Evolution, survival and adaptation (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, September 29, 2017, 13:29 (2394 days ago) @ dhw

Once more I am bringing different threads together, as the arguments interlink.

DAVID’s comment (under "frog self-protection"): Unless these moths had these chemicals from the beginning of their species, they would not be here now. I think they were designed to be protected this way.
dhw: […] is it just possible that the now acknowledged capability for autonomous design was in operation for both the frog and the moth?
DAVID: You keep pushing your idea that God gave organisms the ability to speciate or to create irreducibly complex mechanisms. I have specifically, in both comments above, specified the need for design. And as always it is programmed from the beginning or it is a dabble. The 'capability for autonomous design' is epigenetic adaptation at the level we have discovered.

Thank you for answering my question: you believe that 3.8 billion years ago your God either provided the first living cells with a programme for the poisonous frogs and moths, or he specially created these variations in existing frogs and moths (assuming you still believe in common descent). This leads to the following point:

dhw (under “frog adaptation”):Clearly they have nothing to do with producing the brain of Homo sapiens, and you have agreed that “balance of nature” means nothing more than that life goes on, regardless of whether humans are there or not. So could it be that you are now saying your God specially designs all these things for the sake of the show (of which humans are simply one part), which he watches with interest in his own special way?
DAVID: I've not changed and neither have you. Balance of nature is absolutely necessary to produce the human brain, exactly to keep solve the issue of 'life goes on' by providing the necessary energy supply.

And so your all-powerful God could not have provided the necessary energy supply to produce the human brain without preprogramming/dabbling the poisonous moths and frogs, the weaverbird’s nest, the eight stages of whale, the monarch butterfly’s life cycle, plus all the innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders that no longer exist. And this makes sense to you?

DAVID: The brain is the current endpoint of evolution. The possibility of a 'show' is your side issue. I see God full of purpose, not theatrics, which might be a favorite subject of yours as a playwright.

What purpose? All you offer is H. sapiens’ brain! (You did once mention a desire to communicate with us, but that became a problem with our interlocutor being hidden.) I have suggested purposes for individual organisms and for your God producing the whole bush of evolution AND the human brain. You wrote: “We don’t know if he is watching, but since he is in charge, I’m sure he is. Why create and not watch the outcomes?” And you conceded that this must mean he is interested. If this doesn’t suggests a show of some kind, perhaps you will tell us what other purpose you think he had in creating the higgledy-piggledy bush of a billion and one organisms, lifestyles and wonders, including the brain of Homo sapiens, while remaining hidden and watching with interest.