Cubist
Posts: 559 Joined: Oct. 2007
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Quote (Vasha @ Mar. 17 2016,11:23) | Hi,
Can someone point me to a concise refutation of teleological convergent evolution, the idea that starting with a simple DNA-based cell, life would be bound and destined to evolve to some organism very similar to humans in both behavior and appearance? I searched TalkOrigins but couldn't find anything directly relevant.
I would like to link to it in my review of the science fiction novel Planetfall, which is based on that premise. It depicts a godlike being seeding multiple planets with DNA, and (as the being intended) life on all of them producing something very humanlike, at which point that species is deemed worthy to meet its creator.
It is kind of a weird novel; it seems to depict people who believe in a cosmic destiny of humankind as being both extremely stupid and right, and the development of our species as simultaneously leaving us as venal and vicious as ever in the future, and constantly ascending to divine worthiness. I will have to look at the book more carefully to be sure I haven't misunderstood the author's philosophical arguments, but at least I can address those parts of it that misrepresent evolution. |
Depending on the specifics of that "godlike being", there may not be a refutation of that idea.
Consider omphalism, the notion that the universe was created a relatively short while ago, complete with a vast array of self-consistent internal evidence which falsely indicates that the universe is significantly older than it actually is. Since omphalism explicitly presumes that evidence is irrelevant, how could the proposition of a deceitful, omphalos-type creator be refuted by evidence?
Theistic evolution—the idea that God did it, and mainstream science is telling us how He did it—provides another general class of creator that cannot be refuted by evidence. If the Creator posited in Planetfall is the sort of Creator Who works Its wonders by methods that cannot be distinguished from the operation of impersonal natural law, evidence is, again, incapable of refuting that sort of Creator.
The above said and acknowledged, teleological convergent evolution is an idea that is not well-supported by evidence, and that can only be made to appear scientifically valid if one goes out of one's way to manufacture rationalizations for it.
The basic problem is, the universe does not operate by strictly deterministic principles. Which means you can't predict which mutations will occur in a genealogical lineage, any more than you can predict what sort of future environmental challenges will be faced by members of that lineage. So if the Creator posited in Planetfall just kinda seeded life and went away for however-many years, exactly what would prevent that seeded life from acquiring mutations that generate traits which were not foreseen by that Creator? What would ensure that the descendants of that seeded life were never faced with environmental conditions which cause that life to go extinct? What would ensure that the descendants of that seeded life never encountered selective pressures that eliminate traits which the Creator intended Its seeded life to develop?
Well, maybe the Creator posited in Planetfall has, all along, been observing the seeded life It created, and making adjustments as needed when things don't go according to Its plan…
TL;DR—The bare notion of a (generic, nonspecified) Creator cannot be refuted by evidence. But for any Creator that has identifiable attributes, it may be possible to refute that particular Creator-hypothesis.
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