Re: Naturalism as the Religious Basis of Evolutionism

Dennis Arndt wrote in talk.origins

Third, unguided evolution could have produced an assortment of
life forms very unlike the forms that now exist on the earth.

Yes? Your point is? Actually, I suspect that you really don't have
a good idea of the variety of life on earth, either now or in the
past. Many forms have been tried, and many forms are currently being
used.

Such
evolution by random mutation, genetic recombination, natural
selection, etc. does not explain why the world happend to be as
it is. It only provides an explanation of how it is as it is. (Here
I am using "why" in the philosopical reason/purpose sense, not
in the how sense as I did in another sub-thread). Within this
theory, if conditions in a few places had been different from
what they were at certain time, the path of life form evolution
might have been quite different.

And so? We are all aware that organisms evolve to suit the enviroment.
One thing you seem to be missing is that evolution is constrained by
what came before it. Man will not evolve into an 8 legged octopus. Man
may change quite a bit over eons, but there are certain aspects to the
physical characteristics of man that constrain our bodies.
And this is true of all organisms. The body that was successful before will
be passed on, possibly with modifications, to future generations. But
those modifications are constrained by what is there. A mutation that will
do away with the spine will most likely kill the organism. And in our
environment our skeletons suit us well.



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Home Page: dickcr.iwarp.com
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