Contingent evolution (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 15:50 (3590 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

dhw: You may both be right (says the agnostic), but you have conveniently ignored the conclusion to this article:
"It's very exciting to have been able to directly study alternative ancient histories," Thornton said. "If evolutionary history could be relaunched from ancestral starting points, we would almost certainly end up with a radically different biology from the one we have now. Unpredictable genetic events are constantly opening paths to some evolutionary outcomes and closing the paths to others, all within the biochemical systems of our cells."-Dhw: You take this to indicate purpose, because your starting point is an anthropocentric view of evolution, which ... just like the theory of abiogenesis ... is pure speculation. It is just as easy to take the above as meaning that "unpredictable" chance, not purpose, has dictated the biology we have now.
-DAVID: You are simply accepting his opinion about the rudderless appearance of evolution. That is the materialist viewpoint, no more valid than ours.-You have stated that the research fits your idea of pre-planning, and Tony says it has purposeful intent written all over it, and I have said it is "just as easy" to interpret the research as supporting chance. Now you are telling me the one view is no more valid than the other. That's what I was telling you.-TONY: I simply want to know what the evidence is for the assumption that the process is founded in random chance.-Firstly, I make no such assumption. I'm pointing out that the researchers' findings are open to both interpretations. From my position on the fence, I'm not prepared to make a judgement either way. However, I'm happy to put the case for random chance, though not in the sense of random mutations, which I do not believe in. The cellular mechanisms (origin unknown) which allow organisms to adapt and innovate operate according to the demands or opportunities presented by random changes in the environment. Individual organisms may have the purpose of survival, but there is no apparent overall purpose to link the vast variety of plants and animals that have come and gone throughout the history of the evolutionary bush. In that sense, evolution is founded on the randomness with which a changing environment determines which organisms will and will not survive, depending on whether they are able to adapt and/or innovate appropriately. May I in turn ask you what the evidence is for the assumption that this process has a purpose?