Return to David's theory of evolution PART 1 (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, June 12, 2022, 10:40 (893 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Again your reasoning against God's. I fully accept it as God's choice of method.

dhw: It is my reasoning against your interpretation of God’s goal and your interpretation of his method of achieving that goal. Stop pretending that I am criticizing God.

DAVID: [...] Your problem is viewing my theory as if there are two parts. If viewed as God's choice of method to reach His purposeful goal of humans, it consists of only one part.

It is not history 1) that humans (plus food supply) were God’s one and only goal from the start of life, and 2) that God individually designed every life form (and food supply), and did so as “an absolute requirement” for his design of human (plus food supply).Since the vast majority of extinct life forms had no connection with humans, the two theories combined raise the unanswerable question: why would God design countless life forms (and food supplies) that had no connection with his one and only goal?

DAVID: No connnection. Really? We are the current endpoint of an evolutionary process that went through all the stages you decry.

I am not decrying anything except your refusal to accept that a theory which you cannot explain and which makes sense only to God might possibly be wrong. Or are you now telling us that designing the brontosaurus (multiplied by millions of other examples) was an “absolute requirement” for designing H. sapiens and our food?

Standard model
DAVID: All that hapens is dhw wants answers that do not exist for his own analysis that confuses him about why God did it the way He did it. The best way to think about it is early on there were bacteria at the start of life. There followed a whole continuous series of increasingly complex steps until humans arrived. That is what happened. We can analyze it for clues of purpose. But the method happened and cannot be questioned in and of itsslf since it represents pure historical fact.

For those of us who believe in the theory of evolution, it is indeed historical fact that ALL life forms – including those that are now extinct and did not lead to humans - descended in a continuous process from bacteria. Once more: It is not historical fact that your God designed every species individually, and it is not historical fact that every single one of them was an “absolute requirement” for the appearance of humans. The fact that we are the latest species does not mean that we were your God’s purpose right from the start of life, and the fact that you cannot supply an answer to my question why your God would use such a method to achieve such a goal would, I suggest, indicate confusion on your part rather than mine.

Ediacaran-Cambrian transition: 410,000 years

DAVID: Of course research continues. You are carefully throwing up lots of speciation theories to avoid the point that the complex animals of Cambrian appearing in a short time demands a designing mind produced them.

dhw: I have asked if - as you have claimed - the 410,000 figure is now accepted by everybody (no answer from you), and I have pointed out that it is irrelevant to the problem of the gaps in the fossil record.

DAVID: And I have answered: a peer-reviewed article in a major journal means it is accepted!!!

I didn’t know that one peer-reviewed article in one major journal indicated the establishment of a universally accepted truth, but it really doesn’t matter. The gap between Ediacaran and Cambrian is irrelevant to our discussion of the “gaps” in the fossil record.

dhw: […] changes to the genome take place by generations, not by the passage of time. Please tell us why this counts as “straw clutching”.

DAVID: True speciation is a major genome change. Most new species appear suddenly as if newly designed.

dhw:[…] . How “sudden” is “suddenly”? Yesterday, in response to the point that new species did NOT suddenly appear fully developed, you wrote: “Form changes take time to develop new DNA instructional information. That is the required time lapse for speciation.” How many thousands (even millions) of years do you regard as being “sudden”?

DAVID: Your plea above does not explain the gaps Gould recognized were a problem for Darwin theory. Species appear with gaps in form of the fossil series.

I did not make a plea. I asked you a direct question, based on your own statement: “form changes take time” etc. How many thousands of years do you regard as being “sudden”? As regards the gaps, Darwin himself recognized that they were a problem, and I have just devoted several posts to offering different reasons for the gaps in the fossil record.