Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 29, 2022, 12:21 (514 days ago) @ David Turell

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. […] (dhw’s bold)

dhw: […] 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.

You have dodged this completely!

dhw: 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. […] 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!

And you have also dodged this completely. Instead you have fastened on to the example of birds, which you keep repeating in order to dodge most of the other questions I have raised:

DAVID: 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.

Evolution is the theory that all forms of life are descended from earlier forms. You have picked on one example. 5 minutes’ research on the Internet tells us that there are seven known groups of dinosaurs, one of which was the theropods. Birds are descended from one clade of theropods called maniraptora –“the only known dinosaur group alive today”. But according to you, your God designed all the other dinosaur groups as well, and they were the dead ends which you cannot explain! Hence my repeated question to you: why did your God design the brontosaurus (a sauropod) – plus every other dead end in the history of evolution? Quoting an example of a continued line does not explain all the dead ends! Please stop dodging!!!

Now perhaps you will acknowledge that you have agreed to the experimentation theory, and in principle to the new ideas theory. As for your silly accusation that I am attempting to get rid of a need for your God, ALL my theories include him, two of them could ONLY refer to him, and the free-for-all explicitly allows for him as designer of the intelligent cell. Please stop hiding from the logic by pretending I’m a would-be atheist.

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.

dhw: 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. [..] That is why you agree that we are descended from bacteria! So how can you argue that the Cambrian organisms had no predecessors?

DAVID: 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.

The gap in forms is not in dispute, and a possible reason for that is the lack of fossils from species that would have died out 550+ million years ago. But since “form” is not the only criterion for descent, it makes no sense to claim that the Cambrian organisms had no predecessors and yet at the same time to claim that modern research shows that they were descended from Archaea.

DAVID: Genome trees are not Darwin's tree.

No, they are an addition to Darwin’s tree, confirming his theory of common descent.

"Genome complexity: a new fungal family found”

QUOTE: "They all look different but have the same genomic ancestor”

We don’t need to quote the rest. This confirms Darwin’s theory of common descent.

DAVID: Please rethink your Darwinian approach to evolution. It is now dependent upon genome studies.

You keep talking as if genome studies invalidated Darwin’s theory of common descent! They CONFIRM it. Yes, yes, yes, we are descended from Archaea. And the Cambrian organisms were also descended from Archaea. Ergo, the Cambrian organisms had predecessors.