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

by dhw, Sunday, November 01, 2020, 11:28 (1481 days ago) @ David Turell

I’m combining this thread with “balance of nature”, since they overlap.

DAVID: Agreed. All extinct life forms are not our direct ancestors. […] All of us are descended from bacteria.

dhw: If we believe in common descent, every species is descended from bacteria. But evolution branched out in millions of different directions, and the extinct 99% of life forms were not our direct ancestors […]so how can you argue that he directly designed the brontosaurus as “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans”?

DAVID: Yes, 99% of previously living forms are gone today .The various extinct branches like dinos were not a dead end; they ended up as birds in our time. The mammals who survived Chixculub become primates and then us. You are still denying the continuous relationships from past forms. The various branches that did survive to today are the food supply for the huge populations on Earth, especially humans. […]

I am not denying that one branch of life’s bush led to humans, another branch led to birds, and other survivors led to our food supply! I am denying that EVERY branch of life’s bush (including all those that did NOT survive) was "part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans” and that God “designed the ENTIRE bush of life for our food supply.”

DAVID: Still chopping up evolution so it doesn't look like a continuum!!!

dhw: It is not a continuum from bacteria to humans! It branched out! That is why you quite rightly observed that “extinct life has no role in present time”.

DAVID: Yes there you recognize logic. But we can trace a direct line from bacteria to humans, as things branch away.

We can’t trace it, but it must be there. Your problem is that “things branch away”. Even you recognize that “extinct life plays no role in current times”, and “ Of course all branches don't lead to humans”. That is why your claim that all life forms were part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans plus food supply makes no sense! It’s not the survivors but all the extinct forms that make nonsense of your theory!

DAVID: My answers are consistent: God ran evolution and produced all branches of evolution on His way to producing a current situation on Earth where Humans are in charge and have a huge population and its necessary food supply in the huge bush of life.

This is sheer gloss. I know you think he designed all branches, and we all know that humans are in charge now and need food. This does not give us a single clue as to why your God would have designed all branches if his one and only goal was to design humans and their food supply. We and our food supply were not around “in the huge bush of life” until X million years ago. So yet again we come to the question: why would your God have directly designed all the extinct non-human branches and econiches of the huge bush of life if all he wanted was humans and our food supply?

DAVID: God creates logical plans and solutions that you fail to see. The branches may be branches but they all relate through common descent. Darwin's drawing of a tree fits. But all you see is evolution running off in all directions, and weirdly losing any sense of a previous plan by God.

Yes, they all relate through common descent, and Darwin’s drawing fits. It shows evolution running off in all directions – it does not show one single direct line from bacteria to humans and their food supply but millions of lines branching off from earlier lines, with the vast majority leading nowhere! If God exists, his plan clearly wasn’t solely to directly design H. sapiens and his food supply.

DAVID: […] you are, IMHO, still making him weaker than I ever imagined from his works.

dhw: You have said categorically that he could not prevent or correct the disease-causing errors – and even produced back-ups, some of which didn’t work, so he left it to us to try and figure out a correction. I’d say that makes him “weaker” than a God who designed a system which gave him precisely the results he wanted.

DAVID: You continue to ignore my point that the current biological system is the only system that will work, and for success the only one He could choose to design. The molecules must be free to react with others or change shape at fantastic speeds in micro-seconds.

We have no idea if that is the only possible way to create life, but even if it is, you have him creating back-ups in a vain attempt to correct the “errors”, and I have him wanting the “errors”. Which version makes him weaker?

dhw: I have said repeatedly that natural selection does not create anything. I have proposed that the creative activity is performed by intelligent cells! […] It’s perfectly logical that changing conditions should require changing behaviours and these may require changing structures.

DAVID: Great logic, but no sense of how it can happen naturally!!!

Through intelligent cells (now bolded), which may have been designed by your God.