Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, November 11, 2022, 12:17 (741 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Once again you have created a God who needs entertainment. There is no other
interpretation possible.

dhw: I dislike your terminology, which cheapens the theory. Do you think Beethoven composed his 9th symphony because he was needy and required entertainment? You might consider our world as one colossal work of art, which your God – if he exists – enjoyed creating and which was and is endlessly interesting (those were your own terms). In any case, I’ve answered your objection at the start of this post: a free-for-all is goal-oriented and your God knows exactly what he “has to do” to achieve it.

DAVID: I agree setting up a free-for-all is a goal. It is the aftermath where things happen independently and unexpectedly, and are entertaining that means a God no longer in control.

Of course a free-for-all means giving up control, and it is the unexpected that makes things more interesting than total predictability. But there is always the option of a dabble (e.g. a mass extinction) if he wants a change.

dhw: […] The dispute, for the thousandth time, is over your claim that his only wish was to design sapiens and our food, but according to you 1) he used the biochemistry to design countless forms that had no connection with us and our food…

DAVID: You cannot support that claim! Everything that exists today comes from past forms.

dhw: Why do you keep using the same silly dodge? Of course everything that exists today comes from past forms. That is the whole point of the theory of evolution. But you are simply ignoring all the dead ends that did NOT lead to what exists today!

DAVID: Dead ends in any evolutionary process are a normal event! You just ignore that to be able to complain about them. Just a dodge.

How many evolutions of life do you know about? If your God is in total control, why would he deliberately create dead ends that have nothing to do with his one and only purpose? Do you think he says to himself: ”All evolutions have dead ends, so I have to create dead ends?”

dhw: […] If your God used living biochemistry to create our ancestors WITHOUT PREDECESSORS during the Cambrian, pre-Cambrian life forms (e.g bacteria) could not have been our ancestors! Hence the dispute bolded above “for the thousandth time”. Please stop dodging!

DAVID: You continue to distort. Look at the known history and explain it without God designing forms He wishes. God descended me from Archaea.

I agree that we are descended from Archaea, but YOU say he descended us from Cambrian forms that had no predecessors, so how can we be descended from Archaea? If your God exists and really did design every form from the beginning, he must have had a reason for designing the dead ends (I’ve offered you three possibilities), but it couldn’t have been us plus food if he never even began to design us plus food until he’d finished designing dead ends that had nothing to do with us!

Cambrian explosion: early skeletal form found

dhw: If newly discovered forms from 514 million years ago provide links to forms that appeared 500 million years ago, it’s possible that they in turn linked up with forms that existed 528 or 541 million years ago. ALL these fossils “defy the odds”. But you always “sop up” the ungrounded belief that there should be a complete record of every transition, or else your God created our ancestors from scratch, although paradoxically you also think our ancestors existed before he created them from scratch!

DAVID: All new organisms appear in the fossil form fully prepared to handle their lives. There are no itty-bitty steps required by Darwin theory, fully admitted by Gould. I've bolded your totally untrue comment. God produces new forms when the underlying living biochemistry is ready to form them.

Of course every living form was able to live – otherwise it would never have existed! The bold is YOUR contradiction of yourself: you believe our ancestors were created in the Cambrian without predecessors, and you believe our ancestors were created before the Cambrian! As for living biochemistry, I thought you agreed that environmental conditions had to be ready before your God could use the biochemistry to create new forms. Why else would he have waited to create our ancestors without predecessors?

MASS EXTINCTION IN THE EDIACARAN

QUOTES: "All types of feeding modes and life habits experienced similar losses, with only 14 genera still seen in the Nama out of 70 known groups from the earlier White Sea stage"
.
"'Thus, our data support a link between Ediacaran biotic turnover and environmental change, similar to other major mass extinctions in the geologic record," the team concludes."

DAVID: not a surprising finding considering the other major events. Note the new ease of finding 'soft body' forms.

Yes, it’s wonderful how all these new discoveries are being made, although at one time you thought no more fossils would be found. Once more we have emphasis on the link between environmental change and speciation, and once more the question arises why your God would have deliberately designed the 56 dead-end genera that did not survive this particular extinction. Do you really believe they were “necessary” for God to be able to design our ancestors which had no predecessors?