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

by dhw, Thursday, February 03, 2022, 12:19 (1022 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: … it doesn’t make sense for an all-powerful God with only one purpose (humans plus food) to devote himself to designing countless life forms plus foods that have no connection with his one and only purpose (humans plus food).

DAVID: Again delivered from someone who has no idea how religious believers really view God and accept His history as showing His intentions and choices. Dhw second guesses God's actions.

So the latest way to dodge the illogicality is to claim that all religious people believe in the illogical theory bolded above.

DAVID: Again, misunderstanding how to view God, you use Him as tunnel-visioned.

You allow him one purpose for the fulfilment of which he designs countless life forms that have no connection with that purpose, and you don’t think that is tunnel-visioned! I offer a variety of alternatives, and apparently that makes me tunnel-visioned!

DAVID: Evolution from bacteria to humans, as history shows, requires all those ancient steps. I have found my reason, which is simply accepting what God did. We are here, the surprise endpoint.

dhw: How does your "acceptance" that we are here provide a reason why your all-powerful God, whose one and only purpose was apparently to design us and our food, specifically designed countless life forms and foods that had no connection with us?

DAVID: Just the point. I don't need a reason, nor did Adler. You question God's methods from a purely human viewpoint. If you were God, how would you do it differently?

I didn’t know that you and Adler were not human, or that when trying to defend an illogical theory it was enough to say you don’t need a reason. As for your question, if I were an all-powerful God and my only purpose was to design humans and their food, I would design humans and their food. I would not design and kill off countless life forms that had nothing to do with my one and only purpose. And frankly, if I were God, I would object very strongly to a human being attributing such illogical behaviour to me, and I would suggest that he should rethink his theory to make it fit in logically with the history of life.

Hibernation

DAVID: I reject your 50% based on the view that God does not do secondhand design.

dhw: And yet your God gave sapiens the autonomous power to do his own designing […]

DAVID: Micro-organisms cannot possibly see the future of complexity to the purpose of creating humans.

dhw: Whoever said they could??? You claimed that your God did not do what you call “secondhand design”. I pointed out that you believe he gave humans the autonomous power to do their own designing, so he does do “secondhand design”. And if he can do it for us, why can’t he do it for other life forms?

DAVID: Other life forms were on a purposeful trajectory during evolution to reach the production of humans.

There we go again. Every extinct life form that had no connection with humans was apparently specially designed as part of the goal of designing humans. And you still haven’t answered my question.

DAVID: Uncontrolled in their designs, we have [no] idea where evolution might end up, nor would God.

True. That is one logical explanation of the higgledy-piggledy bush: God didn’t want life’s history to be a predictable puppet show with himself simply pulling the strings. (But of course, he always had the option of dabbling.)

Evidence of non-random mutation

QUOTE: "The findings add a surprising twist to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection because it reveals that the plant has evolved to protect its genes from mutation to ensure survival.”

DAVID: It seems chance mutations can be protected from affecting plants. Was this designed or a natural event? I'll stick with design.

I’ve only quoted this to reinforce two points: 1) some genes must act automatically to preserve the species, while some genes must be flexible to allow for speciation; 2) the purpose of all these mechanisms – whether designed by God or not – is to improve chances of survival.

Hummingbird torpor

Thank you as always for the natural wonder articles. They are a delight to read. Shame about the comments, though.

QUOTE: "At night, hummingbirds lower their body temperature and metabolism drastically by dropping into an energy-saving state of inactivity called torpor.”

DAVID: how did this evolve. It all obviously goes together purposefully, and like all irreducible complex systems it must be designed.

Why would God specially design an energy-saving mechanism just for hummingbirds when all he apparently ever wanted to do was design humans and their food? Would we really not be here, or would we starve, if it weren’t for the hummingbird’s torpor?

Sea spiders

DAVID: fully adapted to their strange lifestyle in their ecosystem. They appeared post-Cambrian.

Amazing stuff. I just can’t quite understand why humans could not exist without your God having designed their strange lifestyle in their ecosystem.