Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, November 14, 2022, 08:31 (738 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 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.

First of all, I pointed out that if, as the article on “coming death of the sun” proposed, life on earth will end in about a billion years from now, we can hardly talk of your God ending evolution with us. Who knows what the next billion years will bring? Secondly, I explained how my three theistic theories solved dead ends. Your reply ignores all of this:

DAVID: God started a universe, created life (which is a lot more complicated) and evolved a human brain.

If he exists, he also “evolved” (for you = designed) countless other life forms, the vast majority of which had no connection with humans or our food. Why have you edited them out?

DAVID: Contrast that with you totally humanized bumbling God in your description.

I have already provided you with an extensive list of your humanizations, exemplified by your comment under “Pete the Opossum”. I see nothing “bumbling” in a God who wishes to create a free-for-all and does so, or who experiments in order to find the best formula to implement a particular concept, or who enjoys developing new ideas as he goes along. Contrast these versions with your own God, who for unknown reasons “has to” design countless life forms that have no connection with the only life forms he wants to design. This theory is one big bumble!

DAVID: You are a great storyteller, but I think have little recognition of what a God is supposed to be.

How can anyone know what a God is “supposed to be”? Even you, with your illogical theories, keep telling us we can’t know his reasons and we mustn’t “humanize” him (although you never cease to do so).

DAVID: Evolution is a continuum and everyone must eat along the way. Now what has survived makes up the giant system of ecosystems that must be here to feed us now.

dhw: You’ve got it: what survived evolved into the life forms and ecosystems of today. What did not survive were the countless dead-end life forms and ecosystems which you say your God specially designed because they were absolutely necessary for us and our food although they had no connection with us and our food!

DAVID: And you don't have it. The dead ends were necessary food supply through all stages on the way to now.

But all “stages” did not lead to now or to us or to our food! As you say above, only “what has survived” led to now. The vast majority died out long before now and had no connection with now or with us, so they could not have been necessary for now or for us. But if your God designed them, he must have had a reason, and so back we go to the beginning of this post.

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?

DAVID: Irrational. God as designer can skip forms when He wishes. Proof is the Cambrian.

Of course he can skip forms if he wishes (assuming he exists). But you can hardly skip the fact that if our ancestors had no predecessors prior to the Cambrian, we cannot be said to have descended from forms prior to the Cambrian, and every pre-Cambrian life form cannot have been necessary for him to produce our ancestors.

dhw: You have seized on the gaps in the fossil record as evidence of your God’s existence (only he could create species from scratch), without realizing that by doing so, you are contradicting your belief that we were our God’s purpose right from the beginning and that he began our continuous line of descent with bacteria.

DAVID: You are so conflicted in your total lack of understanding of design theory. God is bright enough to see Archaea and envision the human brain to appear later on. Your guy surely isn't. See the bumbling mess of theory presented at first, above.

I don’t know of any design theory which stipulates that before you design what you want to design, you must first design countless things that have no connection with what you want to design. Why “see” Archaea and then “envision” our brain? This suggests that the sight of Archaea gave him the idea for the human brain (links up with my 3rd theory). So from then on maybe he experimented to find the best way to create our brain (2nd theory)? But then maybe he realized that he was getting nowhere, and hit on a different idea (2nd theory) and created species from scratch (Cambrian), one of which would bring him the desired result, while some of the rest would provide our food supply? This is getting interesting!

I don’t know what “bumbling mess” you are referring to. The only mess I can see is the totally illogical theory that your God had to design life forms that had no connection with what he wanted to design, and that we are descended from species that had no predecessors although we are descended from species which were designed hundreds of millions of years before the species that had no predecessors.