>Bob has raised a good point--that natural selection cannot foresee the
>future. I should like to ask the following question to you all: What or Who
>determines the possible outcomes granting the fact that natural selection is
>governing the future outcomes? An honest answer to this question will
>definitely lead to God--the law Maker and Giver! Here is an example of a
>question that at first seems to be a scientific question that, on attempting
>to answer such a question, leads to God. Of course, the same can be said of
>all the laws that men discover. Whence comes the laws of nature?
There are different ways of thinking about how God directs His creation to
His purposes. How this is viewed would depend on how "independent" one
understands the creation to be. Independence would here mean the extent to
wish God grants freedom to His creation (an analogy with human free will
could be made). There is a lot of interesting debate on this, and I don't
yet have a clear theological position.
Regardless, I do not think it appropriate to think that new structures or
features are coerced by God from creation that would otherwise be
maladaptive. In that case new unadaptive traits would have to be
maintained by God in opposition to the "natural" processes he had already
established. However, new traits could certainly arise as selectively
neutral features, or as secondary biproducts of other features which have a
high selective value.
Keith
Keith B. Miller
Department of Geology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506
kbmill@ksu.ksu.edu
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/