Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, December 01, 2022, 08:06 (721 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: God knows exactly what He is doing. He can design forms which He intends to fail, when no longer needed in a particular ecosystem as evolution moves to the next stage.

dhw: So in order to fulfil what you believe has been his one and only purpose (us and our food) he deliberately designs not only those lines of descent and ecosystems that will lead to us and our food, but also those many, many lines and systems that he knows will fail because they have nothing to do with his one and only purpose. This apparently is logical because he knows he’s designing failures. And although all evolutions “advance from failed experiments”, God’s failures are not experiments. (See below.)

DAVID: No experimentation ever needed. Species are created/designed to fit a purpose at a given level but then species ends are required for evolution to proceed to the next more complex level. All planned by God.

“ All evolutions advance from failed experiments” but no experiments are ever needed. Your logic is becoming curiouser and curiouser. If your God’s only purpose was to design us plus our food, then the only species that were “required” were those that led to us plus our food. The countless species that did not lead to us plus our food were what we have called the dead ends. They were not required for evolution to lead to us plus our food. Yes or no?

dhw: Please stop hiding from the logic by pretending I’m a would-be atheist.

DAVID: All of your answers offer a smidgeon of grudging possibility of God.

dhw: The theories that your God may have been experimenting, or may have had new ideas as he went along, presuppose the existence of your God!

DAVID: Not my God who would never do what you claim for Him.

Your rigid vision of what your God would and wouldn’t do does not entitle you to say that my different visions make me into a would-be atheist.

dhw: You present illogical theories about your God’s possible purpose and method, and I present alternative theistic theories, which you agree are logical. So once more: please stop hiding from the logic by pretending I’m a would-be atheist.

DAVID: Your theories are logical only for your form of humanistic God. That does not imply I grant your theories apply to any other form of God. Your God is an illogical form.

A God who experiments or gets new ideas or designs a free-for-all is no more illogical than an all-powerful God who has one purpose and deliberately designs countless failures that have no connection with his one purpose.

The Cambrian

dhw: 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+ billion 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: They had no predecessors in form so in Darwin-speak following only forms, there are no predecessors.

dhw: His whole theory is based on common descent, and he had no doubt that there were predecessors. In “Darwin-speak” the best explanation for the gap was the lack of fossils, and so he would no doubt have been delighted that the gap has been filled by new research into genomics, which proves that there WERE predecessors.

DAVID: But we have the fossils and new biochemistry for Darwin to study. I wonder what his conclusions would be, as an agnostic. Like yours?

Why “but”? Darwin’s concern was to prove his theory of common descent, and the new biochemistry confirms it. Since his belief in that theory did not affect his agnosticism, why should confirmation of his theory affect his agnosticism? Why have you raised this subject? You have now agreed with Darwin that there were predecessors. That should be the end of this discussion.