More Denton: Reply to Tony (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, July 30, 2015, 18:49 (3194 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: I'm going to focus on these questions, because they seem to get to the heart of the matter-dhw: 1.Do you accept David's hypotheses that God either preprogrammed all the products of these activities 3.8 billion years ago, or guided each one individually? .. whether you thought every innovation, variation, lifestyle etc. was preprogrammed by God from the very beginning (or individually “guided” by him).
-TONY: First, on innovation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_innovation
TONY: The problem with innovation, as with evolution in general, is that there is no evidence. It has never actually been observed. That brings us to the second two points, variation and lifestyle. Lifestyle is a byproduct of a range of elements in an organism, from their metabolic needs to their particular morphology. That leaves us to focus solely on variation. -So you reject David's hypothesis on the grounds that innovation has never been observed. Nor of course has separate creation. So that, apparently, gets rid of that. As regards lifestyle (and habitats), no one would question that it arises from what organisms need and what they are capable of achieving, but I would like to know if you think God preprogrammed the plover's migration and the weaverbird's nest, or they worked it out for themselves. -dhw: 2. Do you believe in common descent from each “prototype” species? 
TONY: Following from my answer to your first question, yes, I do believe there were prototype species, and that those species were encoded with a variety of properties that could vary within certain ranges. I believe that this is sufficient to explain all of the variants from tabby cat to tiger.-Once more, I'm sorry but I don't understand computer language or formulae, but thank you for the above, which I do understand! I take it to mean that God preprogrammed the prototype cat to pass on all the possible variations.
 
dhw: 3. Since classifications are not a “sound basis for rational judgement”, and we may not know the “prototype”, how can we know that what we now consider to be separate species have not branched off earlier from common ancestors? My point is that we do not know what was the prototype for each species, and there is enormous controversy for instance over how to classify the early hominids (were they more ape than human?)...how do we know that what we now define as species (e.g. humans) did not branch off from common ancestors?-Although you have reproduced parts of our exchange, you have not answered this question. It is of course key to the theory of evolution, which posits common descent of ALL organisms going back to the first cells. You will certainly have worked out where this is heading: If we do not know what was the prototype human, and if palaeontologists cannot agree among themselves whether the fossils of early hominids were more ape than human, how can you - bearing in mind your acceptance of common descent from the prototype and your distrust of classifications - be so sure that humans and apes did not have a common ancestor? I do not of course expect you to embrace such a hypothesis, but I hope you will understand why many of us find it perfectly feasible.