An Alternative to Evolution: Expounded Upon (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 12:51 (2101 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] you refuse to recognize that separate creation is the direct opposite of common descent, and you claim that the Cambrian was separate creation, and your use of terms like “dabble”, “guide”, “step in” therefore also suggests separate creation which you now say may have been continuous. In fact your concept of God’s “guidance” (which may = separate creation) applies not only to speciation but also to every lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life. God “steps in” to design them all. The discussion is not about how evolution “looks”, but how it happened, and your view is that your God may have done it all by separate creation, or some of it by separate creation, although you believe in common descent, but you are not fence sitting.

DAVID: Our difference is in the definition of the term 'common descent'. From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent

"Evidence of common descent of living organisms has been discovered by scientists researching in a variety of disciplines over many decades, demonstrating that all life on Earth comes from a single ancestor."

DAVID: This could have been done by God and still be common descent by definition.

I have already quoted a Wikipedia definition of common descent, and there is no difference whatsoever between us! Last week you wrote: “I don’t reject the separate creation Bible theory, since I also think God stepped into the process continuously or at various points (dabbling). None of me is on your picket fence.” You don’t seem to realize that separate creation means that all life does NOT come from a single ancestor! It is the opposite of common descent. And so you believe in common descent but you do not reject separate creation, which may even have been continuous, but you are not on the fence!

DAVID: We all know there is no proof. Some of us want a reasonable explanation, not fence sitting.

dhw: I consider adaptations as evidence of cellular intelligence, and so the hypothesis that the cell communities are also capable of major innovations seems to me at least as reasonable as the hypothesis that these came about through random mutations, or that an unknown designer fiddled with the anatomy of pre-whales before they entered the water, and then kept fiddling and fiddling, because he needed all these changes to provide food so that life could continue until he was able to produce the brain of Homo sapiens.

DAVID: Back on the fence.

You have missed the point. Do you really and truly believe that all the non sequiturs of the third hypothesis make it reasonable?