Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 01, 2022, 18:01 (721 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: “ 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?

God plans everything. The dead ends are part of His designed evolution. When organisms are no longer needed to supply food, they disappear. Raup called extinctions bad luck, not a failure to survive. So, YES!!! Life lives on eating life. Again, dog-eating-dog world must be.

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

dhw: 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.

What I receive from you comes across as more atheist than agnostic.

dhw: 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.

Designed disappearance is not a failure, but a required part of the plan's design..

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?

dhw: 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.

A fine conclusion