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

by dhw, Thursday, March 10, 2022, 13:18 (987 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You just ignore the history of evolution. Is it a whole or not?

You have just ignored the answer I gave you, so I’ll repeat it! In the sense that all life is descended from bacteria, you can say it is a whole. In the sense that life evolved into countless separate branches, you can say that it is split. The idea that every single branch and every single econiche, lifestyle, problem solution and natural wonder throughout the history of life was preparation for just one branch (plus its food) and was part of the one and only goal of producing that branch (plus its food) frankly beggars belief. If you simply go through your own wonderful list of current natural wonders (not to mention all the natural wonders that must have come and gone) and add the comment: without this, humans would not exist or would not have enough food to exist, you will see how absurd it is. (See "More miscellany".)
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DAVID: How God did it is His personal choice of creation, a perfectly logical thought for anyone who does not deny God. It is your agnostic problem.

dhw: It is absolutely not a problem, and has nothing to do with my agnosticism. The problem is your illogical theory about how and why God did it, and your refusal to consider any alternative theistic theory.

DAVID: What I object to is your presenting a humanized god that is unrecognizable to me. WE cannot debate what God did when the views we have of God's personality are so different.

My alternative theories are a separate issue from the illogicality of your own theory, but you keep trying to use them as a digression from the fact that you cannot find any logic in your own theory and so I should go and ask God to explain it. Please top dodging.

Transferred from “Introducing the brain”:

DAVID: I started with research in how to think about God, as Adler instructed in his book. Based on that discussion and others, what you imagine about God is totally unrecognizable to me.

dhw: Then maybe you should extend your research, since your thoughts have led you to a theory of evolution which you yourself find incomprehensible (hence your advice to me to ask God for an explanation), but it’s good to hear that your research has led you to humanizing guesses about your God’s enjoyment, interest, thought patterns, emotions, logic, and even a desire for admiration from and relations with humans. Unrecognizable?

DAVID: I find my view of my God as totally comprehensible. I find your god as totally unrecognizable. So our differences are huge.

Your humanized guesses above all seem comprehensible to me. Why do you think they denote differences?

DAVID: ID says evolution was designed, designer unknown, but knowing ID'ers and having attended their conferences, I know exactly how their minds work.

dhw: I know what ID says, and I challenge your assumption that they all believe your God’s one and only purpose was to design humans plus food, and so he proceeded to design countless life forms and foods in preparation for humans plus food and as part of the goal of evolving humans plus food, although they had no connection with humans plus food. Please stop dodging.

DAVID: Your refusal to believe me about ID is fascinating. Am I honest or not? ID believes God designed every bit of life with humans as the desired endpoint.

Of course I’m not querying your honesty. I think you simply cotton on to those elements of your theory that you share with ID-ers, and you don’t realize the extent of your illogicality as you try to extend this common ground, which is strictly limited. To be precise, here is an extract from their own website:
What Is Intelligent Design? | Intelligent Design
intelligentdesign.org/whatisid/

IS INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONISM?
No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the “apparent design” in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. (dhw's bold)

According to this, ID-ers do not enter into discussion of a possible supernatural cause, so how could they enter into discussion of the desires of a supernatural cause? Have you interviewed every ID-er, and have they all told you that they believe your theory but publicly pretend they don’t? Are they dishonest?