Innovation; Just for dhw (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 21, 2015, 12:55 (3059 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: As usual, you return to the origin of life and intelligence, ignoring the very words you quote: “...your God may have invented the mechanism. The dispute is over how evolution works...”
DAVID: But I can't ignore the origin of life setting the stage for the evolution of life.-“God may have invented the mechanism”: This can hardly be called ignoring the origin of life. The difference between us is your anthropocentric interpretation of evolution versus my free-for-all, driven by an autonomously inventive mechanism, possibly designed by your God and - Hypothesis 3 - allowing for dabbling. -David: The Cambrian was a shotgun mechanism going off in all directions and produced the helter-skelter bush of animal life.
dhw: The “helter-skelter” bush of animal life can hardly be called “guided”, and therefore entails sheer chance (which we both reject) or autonomous, inventive intelligence.
DAVID: Our view still differs. The Cambrian started 37 phyla. This provides for balance of nature, about which you seem to deny the importance of a food source for everyone.-Who is “everyone”? The balance of Nature has constantly changed, and no doubt one of the causes/results (it's a vicious circle) of that shifting balance is that there is NOT enough food for “everyone”. How does that mean that the helter-skelter bush, including the 99% of extinct species, was designed to produce or feed humans?-DAVID (same post): “This raises a consideration you will accept: perhaps God had an endpoint in humans, but had to develop it through evolutionary experimentation since he is a 'process type' of God, not as totally all-powerful as religions like to represent. ” 
dhw: Thank you for offering me my own hypothesis 3), which I offered to you in my post of 11 December under “A new synthesis”: “God says: ”I wanner make humans, but I dunno how to do it.” (Special status but the mechanism runs free, and God has a dabble here and there, like when humans turn out to be dinosaurs.)” Your response to this on 12 December was: ”I assume, if God is guiding evolution, He knows everything.” It's good to see that you are now prepared to reconsider your assumptions.
DAVID: Yes, I can reconsider, with all the hominins turning up. I always reconsider as new findings appear.-I am delighted that so many new findings appeared between 12 December and 19 December to enable you to make this adjustment to your assumptions.