David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, February 20, 2020, 10:55 (1736 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: My concept of God is the same as yours in that he would do whatever he wishes in whatever way he wishes. I am simply challenging your "guess" (see below) concerning WHAT he wishes and the WAY he wishes to do it! History only presents us with the bush! The above bolded theory is your “guess” (see below). If he could do what he wished any way he wished, why would he NOT do the one thing he wanted to do?

DAVID: Your reasoning makes no sense based on your initial agreement with me (bolded). You are questioning His obvious decision to wait, while questioning why isn't He impatient, like human are. Pure humanizing as usual.

It is NOT an obvious decision to wait! We agree that he could do whatever he wished in any way that he wished. The only obvious conclusion to draw from the bush of life is that he wanted a bush of life! Not that he only wanted one species and therefore wanted to spend 3.X billion years designing non-humans before designing the only thing he wanted to design!

dhw: When will you acknowledge that your own theory is also a combination of “guesses”? If you refuse to take logical alternative “guesses” seriously, why should your own illogical ”guesses” be taken seriously? All theories are guesses until proven – and that includes the existence of God. The purpose of discussion is to test the reasoning that leads to the guess or theory.

DAVID: My theory starts with the logic Adler presents in the "Difference of Man....etc". My logic stems from the conclusion we are God's ultimate purpose. What does your logic come from?

Your guess that we are God’s ultimate purpose is not in itself illogical. It is the COMBINATION of your guesses that is illogical. Why are you asking about my logic when you have already agreed that all my alternatives are logical, and your only objection is that they “humanize” God, even though you agree that God probably has similar thought patterns to ours. And you still don’t seem to realize that your “conclusion” is a guess (you can’t “know” it for a fact), as is the rest of your theory, so why should your guesses be taken more seriously than mine?

DAVID: Starting with God's choice to evolve humans, econiches are the only way to supply energy over time. An absolute requirement in order to evolve humans.

Econiches are an absolute requirement to evolve every form of life. They do not explain why your God designed 3.X billion years’ worth of econiches, life forms etc. when you insist that his starting point was to evolve humans!

DAVID: Your view assumes there is a drive to improve and complexify. But evolution is filled with examples of long periods of stasis.

dhw: My view assumes a drive to survive. New conditions may allow for new modes of survival, and these lead to complexification. The long periods of stasis are due to stable conditions with the balanced econiches that are essential to all life forms at all times. Only when conditions change (locally or globally) do organisms either adapt or innovate (and econiches change accordingly).

DAVID: Pure unadulterated Darwinism. Extinctions are pure luck (Raup) and the species drive to survive is day by day while alive. Advances come after fossil gaps, and require design.

I don’t know why you think he word “Darwinism” disproves the above theory. I agree that it’s bad luck if organisms can't cope with new conditions, and I’m surprised that you accept the enormous role played by luck in a process which you keep telling us is under your God’s total control. The fact that survival is a day-to-day struggle explains why organisms must adapt when conditions change, and may find new ways of improving their chances of survival. Must I repeat that design by possibly God-given cellular intelligence would solve the problem of the gaps?