Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, September 12, 2022, 13:46 (589 days ago) @ David Turell

Ecosystem importance

DAVID: I mean exactly that. I believe in design of everything. You don't.

dhw: I know you do, but even for a theist, the individual design of every organism, natural wonder etc. is a theory and not a fact.

DAVID: Same as all the folks you quote about cell brilliance, all opinion, not fact.

You dismiss the theory of cellular intelligence because it is opinion not fact, so I point out that your own rigid beliefs are opinion not fact, so you point out that cellular theory is opinion not fact. You can’t see that your reason for dismissing theories you disagree with applies equally to your own beliefs!

DAVID: […] the giant interlocking ecosystems today are God's deliberate plan to provide food for all living organisms. All developed from past branches!!! Those are the reasons you say I cannot think of!

dhw: Once again you are editing evolution. Yes, all organisms eat/ate food and are/were eaten in their own ecosystems, and all current living things are developed from past branches. But you are deliberately editing out all the past branches that did NOT lead to all the things that are alive today but which you claim were “absolute requirements” for us and our food!

DAVID: I have always said all branches lead to current ecosystems.

You recently offered us a quote (re New Zealand): “Evolutionary history is full of strange twists and turns, but also dead ends” which I bolded and which you ignored. Your dodges include the fact that ecosystems provide “food for all” (which includes all extinct organisms that lived in them and had no connection with us or our food), and all our current ecosystems are descended from past ecosystems (bolded above), which again is true for us evolutionists, but does NOT mean that all extinct branches led to us and our ecosystems. I have asked you repeatedly how the brontosaurus (I recently added trilobites and moa) “provided a direct link (continuum) to our current ecosystems.” Your last reply was as above: “The systems are here descended from their ancestor systems.” Now please tell us at last how trilobites, the brontosaurus and the moa provided a direct link (continuum) to us and our ecosystems, and were “absolute requirements” to enable him to design us and our ecosystems.

dhw: (re Neanderthals): If his one and only purpose was to create H. sapiens plus food, as you claim, and if he had the power to create species without any precursors, as you claim, it makes no sense for him to design umpteen hominins and homos in itsy-bitsy stages. So I look for a logical theory to explain the stages.[…]

DAVID: It is what God desired to do. He can choose as many stages as He wishes. You can't outthink God and tell Him he did it wrong!!!

This is another of your silly dodges. Nowhere do I say that God – if he exists – did it wrong! I accept that we evolved in stages! But since it makes no sense even to you that an all-powerful God who only wanted to design H. sapiens proceeded to design umpteen hominins and homos before designing us and eliminating them, I am challenging your illogical interpretation of his purpose and/or his method, and have offered you logical alternatives.

DAVID: The flaws in your approach to my theories are numerous. You keep denying the design approach which accepts everything is designed.

dhw: I accept A, not YOUR design approach. “Design” does not automatically mean your God individually designed every species, ecosystem, lifestyle, natural wonder etc., or that his sole purpose was to design us plus our food.

DAVID: God designed reality; that means everything is His works.

More flannel. If he exists, and if reality is a free-for-all, then the free-for-all is his work. So?

DAVID: You complain about all the evolutionary branches that do not lead to us. Illogical! Only one branch can lead to us.

dhw: Exactly: only one branch can lead to us. Some other branches led to our food. Other branches – the vast majority – led neither to us nor our food, and so it makes no sense to claim that ALL of them were an “absolute requirement” for us and our food! You admit that your theories are illogical (they make sense only to God), and then you play word games to try and hide the illogicality you have already acknowledged. Please stop it.

DAVID: The entire Earth contains our ecosystems for food. How many more articles do I have to produce to crack your cemented mind?

Still dodging. The entire Earth contains ecosystems for food. That does not mean every single extinct ecosystem led to our current ecosystems and current foods, because vast numbers of extinct life forms and ecosystems came to a dead end. Please explain how the brontosaurus was an “absolute requirement” for us and our food.