 2010, 11:57 (5106 days ago) @ David Turell

David and I are enjoying a ding-dong-dodo. This time, I will start with the end of your postAVID: What I don't like is chance mutation as the guiding force. -I agree, and it's a crucial point against atheism. However, at the beginning of your post, you also make a crucial point against theism:-"And what is the most complex thing in the universe, the UI itself?!. So why shouldn't big-brained primates appear?"-If the most complex thing in the universe can simply "appear", then so can the less complex mechanism that brought about life and evolution. George could hardly have put it better.-You don't understand why God didn't just "snap his fingers" in order to create us, unless "under rules governing the UI", in which case he "had to let organisms evolve". If God created the universe, who created the rules that govern the UI? But if God exists, I see him as a scientist, not as a finger-snapping magician. And so I don't have a problem with his being hamstrung by the laws of Nature, or by the possible lack of a plan, or by the need to experiment in order to execute a plan, and I certainly have no problem with the need for evolution, as I believe like you that evolution happened. Nor do I even have a problem with the mechanism being there from the very beginning ... which is also the atheist scenario. I only have a problem with the mechanism being precisely geared to the ultimate, deliberate, automatic, absolutely guaranteed production of human beings without any further interference, whereas everything that is NOT geared to the production of humans ... like my poor friend the dodo ... simply happens by chance. If your version of a UI was running our local planning department, I hate to think what our town would look like now.-However, we are never going to agree, and so before we both join the dodo, I'm willing to call a truce if you are.