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

by dhw, Thursday, August 20, 2020, 11:05 (1554 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: God runs evolution; He is in charge of speciation and He acts as final editor-in-charge over any DNA errors that appear removing all bad ones and allowing minor variations that fit His purpose. Remember 'good' mutations are extremely rare per science.

dhw: Are you now saying these random “errors” did NOT change the course of evolution, and that “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God” could NOT have “arranged our human evolution”? What are these “minor variations” that you have suddenly introduced to replace the errors that can change the course of evolution?

DAVID: I am correcting your distorted understanding, since I have introduced the FACT that living molecules can make mistakes and, therefore, during evolution errors involving new speciation have to be edited and corrected by God. Bad mutations are simply deleted. There is a possibility of 'good' slight variation on what God planned, and I can see Him allowing it. Note, only a possibility this happens, but I have to accept that mutations are occasionally 'good' ( as science shows) and account for how God might handle them.

What “distorted understanding”? I have repeated your own words, and asked you whether they still apply. Your response is as confusing as ever. Instead of these errors changing the course of evolution, and possibly even “arranging” our own evolution, they have suddenly become a mere possibility of “slight variation”. And yet they also “involve new speciation”! How does new speciation mean slight variation? And why does he have to correct the errors if they are good and he allows them go through? This whole theory is becoming more and more nebulous and confusing, but you accuse me of distorting it!

dhw: What distortion? He did not design the errors, whereas in your original theory he directly designs every life form. An editor who allows something is not a designer who designs something. But thank you for restoring “species changes” in place of “minor variations”.

dhw: As regards the second, despite your protestations to the contrary, he worried about them to the extent that “He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” […]
DAVID: The backups apply mainly to mistakes while organisms live to protect them during repeated copying that might lead to living damage. On further consideration, there should not be backups regarding DNA speciation changes. God must keep exact editing controls when He speciates.

Once again he edits (not designs) speciation changes, so these can hardly be called “slight variations”. I pointed out to you that backups could only refer to errors involving disease and death, but you claimed he was not bothered about these. Why would he create backups if he was not bothered?

DAVID: […] Perhaps, as I ponder the errors and how to fit them in, I should stick with completely all-powerful.

dhw: He would only be all-powerful if he deliberately omitted something, which has been my proposal all along: namely, that the system he invented (if he exists) was the system he intended to create, and the so-called “errors” were produced by a mechanism deliberately designed to create the countless variations of life forms etc. that go to make up life’s history. The “molecules” were given the freedom to go their own way.

DAVID: The point is God cannot control molecular errors. God creates the bush of life purposely. No special error mechanism, your wild idea.

I agree that if God exists, he would have created the bush purposely. And if he couldn’t control the ”errors”, the bush has arisen out of the freedom he gave to molecules to go their own way! It’s make-your-mind-up time: either he was incapable of controlling them, as you have just said, or he didn’t WANT to control them, which would explain why he built a system that went its own way to create the whole bush.

dhw: And we haven’t even mentioned your passionate defence of the evolutionary role played by chance (“Chance can play a role!!!”) countered by “There is no reliance on chance”. I’m sorry, but I do not think you have “completely reached a coherent theory”, or that the contradictions are due to bias on my part.

DAVID: With your help I've totally reconsidered my thinking about chance in regard to speciation. God accepts only minor variations in genome evolutionary changes. He is a precise editor.

It’s comforting to know that these discussions can result in such a U-turn. Perhaps eventually you will also sort out the muddle of what your God can and can’t control, and what he edits and what he designs. And perhaps you will even consider the possibility that your God deliberately invented a system in which molecules went their own free way, because that was what he wanted. At least this would restore some of the dignity you have tried so hard to take away from him – or have you also withdrawn your claim that you are “the one who is willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created”?