Mutations, bad not good (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, July 22, 2011, 20:36 (4852 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: I believe in a God, a UI, a being greater than humanity or anything that we know of, whatever you like to call it. I do not deny nor apologize for that.-You've made that clear from the start, and neither I nor anyone else on this forum would expect you to apologize for it! On the contrary, your beliefs add an important and often illuminating dimension to our discussions, and I hope you don't take my probings as a criticism. For me the aim is to understand why theists and atheists think as they do, and to test their beliefs and disbeliefs against the arguments that have led to my own neutrality.-TONY: The puzzle you think you found is no real puzzle at all. Whether the UI created the rules and let the chips fall where they may, or created the pro-generators of each phyla, or created every early creature directly, I do not know, nor make any claim as to which one I believe to be the case. This is why I say there is no direct conflict between evolution and creation.
 
I've been at great pains to argue the same point, as indeed was Darwin himself in The Origin: "I see no good reason why the views given in this book should shock the religious feelings of anyone." The direct conflict is between evolution and those creationists who argue that God created every species individually. By extension, it's also between evolutionists and those who believe that humans were specially created, as opposed to having descended directly from an ancestor shared with other primates.-TONY: The direct conflict is actually between creationism and abiogenesis, which is another topic altogether. I am vastly curious about how the process occurred, what methods were used, what order things happened in, and why. The matter of adaptation is actually of little concern to me as far as defining my views. We all know adaptation occurs, and I see it is good forward thinking on the part of a designer. (Don't you wish your car could automatically adapt to the environment and available fuel?)
 
Once again there's no disagreement here, although the terminology can be misleading, because creationism has far too many associations with literal interpretations of the Bible. I've fallen into the same trap in the "Brief Guide" and am now very aware of the misunderstandings that can arise. Perhaps it's safer to say that the conflict is between belief either in chance or in design as the origin of the mechanisms of life and evolution.-TONY: The problem of innovation and speciation, however, which to me are separate but related issues, are far more relevant to, not only the creationism, but also to the definition of evolution and the progress of that scientific method. If scientist KNEW that speciation could or could not occur, they would be better able to focus their research.-As I've said before, we know that some creatures are radically different from others and cannot interbreed, so I don't think anyone would question that speciation has occurred, no matter how we define "species". As for a definition of evolution and its progress, my own view is that we should stick to the simplest possible formulation, e.g. "the process by which living organisms have developed from earlier forms". Once that is accepted, we can discuss all the details, like gradualism, innovation, adaptation, heredity, distinguishing between varieties and species, the role of NS etc., concerning all of which I share your curiosity. I'm also immensely grateful to you, David, Matt and everyone else who keeps us up to date with the latest findings on these subjects, including DragonsHeart, who has drawn our attention to "new insights on the brain".