Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, November 12, 2022, 16:07 (530 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You won't leave your concept of a very human God.
And under “horizontal gene transfer”
DAVID: Guesses do not make a picture of the God personality I envision.

dhw: As I keep pointing out, the God personality you envision with your own guesses – enjoying creating, interested in his creations, too kind to design murderous viruses, trying to find antidotes, wanting to be admired, ready to help us if we’re threatened by an asteroid etc – is just as “humanized” as my various alternatives, but at least mine solve the problem of dead ends, which in your guesses leaves your God inexplicably designing life forms that have no connection with the one and only purpose you impose on him.

I don't see how you have solved dead ends. We are studying the same evolution with the same human result as its end point. God starting life at the Archaea and ending it with us defines His purpose.

dhw: […] Do you think he says to himself: ”All evolutions have dead ends, so I have to create dead ends?”

DAVID: This is logically inept!! All evolution has branches that lead to dead ends as types of individuals don't survive and the ecosystem, they support, stop.

dhw: The only evolution of life we know about has dead ends. You don’t need to tell us what a dead end is. The dispute is over your absurd theory that they were all absolutely required for the design of sapiens plus food although they had no connection with sapiens plus food!

Again, you avoid the issue of food supply for what is currently alive. When they are replaced so is their food supply. If you really understand dead ends your complaint is totally irrational.

dhw: 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!

DAVID: Again your illogical distortion of my explanations.

dhw: What have I distorted?

The entire concept of God designed evolution. The Cambrian is not break in evolution, but a gap in forms. Evolution is a continuous process either by chance or by a designer.