David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, March 02, 2020, 11:59 (1725 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID (from under “our feet differ from apes”): There is no point in disconnecting different parts of the same evolutionary process we are analyzing. We humans are the endpoint and our vast difference in its result conditions my view about the control of evolution, which I assign to God. Our special feet are one simple example, and as other unrecognized difference show up I will report them, as they sustain my view.

Yes, yes, we know there are multiple differences, and we are unique, and we are the last species so far. But that does not mean we were your God’s one and only purpose right from the start, that he wanted to control the whole process of evolution, that he specially designed every non-human life form, natural wonder etc., and that he did so in order to cover the 3.X billion years he had inexplicably decided to take before starting to design the only thing he wanted to design: namely, us. These are the different aspects of your theory that render it so illogical that you have “no idea” how to explain it.

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.

DAVID: 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.

You are sure He thinks logically, but you can’t understand his logic and so we mustn’t try to find it. Emotions would explain his purpose: e.g. enjoyment of life’s higgledy-piggledy bush. Or the desire for recognition, or even worship - and I would add that it is a total cop-out to suggest that his only purpose was to create H. sapiens and then to refuse to ask yourself why he would have wanted to create H. sapiens, let alone why he would have wanted to spend 3.X billion years NOT creating H. sapiens if we were his only purpose.

DAVID: 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?

I’ll ask you the same question? Why can’t God decide to do it His way, not yours? Neither of us knows “His way”. Where have I noted that he can be considered “totally in charge of creation”? The fact that if he exists he would have created the universe and all the mechanisms that have led to life and evolution does not mean that he could not have given evolution free rein (with dabbles). His way may have been any of the alternatives I have offered you, all of which you agree are logical.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: 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.

On 19 Feb you wrote: "Extinctions are pure luck (Raup) and the species drive to survive is day by day while alive."
On 20 Feb you wrote: "What survives is pure luck but those survivors do stay around to somehow speciate to the next stage of evolutionary complexity."

Please tell us whether you do or do not believe that extinction and survival are pure luck or not.

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.

DAVID: 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.

Straight away implies a highly efficient intelligence. But your question is a fair one, so I must modify my comment. There is no reason to suppose that all pre-suckerfish would have died because of the failure to stick. Innovations may improve chances of survival, and therefore become the norm that leads to one “species” replacing the other, but the ancestors would not all have died just because they couldn’t stick straight away.