David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, March 01, 2020, 18:46 (1726 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: When are your theories fully logical? They are all stretches of earlier research that luckily fit your predispositions to avoid God.

dhw: Your question does not justify your claim that your own "have-no-idea-why" theory is "fully logical"! However, I have offered you logical theistic theories that even fit in with your belief that H. sapiens was your God’s goal (experimentation, or an idea that came to him late on in the evolutionary process). You have agreed that they are “fully logical”, as are other theories based on a God who is not confined to a single purpose and who is not your control freak, but you have tried to dismiss them by saying they “humanize him”, although you yourself demolish that argument by agreeing that he probably has similar thought patterns and emotions to ours.

Your usual false juxtapositions of my thinking. We cannot know God's reasons for His actions, although I'm sure He thinks logically as we do. As for emotions, I'm sure they are the same, but what does that have to do with logical reasoning? Neat tricky debate technique, no more.

DAVID: But you've agreed as a theist God creates everything, and humanize him by noting He is a control freak

dhw: It is YOU who humanize him as a control freak by insisting that he designs and controls everything himself. If I were a theist, I would agree that he has created the universe and all the mechanisms that have led to life and evolution, but that does not mean he specially designed every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. himself. The bold simply refers to the fact that you have no idea why a God in total control and with one single purpose would spend 3.X billion years not fulfilling his purpose.

That is the humanizing argument. Why can't God decide to do it His way, not yours, if as you note He can be considered totally in charge of creation ?

DAVID: Raup is Darwin. His 'pure luck' in my view means God let the species pass on as part of his plan.

DAVID: You do not seem to understand we are discussing Raup's Darwinian 'pure luck'. God is not like the current nutty humans who are fighting battles to save all endangered species. He let go what He wanted to let go, 99% of all past species.

dhw: Of course we’re discussing Raup’s pure luck. Perhaps I misunderstood your references to him. Do you or don’t you believe that “extinctions are pure luck”? If you do, I really can’t see how “pure luck” comes to mean “part of his plan”, unless his plan was to allow luck to play a leading role in the process of evolution. Please clarify.

I've been quite clear above. God let non-survival weed out unnecessary species to continue. It allows for population growth of succeeding species as evolution became more complex in the forms created. 99% are gone.

DAVID (on "SUCKERFISH"): ...as usual evolution produces new ideas for us to use. How did this develop? Not trial and error. It had to be designed.

dhw: There is no reason why trial and error should not play a role in design. Just as millions of bacteria die before a solution is found to new problems, lots of pre-suckerfish could have died before the cell communities perfected the system. Alternatively, they may have hit on their winning formula straight away.

Straight away implies chance with luck. If none got stuck from the beginning how did they survive to even develop the process? Entirely illogical to me.