Chris
> > Just what *are* the conditions that must be met for naturalistic
> > evolution to proceed on its own to develop the kinds of complexity
> > we see in life today?
>
>HVT
>Good question. But before an answer could be offered, I suggest you clarify
>what the term "naturalistic" means in this context. In ID literature there
>are two very different meanings for the term, but the distinction is almost
>never made.
>
>A *broad* (and explicit in its denial of a Creator) meaning could be built
>on the platform of Naturalism as a comprehensive worldview that included the
>premise, "Nature is all there is, and it needs no Creator to give it being."
>In that context, "naturalistic evolution" would mean evolution within a
>self-existent universe that needs no Creator as the source of its being.
>Specifically it needs no extra-natural source for the requisite formational
>capabilities that would make possible a process as remarkable as evolution.
>
>A *narrow* (and inconclusive regarding the need for a Creator) meaning would
>be simply "without need for occasional episodes of form-imposing divine
>intervention." This meaning would include the idea that the universe is
>equipped with all of the requisite formational capabilities to make
>evolution possible, but would make no explicit claim or denial regarding the
>source of those capabilities.
>
>Am I correct in presuming that you mean the latter?
Chris
Yes, although, unless some very odd attributes must be included, I would
expect the answers to be compatible with full-fledged naturalism as well,
in that we could, possibly, rationally conceive of a purely naturally
occurring universe that would occasionally have planets with these attributes.
If non-naturalistic *attributes* are somehow included (such as weird
"spirits" or "elan vitale") then it's not really an answer to my question,
but it could be interesting to see what attributes *these* things would
presumably have to have to make at least non-theistic, non-alien evolution
work.
As we know, reproduction and branching-by-modification are all that's
needed for long-term major evolutionary development, assuming that there is
no selection at all or that it is systematic and compatible with life and
the evolutionary process itself. Thus, we could rephrase my question as:
What do you think was *missing* or "wrong" with early Earth,
and what is missing or "wrong" with life that prevents it from
continuously evolving on its own without designer intervention?
This, in important ways, is like my challenge to:
a). *define* macroevolution both *externally* (i.e., in terms of physical
facts, not in terms of mere epistemological or propagandistic convenience)
and without reference to microevolution. This would allow any number of
people who knew the definition to consistently agree with each other in a
large sampling of cases as to which were cases of macroevolution and which
were merely cases of multiple steps of microevolution.
b). Show that there is a naturalistic *barrier* to progressive
microevolution such that it cannot produce the same results via a series of
microevolutionary steps, or that there is some sort of mysterious *genetic*
"attractor" around key "median" genotypes that keeps the variations from
wandering far from such medians. This attractor, however, must have the
attribute that it becomes *stronger* as the variations move further from
the "median," because if it stays the same or gets weaker, then it is
insufficient to prevent the naturalistic equivalent of what they call
(misleadingly, in my view) macroevolution.
In this terminology, my question could be rephrased *again* to something like:
What are the "barriers" to
a). The generation of energy *using* molecular structures (i.e., *life*)
from energy-passive but autocatalytic molecular structures.
and
b). The evolution of ever more living organisms via naturalistic processes
as time goes on?
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