Return to David's theory of evolution PART ONE (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 15, 2021, 17:22 (1072 days ago) @ David Turell

PART ONE
dhw: […] My main concern is the illogicality of the above bolded theory, which you constantly avoid discussing. “Latitude” or freedom is only one of my alternatives (see below), and designs are responses to changing conditions in the present, not “futuristic”.

DAVID: The gaps are leaps into the future, aren't they(?), which you continue to dodge by a hopeless prayer for more fossils which are not found.

dhw: […] The gaps relate to new life forms which do not appear to have had any predecessors, i.e. any links to past forms. How does that invalidate the theory that new species come into being in RESPONSE to changing conditions, as opposed to in ANTICIPATION of changing conditions?

DAVID: […] The Cambrian is not explained by your theory or by original Darwin, who wanted intermediate fossils to fill in.

I still don’t get your point. Once again: The gaps relate to new life forms without any apparent predecessors. How does that come to mean that your God must have created them in anticipation of new conditions that did not yet exist?

DAVID: We are discussing God, aren't we? How did evolution work, but by introducing new forms into their new future which I pose as designed by God.

dhw: “Introducing new forms into their new future” is a neat obfuscation! Of course once a new form has arisen through its RESPONSE to new conditions it will then have a future under those conditions. And it will go on reproducing itself automatically for thousands of years until new conditions arise. Then it will RESPOND, change accordingly, and again have a new future under the new conditions. We are discussing the ORIGIN of species. So why do you think it is more logical for organisms to be changed BEFORE new conditions demand or allow for the changes? Do you really imagine your pre-whales sitting on the seashore with their new flippers, waiting for the moment when there is water for them to dive into?

DAVID: Lucy out of the trees had a tiny brain. 315,000 year-old early sapiens had an unused giant forebrain, a great example of arriving before the future use appeared. That is fact, not wishful theory of a 'response to new conditions'. Base theory on known fact, please.

Nobody knows the “fact” of why brains expanded! We have discussed this over and over again, and now you are pretending that your theory (your God performed sporadic operations on hominin and homo brains to expand them for future requirements) is a known fact! Here is the counter theory that we have discussed umpteen times over: each expansion had a specific cause (new ideas - e.g. for artefacts - or discoveries, new environment, new way of living) and the existing brain did not have the capacity to deal with it. We know for a fact that brains change when they perform new tasks (illiterate women and taxi drivers were our modern examples). We don’t know the individual causes of each past expansion, but once expanded, the brain then used its existing capacity (no doubt complexifying to a degree) until new demands again required additional cells. 315,000 years ago (or whenever it was), an unknown cause resulted in expansion to current size, and since further expansion would have required major changes to the rest of the anatomy, expansion gave way (except in one or two individual sections of the brain) to complexification. And complexification proved so efficient that the brain has actually shrunk, since some cells became redundant. The only instances we know of changes to the brain are those which take place in RESPONSE to new demands. It is therefore perfectly logical to theorize that the same process may have taken place in the past. The theory is based on known facts!

dhw: Obvious possible theistic alternatives [to your anthropocentric theory of evolution]: 1) humans plus food were NOT his only goal; 2) he did NOT design each and every life form and natural wonder; 3) he allowed a free-for-all; 4) he was experimenting; 5) he kept getting new ideas.

DAVID: So we go back to a fantastically humanized God who is not sure of what He is doing. Some God!

dhw: You have left out 1), 2) and 3), and you stick to a God who has one goal but inexplicably designs millions of life forms and natural wonders that have no relation to his goal. Some theory!

DAVID: All those you dismiss were steps in God's form of evolution. Why can't you accept god's choice of creation by evolution of processes band forms.?

What are “processes band forms”? I accept that evolution of all species proceeds in stages, and if God exists, I accept that this was his choice of creation. I do not accept that he chose to individually design every single life form, natural wonder etc., and since most of them had no connection with humans and their food, I do not accept that his sole purpose in designing them was to achieve what you believe to have been his one and only goal of designing homo sapiens and his food.