= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Jiro comments on Open Thread Feb 22 - Feb 28, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (228)
I'm not sure Eric is denying common descent (the subject of your last link). My impression is that he's some sort of theistic evolutionist, is happy with the idea that all today's life on earth is descended from a common ancestor[1] but thinks that where the common ancestor came from, and how it was able to give rise to the living things we see today given "only" a few billion years and "only" the size of the earth's biosphere, are questions with no good naturalistic answer, and that God is the answer to both.
[1] Or something very similar; perhaps there are scenarios with a lot of "horizontal transfer" near the beginning, in which the question "one common ancestor or several?" might not even have a clear meaning.
[EDITED because I wrote "Erik" instead of "Eric"; my brain was probably misled by the "k" in the surname. Sorry, Eric.]
Well, he says:
If he doesn't believe that species can become other species, he can't believe in common descent (unless he believes that the changes in species happen when scientists say they happen, but he attributes this to God).
This is approximately what many Christians believe. (The idea being that the broad contours of the history of life on earth are the way the scientific consensus says, but that various genetic novelties were introduced as a result of divine guidance of some kind.)
I'm not sure whether this is Eric's position. He denies being a young-earth creationist, but he does also make at least one argument against "universal common descent". Eric, if you're reading this, would you care to say a bit more about what you think did happen in the history of life on earth? What did the scientists get more or less right and what did they get terribly wrong?