DILEMMAS: A Response to DHW (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, November 15, 2014, 12:21 (3449 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Tony makes quite clear there must be balance at each level of development. That is so obvious to me, as the results of imbalance are seen today and provide evidence of why balance is absolutely necessary. -This is a matter of interpretation. You either say conditions were tailored to prepare for the different forms of life, or you say the different forms of life evolved in accordance with what the conditions demanded or allowed. Take your pick. When you talk of balance, you need to say what is balanced against what. Some species are more successful than others, so some go extinct, or a catastrophe obliterates 90% of them. Is that balance? Why (and by whom) should some species be regarded as more important than others?-DAVID: There is no evidence of improvisation in the clear picture of step-wise development from single cell to us. -Can you really trace a clear picture? If so, the Nobel Prize awaits you. No improvisation? What about the bush? Do bacteria to trilobite to dinosaur to mosquito to boa-constrictor to dodo to elephant to duck-billed platypus to gorilla to monarch butterfly suggest to you a clear, step-wise development from single cell to us?-DAVID: The problem in my mind, which creates the dilemma is I'm not sure how far to accept religion's view of God's infinite powers and omniscience. It may be due to my anti-organized religion bias. He may well be that powerful. If I accept that thought it solves my problem, and I'm then like Tony. I'm not far away as it is.-I think one of your dilemmas is that although you have reached the logical conclusion that life is too complex not to have been designed, you are aware that any attempt to characterize the designing power is a human fiction. However, your anthropocentric view of evolution leads to another dilemma, because if your God directed evolution so purposefully, leaving nothing to chance, you have to assume that he specifically planned or created every species (broad sense), extinct and extant, that had features in common with humans. And if organisms could not control their own development, every non-human-related species (broad but sometimes even narrow sense) also had to be specially programmed. Hence the monarch butterfly. Then you have to argue that all these species, extinct and extant, were necessary to create the right conditions for humans. And so your God must either have specially created the monarch butterfly's life cycle or preprogrammed it 3.7 billion years ago, although it was really only humans that he was specially interested in. The reasoning becomes more and more convoluted as you struggle to fit the historical bush of life to your anthropocentric theory.
 
You said earlier that you were “bothered” by both the preprogramming theory and the dabbling theory, but any alternative clearly bothers you even more because it would cast doubts on your anthropocentrism. You don't get rid of the bother that easily, though. It will continue to give you a dilemma, no matter how hard you try to ignore it. Your dilemma, however, lies in the detail. Mine is on a far broader scale!