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

by dhw, Wednesday, January 05, 2022, 12:45 (842 days ago) @ David Turell

PART ONE

I’ve cut the first section of this post, as it has been amply covered under “Cellular intelligence”, although this thread would have been more appropriate.

dhw: According to you, nothing would appear unless desired by God, since he designed everything. So he kept popping in every few million years to turn leggy flippers into proper flippers on the way to designing humans. Anyway, I’m pleased to see that you have not withdrawn your statement that he “designs new species when required”, i.e. not BEFORE they are required (or “allowed”).

DAVID: I don't see the difference you infer. God designs species to handle living requirements at the time of their existence. They arrive prepared for their future.

dhw: But you believe in common descent. So even in your own God-does-it-all scenario, he does not change existing organisms in anticipation of new conditions – as you have always maintained in the past – but in response to the conditions that exist. And then of course they are prepared for a future under those conditions, until things change again, and then he does another dabble – or his 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every change throughout life’s history switches itself on at the appropriate moment, i.e. when conditions change (and not before they change). And when you have him designing creatures "de novo", they must be able to handle requirements at the time of their birth - i.e. he'll produce them at the time when conditions have already changed, not before they change.

DAVID: My approach is simpler than your distortion above. God evolves in steps, basing each new designed forms on the past. Bacteria start with many basic biochemical processes to be used by all future forms, so form can change but the biochemistry is already in place for much of the requirements for living, with new systems added as necessary to fit with the new phenotypical changes. All prepared for future .

Yes, evolution proceeds in steps, and common descent means new forms arise out of past forms. Yes, the single cell is the basis of all multicellular organisms, and works biochemically as new systems (combinations of different forms of cell) are added to transform the comparatively simple into the ultimately vastly complex. How on earth does this come to mean that your God changed the structure of every predecessor BEFORE conditions changed instead of in RESPONSE to the new conditions in which the new species was to live?