Life's biologic complexity: Automatic molecular actions (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, December 03, 2016, 13:33 (2912 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Two possibilities: 1) what perishes and what survives is a matter of luck, in which case God cannot be said to have had what you earlier called “tight control” of evolution. 2) If God had “tight control” of evolution, he must have planned the extinctions, so why do you keep reminding me that the “proper theory” is bad luck? Once again, the bad luck theory fits in perfectly with the free-for-all theory.

DAVID: I am not using the word 'luck' as you are. Raup's bad luck concept viewed extinctions as the cause of the massive loss of species, not their fault as they were doing fine until the asteroid hit. This approach does not look at species competition as the cause for the disappearance of species, but sudden changes in environment they cannot prepare for in time to survive.

When we say an event is bad luck, of course we mean it is not the victim’s fault! Yes, we are looking at sudden changes in the environment, and the question is whether your God planned them or not. If he did, it was the victims’ bad luck that he deliberately created them in such a way that they would not survive (unless, of course, he didn’t know what he was doing – which scarcely fits in with the careful planning and total control you keep insisting on):

DAVID: God is in total control. [And later:] God knows exactly what is happening at all times.

If God is in TOTAL control, then please stop saying he may or may not have been responsible for the catastrophes that caused mass extinctions. He can only be in TOTAL control if he controls the changes in the environment.

DAVID: It is the organism who is 'unlucky', not prepared for what God throws at him.

Precisely. And since, according to you, only God is capable of creating the innovations that have led to speciation, God is responsible for making the organisms incapable of withstanding what he now apparently quite deliberately throws at them. For some reason which has never been clear to me, you object to this reasoning.

dhw: I’m surprised you still cannot see that if the extinction of 99% of all species may have been bad luck (the “proper theory”), evolution could not have been carefully planned.
DAVID: Perhaps you understand my interpretation of Raup now. God guided evolution and extinctions were one of His methods of control.

I understand now that you have finally decided that your God was responsible for Chixculub and all the other natural catastrophes and/or other major environmental changes, and you have finally decided that your God deliberately programmed or dabbled 99% of species in such a way that they would be incapable of withstanding what he threw at them, because – presumably – he had to create them and then get rid of them in order to produce humans. I can think of a much simpler explanation for the course of evolution!