Contingent evolution: what pushes it? (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 05, 2014, 13:49 (3461 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
edited by dhw, Wednesday, November 05, 2014, 14:26

DHW: (I still don't understand why you refuse to consider the possibility of evolution as a process initiated and guided by God, which would remove most of your objections anyway.)
TONY: Because I see no case for evolution. Why would I try and fit in a theory that I see as even more fanciful than "God did it"?	-You see it as fanciful because you focus on aspects that theistic evolutionists have already rejected. As my agnostic credentials make me a poor advocate, here is a website which sets out to “present an evolutionary understanding of God's creation”. This article is purely scientific, but you will find other links that incorporate God.
	
Does the Cambrian Explosion pose a challenge to evolution ...-https://biologos.org/questions/cambrian-explosion-DHW: Evolution itself is in a period of stasis, so of course there has been no direct observation - there has been no direct observation of God creating new species either... Punctuated equilibrium explains the apparent jumps (probably associated with changes in the environment after periods of stasis).-TONY: Is it? Or could it be that it simply did not occur as defined. Punctuated equilibrium makes the problem worse, not better, because that would require extremely rapid evolution, instantaneous, one might say. Now, since the text book definition of evolution is 'change over time', does 'instantaneous fully formed appearance' of an organism fit that description?-Punctuated equilibrium is Gould's challenge to Darwin's gradualism, in the sense that evolution happens in fits and starts, not as a continuous, smooth progression. The Cambrian “Explosion” lasted for 10-20 million years (different sources give different figures), so rapidity is a relative term. But theists don't have a problem with rapidity. I have no idea how a non-fully-formed organism would leave behind a fossil, or what it might look like, but according to BioLogos, new fossils (they give examples) from the Cambrian and Precambrian era are “bringing more clarity to the evolutionary puzzle”, and “It is also important to realize that many of the Cambrian organisms [...] did not possess all of the defining characteristics of modern animal body plans. These defining characteristics appeared progressively over a much longer period of time."
 
DHW: The fossil record clearly shows a progression from simpler to more complex organisms, and what David calls the patterns suggest common ancestry. 
TONY: I suppose that depends on what you are implying with the word "progression". If you mean a linear curve, then you would be mistaken. If, instead, you meant a stepwise series of gaps from less complex to more, then yes, that is indeed what it shows, and that is antithetical to evolution.-On the basis that all forms of life are descended from earlier forms (which underpins the whole theory), every innovation marks a change or step. Darwin's random mutations, my hypothetical inventive mechanism, and David's hypothetical 3.7-billion-year-old computer programme or divine dabblings all produce innovative steps within existing organisms. If the mutation works, you have a new, fully functioning form (no gap). If it doesn't, it won't survive. Over time, each new organism may itself be transformed by further innovations: hence the jerky (punctuated) progression from single cell to complex organisms like us humans and our fellow animals. Your alternative is that God created each one from scratch (= separate creation), so where do you draw the line between separate creation and the evolution you dismiss? If limbs did not evolve from fins, they were separately created. If wings did not evolve from limbs, they were separately created. Insect wings are different from birds' wings, so they were separately created. Insects nearly all have the same basic structure, which is why evolutionists propose common ancestry, but without common ancestry the implication would be that God created, say, bees, grasshoppers and ants separately too. Extend the separateness across the different “kinds” of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, along with all the innovations that have led to their separateness, and you have a vast collection of organisms, all seeming to spring from nowhere (no antecedents), but actually placed on Earth by the invisible hand of God. Why do you find that less “fanciful” than God creating an inventive “brain” within organisms, or preprogramming evolution, or dabbling with existing organisms?-dhw: The God theory is also a theory and not a fact, and is based on a great variety of assumptions without one shred of objectively verifiable evidence, but neither you nor I would see that as a reason to dismiss it.
TONY: I would say that the evidence is acutely in favor of the God theory.-Of course you would, although I'm sure you would accept that the evidence is not objectively verifiable. Evolutionists say the evidence is acutely in favour of the theory that all forms of life descended from earlier forms, and as I keep pointing out, there is no conflict between those two theories, unless you insist on identifying evolutionary theory with its atheistic versions. According to BioLogos, "The important thing is that [...] God's sustaining presence undergirds all of life's history from the beginning to the present." But they're evolutionists. Ignorance, malice, self-interest?