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

by dhw, Saturday, June 18, 2022, 13:48 (677 days ago) @ David Turell

I have reorganized comments from this and the “information” thread in order to provide more coherence.

DAVID: We wouldn't be here, with God running evolution, unless His goal was to create us.

dhw: According to you, there is not one single extinct species that wouldn’t have been here unless his goal was to create them, and as the vast majority had no connection with us or our food, his goal could therefore not have been confined to creating us and our food.

DAVID: You constantly ignore that evolution blossoms into the huge bush of life, which then has multiple ecosystems to provide food for all.

That is precisely what YOU ignore. If your God only wanted to create humans plus our food, why did he individually design countless extinct life forms and ecosystems that had no connection with us? Would we have starved if he hadn’t designed the brontosaurus?

dhw: […] I find it hard to believe that 3.8 billion years ago your God provided cells with instructions on how to deal with every single new problem/condition/ opportunity that would arise for the rest of the future, or that he popped/pops in to issue instructions ad hoc.

DAVID: You find it hard to believe in God, so I'm not surprised at your view. Living one-celled Archaea started knowing exactly how to handle themselves or nothing would have evolved. Do you have any thoughts about first life's capabilities? I've given it lots of thought.

dhw: […] I would suggest that they did indeed start by knowing how to handle themselves and, crucially, not only how to reproduce but also how to adapt and diversify, and ultimately – through cooperation and communication – to build increasingly complex organs and organisms in the process we call evolution. The mechanism I propose is - surprise, surprise - a form of intelligence which enabled them to do all these things. And - surprise, surprise - I regard it as possible that this mechanism was designed by an unknown intelligence we call God.

DAVID: How else could intelligence have appeared besides your usual scurry back to a possible God?

I gave you a full reply to this yesterday:

dhw: […] I find the argument for design (in this case, that of the intelligent cell) perfectly logical, and am therefore open to the possibility of there being a designer. However, while I find it difficult to believe that chance (the other option, given an eternity and infinity of possible combinations) could create such complexity, I find it equally difficult to believe that there is an eternal, immaterial mind that had no source, and has simply been “there” forever, somehow creating vast quantities of matter out of its own immateriality, and exercising its powers of psychokinesis to manipulate the materials into galaxies and solar systems, bacteria and dinosaurs, humans and the duckbilled platypus.

DAVID: How likely is chance vs an active mind? The picket fence as usual.

Since both options seem equally irrational, it requires faith to believe in either.

bacteria

DAVID: That mutation and diversity are equally important seems a logical finding to me. This is a pure Darwinist study with no reference to intelligent design and I present it for general interest.

dhw: “Mutations” are generally associated with randomness, which would indeed be Darwinist, so I’m surprised at your acceptance of the term, but if we take it as simply meaning “changes”, then I would say that changes arising from adaptation to or exploitation of new conditions cause diversity.

DAVID: Mutations are code change in DNA. Why do you question my acceptance of them?

You pointed out that this was a Darwinist study, and Darwinists associate the word “mutations” with chance. All explained above.

Ediacaran-Cambrian transition: 410,000 years

dhw: You wrote: “We do not know how species appear or the theoretical times involved”, and you have totally ignored the argument that it is generations, not time that produce new species […]

DAVID: […]. Every species gap we have in fossils is millions of years except the Cambrian!!! Use the whale series as one example. There are many others. No examples of tiny genertional changes in fossils is ever found. All new species appear de novo. (Gould)

dhw: I’m not denying that the Cambrian explosion happened! No matter what theory you embrace, quite clearly there was a new and major development that accelerated speciation (maybe an increase in oxygen). And so in contrast to the long periods of stasis, with no innovations, the sudden change in conditions created a sudden burst of innovations. (This is what Gould called “punctuated equilibrium": periods of stasis punctuated by bursts of innovation.) And still you ignore the argument that it is generations, not time, that produce new species.

DAVID: Neat theory with NO fossil support.

You continue to ignore all the arguments that explain why a complete fossil record is highly unlikely, and you have not explained why you think it is time and not generations that produce species.