Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, August 16, 2020, 08:44 (1558 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: What is wrong with a random chance mutation, if it fits God's plan to be allowed to pass through??? Chance can play a role!!!

dhw: There is nothing wrong with a random mutation or with chance playing a role. But if chance can play a role in changing the course of evolution, and all God can do is “allow” it to survive, then this blatantly contradicts your original theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God had everything planned from the beginning and directly designed every species as “part of the goal of evolving humans”.

DAVID: You've made an excellent point. I still view God as designing each complicated advance to a new species. Using the strange whale series as an example, and remembering epigenetic adaptations, each step required many alterations in physical form and physiology. When a stage began to modify itself epigenetically in a way that God saw would not lead logically to the next planned step, He would step in and change it. Conversely, if it was a good step, He allowed it. You should be very comfortable with that view. I am. It fully allows for God's recognition that free-to-act molecules under strict instructions will still make occasional mistakes, the start of this discussion.
And later:
DAVID: I expect you to agree with my presentation, now more clearly thought through with your helpful critique. I find no contradictions. Will you?

I am not at all comfortable with your presentation, and I don’t see it as being relevant to the major problem your error theory creates. I see the whale series as a natural progression of changes to improve the organism’s chances of survival in its maritime environment. No random mutations but, as you indicate yourself, an ongoing series of adaptations. This has nothing to do with “errors” that change the direction of evolution and which God “allows” to survive. Please don’t let us be diverted by the history of the whale. You are still lumbered with conflicting theories: that your God’s sole purpose from the very beginning was to create H. sapiens, that he had the whole of evolution planned in advance and was in total control, and yet now he has become dependent on random mutations which he could not control other than allowing them to survive if he thought they might take him in the direction he wanted to go. Chance versus design has been a constant theme throughout all our years of discussion, in which you have ridiculed chance and opted solely for direct design in the form of preprogramming and/or dabbling. Suddenly you are in favour of random mutations as playing a major role in speciation. In this respect, you have sided with Darwin in one of the few aspects of his theory that I had joined you in rejecting!

dhw: Here you say that during evolution he didn’t care about or notice the disease-causing errors. Are you then rescinding your guess that disease began “quite early as we know of cell-splitting problems, which means bacteria could certainly have reproductive problems. […] He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could”? Why did he put in backups and correct as much as he could if he didn’t care?

DAVID: Again you are confusing two genome outcomes, during reproduction and during life. The backups relate to DNA copying in reproduction of species so they stay unchanged. DNA mistakes during life that result in aging, or cancer or disease are mistakes in backups that lead to death, and death is required. That is why we are in charge of corrections now, as I view God is not active and He has given us responsibility.

The two genome “errors” that we are concerned with are those harmful ones that cause disease and death, and those beneficial ones that cause changes to the course of evolution (i.e. innovations). He could hardly have provided backups for beneficial evolutionary mutations he didn’t even know were going to happen! Those that cause disease and death took place throughout evolution. You say he wasn’t bothered about them. So once again, why did he provide backups to correct as many as he could?