Darwin & Wallace (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, October 01, 2015, 11:15 (3124 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I admit some of my historical facts were fuzzy, but over the years Wallace did much more on-site observation than Darwin. And my favoritism for Wallace is caused by the fact that he is the Father of intelligent Design in an historical sense. The 100th anniversary of his death in 2013 brought out all sorts of stories which I looked at and realized how important his contributions were. I hadn't heard of him before which surprised me. Darwin was upper class and Wallace not. Did that contribute?-I understand very well why you prefer Wallace to Darwin - obviously a theist would prefer a theistic evolutionist to an agnostic evolutionist. But I hope the article will have removed some of your misconceptions about Darwin and about the connections between the two of them.
 
DAVID: Back to Darwin: All I have is evolution by common descent, method unproven. And I think it was guided, as the only explanation for the jumps in complexity that were not required by natural forces at play. Bacteria did not need multicellularity, and apes did not need upright posture and big brains. These appeared without environmental pressure. Therefore the best interpretation of evolution is that there is a built in drive to complexity, as I stated in my first book. Since such an impetus reasonably does not appear by chance, I have accepted design and guidance.-Tony would probably disagree, since he rejects evolution, but for those of us who accept Darwin's theory of common descent, there can be no doubt that evolution is powered by a built in drive to complexity, and I am certainly not going to argue in favour of chance. But “did not need” is not an argument for divine guidance or, above all, your anthropocentrism. Only adaptation, not innovation, was needed if organisms were to survive environmental change. And so if the chain runs from bacteria to humans, the drive to complexity - I used the term “improvement” - explains every single additional attribute that birds, insects, fish and animals (including humans) have developed throughout the history of life. Not one of them was “needed”. And not one of Nature's Wonders was “needed”. So one can hardly single out the upright posture and big brain of humans as if somehow they were an exception just because they were not “needed”.-In so far as your acceptance of design relates to the inbuilt drive - which might be equated with an autonomous, inventive intelligence - then our hypotheses coincide. But once we get on to the divine design of every single innovation, natural wonder and individual lifestyle, all for the purpose of producing and/or feeding humans, my scepticism exceeds even that towards Darwin's theory of random mutations.