Natural Wonders & Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, September 09, 2019, 18:10 (1685 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: All the whale changes are “technically” adaptations, since they all make adjustments to existing features. We know that cell communities can make minor adjustments, but we do not know if the same mechanism is capable of major adjustments. It is a theory, but it is based on the existence of an autonomous mechanism which even you have apparently begun to acknowledge: “As for cells making minor adaptations epigenetically , we know God gave them that degree of ability”. (David’s bold)

DAVID: You are missing my insistence that foot to flipper is a very major alteration requiring intensive design by glossing over it as the now bolded phrase shows! It requires more than 'adjustments'.

dhw: Prior to the above quote, I wrote that “the major physiological changes to the whale could also be classed as adaptations to existing organs, not innovations”. I don’t know why you think a “very major alteration” is different from a “major physiological change”, and my point was that the changes were adaptations, not innovations, because the leg already existed and the flipper did not appear out of nowhere. That is why the borderline between adaptation and innovation as the cause of speciation may be blurred.

We differ widely in view: Any alteration of foot to flipper requires major design changes and from air to water exquisite physiologic changes. These are not adaptations, but major alterations of form and biochemistry.

DAVID: You present a very strange God. It is just your intentional misinterpretation of my repeated statements that humans were His eventual goal.

dhw: You have repeatedly stated that your God’s goal was H. sapiens, and that he decided to take 3.X billion years to start fulfilling that goal, and therefore he had to create all the other non-human life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders in order to cover that time. All summed up by your statement: “He knew those designs were required interim goals to establish the necessary food supply to cover the time he knew he had decided to take.” Please tell me what I have misinterpreted.

How you overemphasize the concept of 'goal', giving my God only one supreme purpose and thereby distorting my theory that He chose to use an evolution method, just as history tells us, as I assume God created our reality.

DAVID: My God knows exactly what he is doing and what He ‘desires’ to do. […] He certainly wanted the entire bush of life before arriving at humans, as God is the creator of reality and history tells what He did.

dhw: […] If you are now saying that the bush was a purpose in itself (he wanted/desired it), then at last we have reached common ground. We can jettison the whole idea that he started out with just the one purpose of producing H. sapiens. Bush and humans were all designed for the same purpose – to satisfy his desire.

DAVID: The whole of the evolutionary theory shows God's purpose, but I will not leave the point to your interpretation. Remember I'm with Adler and we are different in kind which means we were God's final goal. You admit to our specialness and then ignore its importance in your final conclusions.

dhw: All species are different in kind, and yes our level of consciousness is special. Now please explain what you meant by your God wanting/desiring the entire bush of life. You appear at last to be jettisoning your earlier belief that he had to specially design all branches of the bush only in order to provide the food to cover the time he had decided to take in order to specially design the life form which was his “final goal”.

Again you purposely skip the point, we are different in kind, not degree. The point is, through evolution we are a giant step no other species exhibits, given above in my comment.