Return to David's theory of evolution PARTS 1 & 2 (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, January 12, 2022, 09:28 (1044 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Exactly: the bold is correct. The complexification is there in advance to handle new uses.

dhw: The bold says that each complexification takes place IN RESPONSE, not in advance.

DAVID: If the mechanism is not already there, it couldn't respond to new uses.

Precisely. It is the mechanism which is in place, and it responds to new uses. Species do not arrive in advance of changing conditions but in response to them.

DAVID: No wiggle. Environmental/changed conditions allow new advances. More oxygen allowed God to now design Cambrians.

dhw: So even in your own theistic scenario, the oxygen comes first and “now” God designs the new species. He does not design them in anticipation of the oxygen arriving.

DAVID: In evolution everything in its time. He designs as new conditions He provides arrive. Each step is a function of many factors. New organisms need oxygen, food, and need new parts to breathe and eat.

So in your imagined scenario, your God does not go round operating on existing organisms, or creating organisms with no predecessors, until he has ALREADY designed the conditions in which they are to live. Just as it is in my scenario, the cells do not have to plan for the future: the changes are made once the new conditions are in place.

dhw: …what exists in advance can only be the MECHANISM which makes new changes when conditions require or allow them – not in advance of the change in conditions.

DAVID: The MECHANISM is God working is stepwise evolutionary fashion!

I’d like to follow up on this astonishing idea. I have proposed that the mechanism that makes new changes when new conditions require or allow them is the flexible, intelligent cell. I don’t think you will disagree that every change requires changes to the cells of every individual organism that makes up the new species. Previously you have proposed that your God either provided the very first cells with a computer programme for every single change to be passed on through billions of years to each organism on each branch of the ever expanding bush, or he personally popped in to perform operations on each individual he wanted to change (or to design new species without any predecessors). Are you now offering us a ubiquitous God who is actually inside the cells of each individual? If so, what an interesting idea that is. After all, you could hardly have anything more intelligent than your God.

dhw: In all our theories, speciation takes place in RESPONSE to new conditions, and not beforehand.

DAVID: You have never explained our huge brains mainly unused for 300,000 years, or how Cambrians appeared prepared for their conditions with no precursors. And don't fall back on negativity. Darwin knew it 160 years ago, and no change with lots of new shale fields uncovered.

We have covered both these questions over and over again, including on this same thread! All expansions were followed by long periods of comparative stasis until the next major new requirement(s). In our case, the next major requirements were dealt with by complexification and not expansion. “No precursor” Cambrians may be due to the inevitable lack of fossils and/or the ability of intelligent cells to make major changes when new conditions require or allow them. Even your God apparently had to provide the oxygen before he designed new species – they could not have appeared BEFORE the new conditions existed. And it is your theory that new species were designed IN ANTICIPATION of new conditions that is under fire here. But you keep trying to dodge it, as you do with your other pet theory:

dhw: What I deny is your theory that your God only wanted to design humans plus our food, and therefore designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms and foods, the majority of which had no connection with humans. THAT is what is illogical, you admit it, can’t explain it, and so you continue to edit out all the parts of your theory that make it illogical!

DAVID: Nothing is illogical about God choosing to evolve us. You accept the idea and then ignore it.

And still you edit out the illogicalities! Please stop ignoring the bold. The rest of your post does the same.