Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, October 29, 2022, 17:09 (544 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: If your God exists, your assumption is that he chose to evolve (by which you actually mean design) every single life form that ever existed, not to mention every ecosystem, lifestyle, strategy and natural wonder!

DAVID: We are the surprising result, if natural evolution is accepted. That is Adler's point: our amazing brain with its fully capable consciousness had to be a result of direct God activity, not nature.

dhw: The whole design argument is based on the principle that ALL life forms are too complex to have been the result of what you call “natural” evolution. Are you now telling us that, for instance, the brontosaurus was NOT a surprising result if “natural” evolution was accepted?

The form of the brontosaurus is not the surprise issue. It is our brain!!!

dhw: But you are yet again deliberately pretending that the issue here is the existence of your God as designer in order to dodge the bolded question at the start of this post, which you can’t answer. This dodging game is getting tiresome!

Same old answer: God as the designer CHOSE TO evolve us. God has the right to create by any method He wishes.

DAVID: Today's bush provides our food.

dhw: I doubt if anyone would disagree with your observation that today's food supply supplies us with food. You are on safe ground. Now please explain why your God would have designed all the dead ends of past giant food bushes which had no connection with us and our food, although you insist that they were all “absolute requirements” in preparation for us and our food.

Full explained as supporting ecosystems no longer needed.

The Cambrian Explosion

dhw: All very true, but this does not explain why an all-powerful God who knows what he wants (us plus food), and knows how to get it, decided first to specially design environments and organisms which had no connection with the only forms and environments he wanted to design. He might just as well have started life in the Cambrian, since you insist that he designed our whole bush of life forms without any predecessors. […]

DAVID: Same old problem. Allow God to choose His methodology. He doesn't think as you do, telling us how He could do it better. Stick with real history and result in real answers.

dhw: It is not “real history” that your God exists, that if he does, his sole purpose from the beginning was to design us and our food, or that he designed the countless forms of life and food which had no connection with us. Your personal opinions then become totally illogical if you also believe that after 3.x billion years, he started all over again with a collection of brand new life forms and foods without predecessors, some of which (but not all) eventually led to us. Why would your all-powerful God have created all those dead ends if he was planning to start afresh in the Cambrian?

Prior biochemical systems development and a changing/evolving Earth environment (i.e., more oxygen) set the stage for the Cambrian. Dead ends were necessary: "Full explained as supporting ecosystems no longer needed."

Food need (transferred from “More miscellany”):

dhw: I have never questioned it. ALL life forms need food and ALL ecosystems have always needed “balance” in order for them to get it! But this article has nothing to do with your illogical theories of evolution. The subject here is a new farming technique!

DAVID: Which provides a better necessary food supply!!

dhw: That remains to be seen. Meanwhile, please stop trying to equate our obvious need for food with the issue of why your God would act in ways which you impose on him and which you yourself cannot understand.

I impose nothing on God!! I view the history, we analyze, as God created. In that way I have full understanding based on assuming God chose this method.