Science-Engaged Theological Argument for Common Descent

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@colewd

You are jumping ahead. Would you agree that common descent and evolutionary mechanisms would necessarily produce a noisy tree-like structure with respect to DNA sequences when there is a lack of horizontal genetic transfer?

Yes, I agree.

Do you also agree:

1. God can inject mutations into common descent whenever he likes to produce what ever forms he wants.

2. God alternatively could have made everything without a strong signature for a tree.

Of God can de move create life, he can certainly do both these things. #1 deomonstrates why ID arguments are not arguments against common descent. #2 demonstrates that God could have made life in a way that did not look like common descent, but he did.

That is why the tree structure is de facto evidence of common descent, even when taking theology into account.