Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, November 28, 2022, 18:17 (515 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Of course dead ends can be considered failures, but evolutions advance from failed experiments in form and function and then new attempts at success. Dinosaurs disappeared but gave us birds. But as always you ignore that God produced everything we know about, and if God created it He felt it was required to appear.

dhw: The question is how dead ends that had no connection with his purpose could be required to appear in order for him to achieve his purpose. Thank you for again accepting one of my theistic answers, which is that the dead ends might be the result of your God experimenting. The last time I pointed this out to you (16th November), you replied: “God is direct and knows exactly how to proceed with no alternative experimentations.” I’m glad you’ve changed your mind. Another of my theories (God had new ideas as he went along) could also fit in with your description above: producing a particular dinosaur might have given him the idea to produce a bird. I don’t “ignore” that God produced everything, because another of my theistic theories – which offers an equally logical explanation for the dead ends – is that he did NOT produce everything we know about, but that he created an autonomous mechanism (cellular intelligence) which in turn produced not only us and our food but also all the dead ends which did not lead to us and our food. Your only objection to all of these has been that they “humanize” him in different ways from your own “humanizations” of him. One down, two to go!

The best example to discuss is dinosaurs. They ended up producing our birds, after being round successfully for millions of years. But they are gone as dead ends. This applies to many other forms that have disappeared and left behind new forms. I view God creating forms knowing they will disappear into new forms. That is evolution. I do not accept natural evolution and think your secondhand theory is another attempt to subtility get rid of a need for God.

DAVID: It is time to forget Darwin and his ancient form of common descent. Modern work on relationships is done at the genome level, which at times finds surprising relationships contrary to analysis from form.

Not “contrary to” but “in addition to”! Do you really think the new-found genomic relationships invalidate the form relationships? The more shared characteristics we find at whatever level, the greater the support for Darwin. And that does not resolve the contradiction between your two theories! If there are relationships at any level between the Cambrian organisms from which we are descended and those that preceded them, then the Cambrian organism had predecessors. That is why you agree that we are descended from bacteria! So how can you argue that the Cambrian organisms had no predecessors?

Their predecessors are obviously the Ediacarans. They have the necessary underlying biochemistry to support the very new and very complex Cambrian forms. This gap is not speciation in any form you can describe, just a giant gap in forms.