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

by David Turell , Monday, July 11, 2022, 17:02 (864 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: What is logical is I trust God knew how to do it. My analysis of God and evolution tells Adler and I God had a goal of producing humans by evolving them.

dhw: Why do you say “a” goal? At the very centre of our disagreement is your insistence that your God’s one and only goal was to evolve (by which you mean design) H. sapiens and our food, and so he proceeded to design countless life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc., the vast majority of which are extinct and did NOT lead to sapiens and our food.

Your comment still makes no logical sense. The process of evolution presents a series of discarded forms and many branches which do not lead specifically to humans, but necessarily form the ecosystems which provide food for life to continue.

dhw: What is logical is that your God, if he exists, would have known what he wanted to do and would have known how to do it. That does not mean he only wanted to produce us and our food, but two of my alternative theistic theories actually allow for the possibility that we were or became “a” goal and also explain what you can’t explain: why he may indeed have designed and then discarded all the unconnected life forms etc. (experimentation, or new ideas as he went along). However, you reject these on the grounds that they entail human patterns of thought, although in the past you have agreed that he certainly/probably/possibly has patterns of thought similar to ours.

Continued disconnected illogical view.

Ecosystems

DAVID: Why can't you accept God CHOSE to evolve us from bacteria, as His created history shows.

dhw: If he exists, I do accept it. I do not, however, accept the theory that we were his one and only goal from the very beginning, and therefore he individually designed countless life forms etc. that had no connection with us. I find this illogical, and so do you, because you say you can’t think of any reason why he would have chosen such a method.

Same confusion regarding how to think about God. I fully accept God doing what He wishes for His own, unknown to me, reasons.

ID
dhw: According to you, then, all ID-ers agree with your illogical theory of evolution, and believe that we must think of God as acting in a manner that makes no sense to us.

DAVID: What makes perfect sense to us, if not you, is accepting God as the designer of evolution.

dhw: Yes, that is what I have always thought was the point of the ID movement: to show that life is too complex to have arisen by chance, and therefore there must be an intelligent designer. And I accept that this makes perfect sense. But you claim that they all believe the theory bolded above, which you say “makes sense only to God”, i.e. not to you or them. Do you now wish to withdraw that claim?

No.

Human only networks
dhw: My point is that plasticity is not confined to the brain, and if other cells were not plastic, evolution could never have happened. Perhaps you could remind us of the point you are trying to prove.

DAVID: The word plasticity, as applied to the brain, has very specific meaning. I'm not trying to prove anything except to point out your tortured attempt to bring the issue of speciation into a brain discussion.

dhw: I didn’t think there was any possible disagreement over the plasticity of the brain. And I don’t know why there should be any disagreement over the fact that for evolution to take place, there must be a degree of plasticity in all cell communities. Perhaps we can leave it at that.

Fine