DILEMMAS: my position clarified (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, November 08, 2014, 17:48 (3457 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: I did not think for one moment that non-functional forms existed! My point was that there are no fossils of non-functional organisms because there cannot have been any non-functional organisms.-I'm sorry. You seemed to imply the gigantic gap in progressively complex fossils before the Cambrian was due to their non-functionality. Of course it makes no sense. That gap is very real and as that remote part of time is further investigated, nothing has appeared that is very complex. Just sheets of cells, slightly more complex bags of cells with a mouth and anus, or no anus. Some are bilateral, which is an advance since it gives us a slight 'form' that is fixed. Some of the Ediacarans are frond-like, and still poorly understood. If the gap remains, and it has since Darwin's time, naturally occurring evolution is disproven by that negative. -> 
> dhw: It still depends on how you define balance. Until the Earth explodes, is burnt up, is smashed to pieces or whatever, it will have some sort of balance.-We see imbalance now. Ask the Australians. they brought in animals that have no business being there and are still trying to undo the population explosions of beasts that have no predators. Red in tooth and claw still applies and is best if maintained. Too many people surviving in Africa is displacing the wildlife. You've been there. You know. Elephants trampling villages because their habitat is displaced. For the best outcome for living organisms, the original balances are best. That is indisputable.-> 
> dhw: so I am prepared to consider different options. No teasing. Whereas certainly possible on Monday, impossible on Tuesday, maybe on Wednesday....that's teasing.-I've just been mulling. And I have declared my position at the start of this thread.
> 
> dhw: Of course we have these three options, and of course consciousness is a significant event (especially for us), but that is still no reason to believe that God started out with the intention of creating us, was always in total control, and preprogrammed the monarch butterfly's life cycle! He may have started out with no particular intentions, may not have been in total control, and the Earth might not be unbalanced even by the extinction of the monarch butterfly, which might have figured out its migratory pattern all by itself!-I think my analysis has proven to me 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that my theory is correct. You can continue to posit alternate scenarios, but they make no rational sense to me. We remain apart: an IM is probably present. It follows patterns previously established; it follows guidelines, and it is limited to adaptation to solve environmental changes and problems. Natural selection passively picks out winners, but species remain species. I have concluded that God arranges for totally new species in theistic evolution.