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

by dhw, Saturday, February 12, 2022, 07:47 (1013 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Your blindness to God's choice of His method is my issue. We both picture the other as wrong. I'll leave it at that if you will also.

dhw: It’s impossible to do so when in post after post [see today's "More Miscellany"] you continue to refer directly or indirectly to your rigid belief that your God chose your “roundabout” method of achieving what you rigidly believe to have been his goal. Why am I “blind” if you can’t understand the illogical combination of purpose and method you impose on your God?

DAVID: I'm sorry you are so illogical, while I will pursue my points. Your reasoning about God's actions is purely from a 'what a thinking human would logically do'. God is not required to be humanly logical.

And so your ultimate defence of your illogical theory is that you are firmly convinced that your God would act in a way which you as a human being would regard as illogical. This has even led you to the conclusion that we humans are more efficient than your God when it comes to the fulfilment of a single purpose. I wonder how many supporters you will find in the scientific and the religious communities.

dhw: Another illogical part of your theory is the claim that speciation takes place IN ANTICIPATION of changing conditions. You have, however, proceeded to give us plenty of examples that show the converse is true.

Oxygen and the Cambrian: gills appeared

dhw: You’ve got it. Oxygen first, innovations in response.

DAVID: The free oxygen had to come first. So God provided photosynthesis as a first evolutionary step. God anticipates His needs.

dhw: You yourself are not sure to what extent your God manipulates the environmental changes – local and universal – but no matter what he “provides”, even in your theory, speciation only takes place AFTER conditions have changed. Or do you still believe that he changed legs to flippers BEFORE pre-whales entered the water?

DAVID: I would reason flippers appeared while mammals were paddling around in water.

At least your God didn’t leave them stranded on the shore waiting for the water to arrive. But to be frank, I would have thought the legs would have turned into flippers when pre-whales actually swam in the water. Paddling only requires legs, not flippers, and it is clear from all the examples you have given that bodies change IN RESPONSE to new conditions, not in anticipation of them.

dhw: What’s more, new finds are being made all the time, and some of them fill in gaps.

DAVID: Findings now fill only minor skips in specific individual lines. See Bechly entry on fossil finding reaching endpoints. (Wednesday, January 01, 2020, 18:23 & 2020-07-08, 22:45

dhw: What is the thread name, please? Or just give us a quote. Meanwhile, I can only repeat that it’s a miracle ANY fossils survive from hundreds of millions of years ago. And the more rapid the process of speciation (e.g. in times of major environmental changes), the fewer fossils there will be.

DAVID: Pure wishful thinking. Bechly points out the real facts you are ignoring to protect your pet rigid approaches: Early in exploration many fossils are found, filling gaps, but at a later point less and less are found to fill continuity until paleontologists recognize a gap exists. Think Gould's point.

I find this perfectly reasonable. The last thing I would expect is continuity from hundreds of millions of years ago. That really would be wishful thinking. But the explicable gaps in the fossil record can hardly be called evidence that your equally absent God popped in to perform countless operations on countless organisms, or equipped the first cells with a 3.8-billion-year-old programme for every species plus natural wonder etc. in the whole history of life. Absence of evidence proves nothing (see Bertrand Russell’s teapot orbiting the sun), and so we can only speculate on what seems reasonable or logical, given the facts we do have at our disposal. And I don’t think it’s unnatural for us humans to base beliefs on what seems logical to us (e.g. the design argument for your God's existence) rather than to assume that God – if he exists – must think illogically by our standards.