Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, August 21, 2022, 12:09 (823 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: All of evolution produced a giant bush of life that is a series of interconnected ecosystems that provide food all, not just humans!!!

dhw: Precisely. The history of life is also the history of ecosystems that provided food for the organisms that lived at any particular time, and even our current ecosystems are not geared solely to the production of food for humans. And that is why it is illogical to claim that every ecosystem, extant and extinct, was specially designed by your God as part of his one and only goal, and as an “absolute requirement”, in preparation for the evolution (= design) of humans and our food, although the vast majority had no connection with us and our food. Please stop dodging!

DAVID: Your usual complaint. I view the entire Earth and its inhabitants as serving our needs.

Quite apart from the blinkered human chauvinism of your comment, it is absurd to argue that throughout the 3.X billion years of life when we weren’t even there, the entire planet and every life form on it served our needs!

DAVID: You still slice up Evolution and its results. In the world of thinkers there are splitters and there are lumpers. I lump, you split.

Please stop using such general concepts to dodge what you yourself acknowledge to be theories which make sense only to your God, i.e. not to you.

DAVID: Don't you realize my point? Your very human God allows you to create very human suppositions about how your humanlike God works His purposes. On that basis of course they are logical.

dhw: Why is it always “very” human?

DAVID: Because your God directly seeks entertainment [dhw: I always object to your use of this derogatory term], especially free-for-alls, has to experiment, suddenly decides to change course, and you claim He is not very human. There is no sense of directionality and clear purpose a proper form of God should have.

These are all alternative explanations for the history of evolution, and you agree that all of them fit in logically with that history, whereas your own explanation (the theory bolded above) makes no sense to you (it makes sense only to God). You have absolutely no authority to decide what constitutes a “proper” God, but in any case, my alternatives do offer a sense of directionality and a clear purpose. These simply differ from your versions of direction and purpose.

dhw: I keep pointing out all the possible “human” attributes you ascribe to your God (enjoyment of and interest in creating and creations, his desire for recognition and for a relationship with us, his kindness, his love, his single-mindedness in the pursuit of his goal – in direct conflict with the fact that he designed countless life forms and foods that did not lead to his goal – and so on).

DAVID: God's personal view of His works are a minor aspect of how to look at God. You have to emphasize those, because you have no real response to my criticisms of your humanized God.

The above are not his “view of his works”. They are all human characteristics which you attribute to him. Your only criticisms consist in your refusal to accept the possibility that he might have other human characteristics which you don’t think he could have. Incidentally, I have been meaning for some time to point out that your beloved Adler’s view of God as “a person like no other person” is a direct acknowledgement that your God must have human attributes!

dhw: But when I repeat some of these, and when I offer logical explanations of evolutionary history, you turn your back on the logic because they entail “human” attributes! You even agree that we “mimic” him in certain ways, but you never respond to the argument that it is perfectly feasible for a creator to imbue his creations with some of his own attributes.

DAVID: I have certainly with the bold in the past, remember?

I only remember you agreeing that he probably/possibly has human thought patterns etc, and we mimic him, but it’s fine with me if you acknowledge this argument. Yet more reason for you to stop using “humanization” as a tool with which to attack what you recognize as logical theistic explanations of evolution’s history.

DAVID: […] for cell intelligence I have all the ID folks agreeing with me, led by many PH.D. doing active science research on the subject.

dhw: You dismissed the theory as “purely hyperbolic descriptions”, and I have every right to point out that there are scientists in the field who disagree with you and with your ID-ers.

DAVID: And you picked out some old scientists on Google and blew up Shapiro out of proportion because from your rigid point of view cell must be highly intelligent and design new species at will, all to avoid God.

They are not all “old”, their findings are not invalidated by age, and I have reproduced Shapiro’s views as quoted in your own book, that cells are “cognitive entities” which produce “evolutionary novelty”. And please stop pretending that I am avoiding God when I ALWAYS allow for the possibility that it was your God who invented the intelligent cell.