Hi there,
So here is an example I hope explains why I look at life on Earth, the way that I do. It's not rare for something to evolve, because it's expected to, the real question is "what is enough?"; if you know what is enough, you can begin to focus on honing skills you already have, increasing your overall fitness, above the completely self-serving. There is a good example of this: crutches.
A crutch is anything you can use to prop someone up, when one of their legs is lame. With this focus in mind, you can make good ("stable") crutches or bad ("weak") crutches, and there being a difference, means that you can vary crutches in between these extremes, one way or the other. The important thing to note, is that they replace the strength of the limb, that was already designed to take pressure.
So what happens if you select for a strong "crutch", but you don't think about what it is for, it's "design"? It ceases to succeed at its Evolution? "How could this possibly happen?" you ask? Because the crutch has to have the foundational asset that it can be made to fit, the lame person that needed it! A long crutch will help taller people, a short crutch shorter people - this is the defining characteristic of a population of people whose legs may become lame. It is not at all sensible to say that someone is capable of being more adapted to crutches, "because they have varied lengths of leg". I mean it makes sense to say, "let's adapt crutches to be of varied lengths", but you do not need to believe more varied lengths of legs helps this - that would be a 'redundant evolution' given other ways to cope (by design).
Does this carry over to populations (I know you desperately want to know, "how does a proposed adaptation affect the population?") - the answer is "yes". If populations maintain that a healthy mate has similar lengths of leg, then the "adaptation" of crutches to suit different lengths of leg will become a necessary evolution, not a sufficient evolution. The point about this, is that mates are going to err in favour of more ability to address necessary evolution, than sufficient evolution. Sufficient evolution will make a difference, but not as much as necessary evolution. That's the genius of selection that can account for "agency", where previously is would be assumed to be "compunction" of the undiscerning kind.
This is how Creation deals with Evolution - everything else is taking chances, with the necessary and sufficient (together). You do not need to develop adaptations to crutches that weed out legs that are too short or too long: the crutch can adapt, in place of the design. If the design is preserved, greater overall adaptation is possible, because instinct flourishes more with a species that agrees with Creation, than a species that makes exception for Evolution. Even if a member of a species evolves voluntarily, for the good of the species, it must still make this distinction, between whether it commits to necessary or sufficient evolution for the sake of the species. In principle, at least.
I wonder if you could just explain to me, how you get crutches at all, by chance? And not by design? I mean the point of our vigorous debate between Evolution and Creation, is not to weed Evolution "out", but just to acknowledge that they have differing values, depending on what is expected. Would crutches be viable in terms of Evolution, if they had to stand the test of survival of the fittest, on their own? Probably not? And yet, here we have crutches! Crutches affect survival! You don't need to guess the length of a crutch, for a crutch to do good? On the other hand, if you have a crutch that is adapted for varied lengths, would you choose the customisable crutch over one that is simply and basically designed to fit the niche but not the nuance? Of course!
These choices are not mutually eliminating. The choice between Evolution and Creation is not mutually eliminating.
So here is an example I hope explains why I look at life on Earth, the way that I do. It's not rare for something to evolve, because it's expected to, the real question is "what is enough?"; if you know what is enough, you can begin to focus on honing skills you already have, increasing your overall fitness, above the completely self-serving. There is a good example of this: crutches.
A crutch is anything you can use to prop someone up, when one of their legs is lame. With this focus in mind, you can make good ("stable") crutches or bad ("weak") crutches, and there being a difference, means that you can vary crutches in between these extremes, one way or the other. The important thing to note, is that they replace the strength of the limb, that was already designed to take pressure.
So what happens if you select for a strong "crutch", but you don't think about what it is for, it's "design"? It ceases to succeed at its Evolution? "How could this possibly happen?" you ask? Because the crutch has to have the foundational asset that it can be made to fit, the lame person that needed it! A long crutch will help taller people, a short crutch shorter people - this is the defining characteristic of a population of people whose legs may become lame. It is not at all sensible to say that someone is capable of being more adapted to crutches, "because they have varied lengths of leg". I mean it makes sense to say, "let's adapt crutches to be of varied lengths", but you do not need to believe more varied lengths of legs helps this - that would be a 'redundant evolution' given other ways to cope (by design).
Does this carry over to populations (I know you desperately want to know, "how does a proposed adaptation affect the population?") - the answer is "yes". If populations maintain that a healthy mate has similar lengths of leg, then the "adaptation" of crutches to suit different lengths of leg will become a necessary evolution, not a sufficient evolution. The point about this, is that mates are going to err in favour of more ability to address necessary evolution, than sufficient evolution. Sufficient evolution will make a difference, but not as much as necessary evolution. That's the genius of selection that can account for "agency", where previously is would be assumed to be "compunction" of the undiscerning kind.
This is how Creation deals with Evolution - everything else is taking chances, with the necessary and sufficient (together). You do not need to develop adaptations to crutches that weed out legs that are too short or too long: the crutch can adapt, in place of the design. If the design is preserved, greater overall adaptation is possible, because instinct flourishes more with a species that agrees with Creation, than a species that makes exception for Evolution. Even if a member of a species evolves voluntarily, for the good of the species, it must still make this distinction, between whether it commits to necessary or sufficient evolution for the sake of the species. In principle, at least.
I wonder if you could just explain to me, how you get crutches at all, by chance? And not by design? I mean the point of our vigorous debate between Evolution and Creation, is not to weed Evolution "out", but just to acknowledge that they have differing values, depending on what is expected. Would crutches be viable in terms of Evolution, if they had to stand the test of survival of the fittest, on their own? Probably not? And yet, here we have crutches! Crutches affect survival! You don't need to guess the length of a crutch, for a crutch to do good? On the other hand, if you have a crutch that is adapted for varied lengths, would you choose the customisable crutch over one that is simply and basically designed to fit the niche but not the nuance? Of course!
These choices are not mutually eliminating. The choice between Evolution and Creation is not mutually eliminating.
