David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, February 26, 2020, 19:16 (1730 days ago) @ David Turell

I am again telescoping posts, as none of this has anything to do with Shapiro.

dhw: I then challenged you to name any scientists who backed your theory of “theistic evolution”, and you cannot name a single one. I therefore suggest you drop that particular line of attack.

DAVID: Of course I can name them. That proves nothing to you, and wastes debate space. Stop repeating your tiny crew and I'll stop.
And:
DAVID: I've based my theory on their findings, which I have the interpreted into my own theory. I don't need quoting a short list, as you must do.

You asked me to name “my” scientists. I did and then asked you for the same. You admit that you can’t provide any names, because your ID scientists even avoid mentioning your God! I therefore suggested you drop this line of attack, and now you have asked me to stop! Right, let’s stop and focus on the arguments.

DAVID: As you will not recognize my version of my God, we will disagree. Your totally humanized God who decides to create a spectacle of life's variety as His purpose is not the point for my purposeful God who would not allow organisms to run their own evolution and lose control of His purpose.

If his purpose was to create a self-organizing spectacle, you can hardly say he has “lost” control – and in any case, I give him the option of dabbling. But this is only ONE of the interpretations of evolution that I offer, all of which you acknowledge as logical, whereas you have no idea why your God would choose to follow your unique theory of evolution (and you admonish me for trying to find a logical explanation).

DAVID: My God is not the humanized one you describe. My God wants tight control to achieve His exact purposes. I ignore your fanciful versions of God with human thoughts, experimenting or allowing organisms to experiment.

dhw: Don’t you know of any human who wants tight control to achieve his exact purposes? I’m fully aware that you would like to ignore my different versions of God, just as you would like to ignore your own repeated agreement that he could very well think like us, probably has similar thought patterns and emotions to ours, and probably does have some of our attributes.[/b]

DAVID: Your now bolded version of my thoughts it a distortion.

It is not a distortion. These are direct quotes!

DAVID: My thinking comment is He uses logic as we do, period!

But since we cannot find a logical explanation for your theory, how can he be using logic as we do?

DAVID: I'm think His emotions mirror ours, but to what attributes are you referring?

It was you who wrote that he “probably does have some of our attributes”. What were you referring to?

DAVID: And we cannot know His reasons for His choices of action, but can see His purposes in His creations.

We cannot “know” anything – even whether God exists – and so we propose theories, whose logic we then test. If he exists, we can extrapolate purposes from his creations, but it is all too obvious from our discussion that we can extrapolate different purposes.

DAVID: Once again the argument from the "Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes" sets the stage for my very logical and reasonable conclusions.

It is a logical and reasonable conclusion that man provides evidence for the existence of a designer, and that man is so special that he may well have been the designer’s special purpose. It is the rest of your theory that defies logic.

dhw: Just for the sake of clarity: did your God leave it to chance to decide which species survived and which went extinct?

DAVID: I've been quite clear: God controls evolution, speciates as necessary so what survives is the result of His designing control.

And yet you agree with Raup that extinctions are “pure luck”. How does “pure luck” come to mean "tight control", as above? Are you saying that when God sees all these unlucky organisms dying by sheer chance, he “speciates” – by which you mean he designs - new life forms to replace them? Lucky for us that the dinosaurs were so unlucky, or God might never have bothered with us. Wouldn't it fit your theory far better if you dropped Raup's idea altogether and had your God dabbling? "Pure luck" certainly fits the self-organizing theory (with cells responding or failing to respond to changing conditions) better than it does yours with your God's "tight control"..

DAVID: (re “a multicellular animal needs no oxygen”): Very unusual branch of evolution. Perhaps the host worm gives it a little oxygen. But it fits into its necessary econiche

dhw: Necessary for what? The evolution of H. sapiens?

DAVID: Why your question? This is a current finding of an existing animal. We are here, but econiches support food for life to continue.

I’m merely asking why you keep harping on about econiches when you know perfectly well that econiches are necessary for every life form, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with your unique theory that God designed every econiche and every life form for the sole purpose of producing H. sapiens.