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> DAVID’s comment: [i]A logical need is available. Once again, unless the mechanism was available from the beginning of bird speciation, would birds have survived? Feathers are very fragile. More evidence God controls the appearance of new species.[/i]
> 
> dhw: [i]Or more evidence of the amazing ways in which organisms develop their own means of survival (through an autonomous mechanism of intelligence which may or may not have been designed by your God). Your final comment obliges me to restore the balance. Thank you for these marvellous articles, but I do wish we could have them without the advertisement at the end![/i]
> 
> DAVID: [i]But I am here in my role as God's advertiser![/i]
> 
> I know, but then we shall have endless repetition, as I’ll have to ask you over and over again if you really and truly believe that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided the first cells with computer programmes for every single natural wonder, including the weaverbird’s nest, the cuttlefish’s camouflage, and feather-healing; or he intervened to give the weaverbird, the cuttlefish and the feather-healing birds special tuition in order to keep life going until he was able to produce the brain of Homo sapiens. And I’ll have to ask if you don’t think it would be simpler (one up for Occam) and more in keeping with the higgledy-piggledy history of evolution if he gave organisms the autonomous intelligence either to work out their own methods of adapting and innovating or to disappear. Do you really want to go through that every time?