The Fossil Record: Evolution and/or Progressive Creation

I know you don't literally 'abhor' it.  I was kidding in my use of that.  'Progressive creation' was a conclusion drawn by observations of the fossil record.  If the fossil record instead was a continuous, non-episodic record of gradual change, then I'm sure evolution would have been proposed instead of progressive creation by someone else much sooner than Darwin.

I wasn't sure. What I do abhor is poor or weak reasoning and the tendency of some to draw vaulting conclusions from very little knowledge.

For example, if certain events in evolution cannot be explained by any natural terrestial cause, we'd still need to consider the possibility of alien intervention. I for one would find that more credible than divine intervention because it would make a better fit with our knowledge of the rest of geological time.

I don't see how you'd come to that conclusion.  Abiogenesis one time is already invoking a miracle.  Twice would be two miracles.  Advanced life a second time would compound miracles exponentially.  Then even if that happened interstellar distances would make actual travel prohibitive, so at most 'first contact' would be via radio communication.  But even if those barriers were somehow overcome how on earth (pun intended) could alien intervention reproduce our fossil record?  Divine intervention makes more sense to me than the alien intervention scenario.

"Abiogenesis one time is already invoking a miracle. Twice would be two miracles"

Are you assuming that the long process by which a technological alien species might arise would necessarily be as problematic as our own? On what grounds do you assume that because I haven't suggested any form such highly speculative aliens might take.

And I can only repeat that on any scale of conceivability, I place alien visitation higher than divine intervention.

To me, it's the exact opposite.  Alien visitation is far more improbable.  I base this first on the physical laws of the universe constraining possibilities such that any life in our universe would have to be carbon-based; second, the already statistical impossibility of abiogenesis, such that it's more likely for a physical law of the universe to be violated (which *is* the definition of a miracle as typically defined) like the second law of thermodynamics reverse itself than for even one protein or one gene to spontaneously arise let alone some 500 of each we need bare minimum spontaneously forming in the same place; third, the dozens of parameters that must be 'just right' for a habitable planet to exist with a sufficient length of time for habitability; fourth, the additional unique and constraining parameters that must be met for a habitable planet to not just be suitable for life but suitable for advanced life (see the book "Rare Earth" for example, which concluded under best case scenarios if life is common in the universe it would be of the bacterial variety, with advanced life being extremely rare to nil); combined with fifth, Drake Equation estimates on the probability of contact with an alien race.  That is, even if an advanced alien civilization exists given interstellar (and integalactic) distances what they are it's unlikely the two would ever make contact or be aware of each other's existence, much less be able to physically travel one to the other.  In my mind all those combined would require a bigger miracle than divine intervention.

I didn't say I thought the probablility was at all high of aliens arriving & tinkering with the chemical soup of the early Earth, or bringing in life from outside come to that.

The problem I have is in making any sense of the kind of scenario that creationists generally present. We're confident that the rocky planets are formed of materials made from elements created by exploding stars over the first 9,000,000,000 years or so of the Universe. Then the Solar System came to be formed over millions of years, two of it's young rocky planets colliding to form the Earth and Moon.

Let's acknowledge here that said Solar System is an utterly unremarkable one, situated in a backwater of a perfectly average galaxy, one of billions in our Cosmos!

And then, the creationist tells us, some all-powerful but unspecified entity turns up and conjures the first lifeform into existence. But that's about it because again, we're very confident that from there on a purely natural process of evolution caused all the various forms of life we see today.

For me, as an explanation of how life began, that struggles to get off the ground.

I don't see intervention as starting at abiogenesis.  To me, it starts with the order and existence of our universe and the origin of the regularities we call 'physical laws' along with their constants that govern the operation of that universe that begs the question.  And that 'natural process' of evolution which we're now seeing is heavily dependent on evolvability mechanisms tied to exquisite informational processing likewise begs the question.  Inclusive with the origin of life is the origin of those in-built genome modification processes, which arguably are a mark of intelligence. 

(I also wouldn't call our solar system 'unremarkable'.  Single star planetary solar systems in general are rarer than binary star systems which aren't conducive to life, but sure we still see the former.  But a solar system like ours that is also in the galactic habitable zone with an earth like ours in the circumstellar zone of a stable burning class G star like ours with liquid water and land continents and tectonic activity and a large moon to stabilize the earth's axial wobble and strip away greenhouse gases early in the earth's history so we didn't end up like the raging inferno that Venus is, and a large gas giant like Jupiter positioned where it is to deflect asteroids and cometary bodies to reduce impact frequency on earth, and a host of other parameters....I'd say our solar system is quite remarkable and extremely rare and unlikely in occurrence)

But again, regarding the question at hand, I find intervention by an unspecified alien intelligence far more improbable than intervention by an unspecified divine entity for the reasons I gave. 

But are we supposed to believe that some desired outcome was intended? I sometimes refer to a 'purposeful creator' to reflect this, the (supposed) guiding divine hand that nudges the formation of the Universe this way and the course of evolution in that direction, towards some result.

If so, it really needs to be explained why billions of years have to be allowed to pass in order for elements of the required complexity to be formed and billions more for the processes of evolution to bring forth anything more complex than 'cellular soup'.

If it's true that some force exists that can will a Cosmos into existence, you have to wonder why the subsequent process of creating something that can think has to be so very convoluted and take so long.

It all strikes me as pretty amazing and phenomenal actually, and I imagine to a noncontingent being that transcends time billions of years would seem like nothing, a blink of the eye (time is relative as they say) 

I don't think "now" is a big deal to God either as it is to us. Think about it for someone who transcends time itself why would an instant be more than a billion years on what could be accomplished as well.

But there's the small (rhetorical) question to answer of why any 'agent' capable of creating a Universe in the first place, would order things in such a way that hundreds of millions of years need to pass before the elements from which life is made are even formed.

Whether hindered by the passing of eons or not, why bother with all that messing around with vast clouds of Hydrogen that first need to condense into stars, igniting the process of fusion, then 500,000,000 (?) years later going super-nova and creating heavier elements?

This is precisely why I refer to a 'purposeful being' - what exactly do you claim is the purpose of going about things in that way? Is it that your creator has no choice because their power is limited to only being able to create a Universe composed of Hydrogen?

The unfolding story of our universe is an amazing one at each step.  Each one more amazing than the last.  Perhaps that's the 'point'.  Perhaps the point is to evoke a sense of awe and wonder at the grandeur and scale of it all.  Perhaps the point is to get us to think.  Perhaps there are numerous object lessons embedded in the fabric of the universe, such as our simultaneous significance and insignificance in the grand scheme of it all, the lesson that despite the grandeur it is nevertheless temporal as is our existence in it.  Perhaps it's to stimulate discussions such as this and to evoke our curiosity and inquiry about it.  Perhaps it's all of the above and a lot more. 

We could just as easily ask, why not do it this way, could we not?  I imagine no matter what way it was done people would still question it and say they would have done it differently or 'better'.  Ultimately, if it's the work of a transcendent noncontingent being, then it was done the way it was because that's the way the being wanted it to be done. 

Or perhaps a great deal of what we now know about the formation of our Universe and the diversity of life on Earth today, leads us to believe it was all formed in a naturalistic way because it really is the result of natural processes?

I can't say I'm surprised by your reply to my questions above, just a little disappointed.

But might we focus on just one of my questions, the one about the forming of heavier elements? Is it disputed that in the very early Universe the most abundant element was Hydrogen? And is it in dispute that the heavier elements only came into existence as the result of stars having come to the ends of their lives and exploding in supernovae?

And is it disputed that this process took many hundreds of millions of years to take place and is still happening? Why would a creator with the power to will an entire Universe into existence order things in that way?

I can make no sense of this and as I said before, any scenario needs to make sense. You refer to 'awe' when we behold the Cosmos but wouldn't one in which all essential elements for our existence were already in place generate even greater awe, simply because we'd have no way of explaining how that had happened?

Sorry to disappoint you, but I think you underestimate my answers and the scale of the problem.  From your pov the fact that the universe has unfolded and evolved to give us stars, galaxies, elements, etc. according to regularities we call 'natural law' (yes, I agree) and their fine-tuned constants that are not separate but somehow are part of that same universe indicates to you the need for no causative agent that transcends it all.  But to me it indicates just the opposite.  The fact that we can rationally explain the order of the universe according to these fine-tuned constants and regularities does not explain the origin and existence of the universe or the source and origin of these constants and regularities.

Added to this the fact that there seems no reason why this should necessarily be so.  That is, there seems no reason we can find in the universe itself as to why it or the regularities should be this way.  Their existence seems contingent, not necessary.  There seems to be no reason why the universe *has to be* the way that it is or why the regularities and constants *have to be* the way that they are.  Indeed, we can imagine many different possible universes, and a common exercise in cosmology is to vary the constants and starting conditions to see what type of different universes would result. 

The lesson we learn is that our universe is exquisitely fined-tuned to allow life to exist.  That is, to allow an ordered universe where stars and galaxies and superstructure in the universe actually *can* form and where elements actually *can* be created by stellar nucleosynthesis.  Adjust one or more of the constants ever so slightly and we don't have such a universe.

So why is that?  Luck?  'It's a brute fact and that's just the way things are?   I find those responses rationally unsatisfying, and all the more so given what science seems to indicate on the subject: i.e. that it seems our universe is contingent and finite in existence.

Thus, to the contrary, the unfolding of the universe over billions of years according to fine-tuned regularities that fortuitously (?) allow for our universe's existence as well as our own from my pov suggests a transcendence behind it all. 

And again, I really don't see billions of years as problematic.  Just because that is a long time to us doesn't mean it would be to some transcendent being, which could be a blink of an eye for the latter. 

And regarding making everything instantaneously so that we have no other way to explain it but by supernatural means, three things come to mind.  First, if any free choice in belief exists in the matter, then it can hardly be free if it's compulsory so it makes sense to me that there would always be 'an out' available.  But second, a seemingly instantaneous universe could still be explained away without recourse to the supernatural just like it was before the days of the Big Bang when many assumed the universe simply had an eternal, uncreated (and static, unchanging) existence.  From my pov the Big Bang actually makes the case for theism more compelling--certainly more compelling than it was before the Big Bang Theory was posited and accepted.  Even so, there have still always been attempts to explain away the finite existence of the universe (which begs the question of cause) that science suggests, and I imagine this would always be the case regardless of how compelling. 

***But third, and as I've argued above, we still truly *don't* have a naturalistic explanation for it all (and I don't just mean abiogenesis but the origin and existence of the universe itself and it's governing physical constants and regularities as per above).

I do think we probably all end up at the same place, so to speak, in that it seems like regardless of whether we're atheist or theist it seems like we all must ultimately posit some uncaused brute fact to explain the universe: such as the brute fact of a universe that just is; or the brute fact existence of a uncaused, necessary being.

In a debate that has spanned millenia I know we won't solve it here or come to an agreement where we see eye to eye.  But I think (or would like to think) that we can still have a healthy respect for each other's differing viewpoints on the matter.

An additional thought to consider.   Any attempt to get into the 'why' of things seems ultimately speculative, but I believe I've offered some compelling possibilities.  But let's say I haven't (and indeed, it's clear to me that you don't find my suggestions compelling in the least).  So let's say for sake of argument (what is probably true already) that I can't give you any answers to your 'why' question that you will find satisfying.  But can you???  Can you do any better on your side?  If nature's all there is can you explain to me *why* the universe exists and *why* the regularities of nature are the way that they are and *why* the physical constants of those regularities have the values that they do as opposed to some other values, and *why* the universe is rationally intelligible when there seems no reason why it would have to be so, and *why* if there is ultimately no greater purpose and no real purpose or meaning to our existence or the universe's *why* it would still seem that there is or at the least *why* a purposeless, meaningless universe spawned self-aware rational beings who believe they can find purpose for their own lives where as constituents of a purposeless universe there ultimately is none? 

There's always a problem when the 'why' question is asked in this context because it can be misunderstood to imply purpose. But I don't think you mean it quite that way here - at least you probably understand by now that I have little belief in purpose, other than the purpose I personally ascribe to my life.

I take the position that being quite limited by our knowledge, we should reserve judgment on a host of matters. I don't lose sleep because our Universe appears to be exquisitely balanced in terms of its starting conditions, the force of gravity etc.

And I don't lose sleep over the fact that life is extremely improbable by any natural mechanism, or that it's brought forth a creature that is aware of its own existence and can reason. These things may excite my curiosity but they don't leave me disturbed.

What I avoid doing is making forays too deeply into the void beyond human knowledge because rational inference can soon be overtaken by fanciful speculation.

The point is that you seem to find our lack of knowing 'why' a supernatural being would do things such and such a way as troubling, but you are not similarly troubled by naturalism's own inability to answer the 'why' questions.

My overarching point, however, is somewhat different.  My point is that either way (and regardless!), our lack of answers for the 'why' questions don't change or affect the facts or observations one way or the other.  It doesn't change the fact that abiogenesis still seems impossible to accomplish by naturalistic means and more likely for the physical laws of the universe to be violated like the second law of thermodynamics reversing itself.  It doesn't change the fact that abiogenesis is rife with 'fanciful speculation' (which doesn't seem to bother you).  It doesn't change the fact that on the face of it the major successions we observe in the fossil record evidence geologically abrupt global turnovers in the types of life we see that early paleontologists and geologists aptly described as a series of separate 'creations', because that's how it looked to them.  While I agree such a view raises all sorts of philosophical and theological questions (not least of which 'why' a supernatural being would do it that way) it still doesn't change the observational evidence on which such an interpretation rests. 

You see, what I keep hearing is I state a 'what' and you question it with a 'why', as if that somehow repudiates or permits us to dismiss the 'what'.  But it doesn't.

Natural systems don't have plans or desired outcomes, they don't have a purpose behind them. But this thing you label 'God' presumably does have a purpose but for the life of me I can't reconcile what we know about the physical Universe with any plan or purpose put forward by believers.

And when it comes to some of the big unanswered questions in science, I'm more than happy to wait for more data to come in. I see no need to go rushing towards uncertain and potentially unsound conclusions because there's a void here and there in our knowledge.

You may have a compelling need to fill those gaps with something you call 'God' but I don't.

No, no.  This is not some god-of-the-gaps argument.  And I don't have some 'compelling need to fill those gaps'.  Give me a break (and a little credit).  And let's drop the whole 'purpose' thing since that seems to be confusing the issue.  What we're talking about here are 'reasons' for 'why' nature is the way that it is or 'why' God did things a certain way.  While the latter would involve issues of mind that the former does not have, we still assume with the former that there are underlying 'reasons' for why things are the way that they are in nature even absent any supernatural being.   So of course I wasn't saying that nature has 'plans' or 'desired outcomes'.   I would think that was obvious.  My point again is that whether or not I can give you compelling reasons as to 'why' for theism, you're unable to do the same for non-theism.  

But once again my *overarching* point is that the 'why's' are secondary (and impossible for *anyone* to answer in any definitive, non-speculative way and no amount of waiting around for science is going to change that), and that the 'why's' have no bearing on the facts.  Your inability to make sense of something doesn't change the something.  Not knowing the purpose of the pyramids does not change the fact that they're still there.

You being bothered by what you see as an apparent theological/philosophical problem and purported disconnect between abiogenesis and biological evolution (if there is a God), does not change the fact (learned from science) that abiogenesis still seems impossible to accomplish by naturalistic means.  If we were to draw conclusions right now based on what we know, we'd have to conclude that life cannot arise via abiogenesis.  If life cannot arise by natural means, then logically that intimates a cause that transcends the physico-chemical natural world.  That's not some 'rush' to judgment to some 'unsound' conclusion.  It's the conclusion supported by the current facts.  If the facts change in the future to show that life did in fact arise by abiogenesis, then the conclusion simply changes.  

How do you explain the functionally complex operation of life without any plan or purpose within life, only a mindless, directionless, material world that doesn't care one way or another what happens? Concerning meaning, I see meaning every time I see one of those videos of some soldier surprising a family member coming home, the love that causes them to jump for joy at the mere presence of their loved one shows there is meaning there for them; they love each other. I see meaning whenever I watch someone enjoy color for the first time who was born color blind, the universe was made to be enjoyed, and we have turned it into something else. The material makeup of a book, its paper, and ink is meaningless alone. Still, you turn the paper and ink into a book; there is meaning, not in the material makeup of the book, but what transcends the material, the words that matter.