progressive creation from the oldest Homo sapiens...

> > >We would not have found a half-dozen creatures on their way to becoming the
> > efficient cetaceans of today's oceans. You can find this principle in
> > Augustine, who claimed that the Almighty created everything instantaneously,
> > though it had to unfold over time. But the unfolding was perfect, not
> > >Ambylocetus or Pachycetus on their way to becoming efficient.<<<

There's a difficulty in determining what perfect unfolding or suitably efficient organisms should be. Perhaps Pakicetus was just the right sort of creature needed to function in the ecosystem of its time. Unlike the engineering analogies, it's rather hard to decide what might be the goal. E.g., a progressive creation view might argue that the intermediate forms in some way prepare the way for the later forms. The problem is not so much that the forms have not arrived somewhere but the fact that they seem to be in transit. The fact that organisms fit into nice evolutionary lineages is problematic for any non-evolutionary view, whereas supposed deficiencies of any particular organism can be explained away.

Of course, this view raises the question of why God would insist on stepwise preparation, using natural laws within each step, while insisting on not using natural laws to go from one form to another.

    Dr. David Campbell
    Old Seashells
    University of Alabama
    Biodiversity & Systematics
    Dept. Biological Sciences
    Box 870345
    Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
    bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com

That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
Received on Sat Mar 5 16:57:19 2005