Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 06, 2022, 12:17 (497 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I've told you to recognize God created everything, and if so, God felt everything was required to be produced before arriving at humans.

dhw: You cannot tell me to “recognize” something just because you believe it! I emphatically do not recognize that your God (if he exists) would have individually designed every innovation (species), lifestyle (e.g. bird migration), strategy (the opossum playing dead), home (weaverbird’s nest, ant city) etc.[…].

DAVID: I wish you would respect that the issue before us is a theoretical God, whom I accept. Under that approach I have every right to assume that what is here in reality represents God's wishes and accomplished works.

For the sake of argument, I also accept a theoretical God, and that what is here represents his wishes and accomplished works. Your vague generalisation is equally applicable to a God who wishes for a free-for-all, to experiment, or to give himself new ideas as he goes along. What your vague generalisation does not explain is why he would have “wished” only for us plus food and then “accomplished” countless dead-end life forms which had no connection with us plus food. Please stop dodging!

dhw: And I cannot recognize your claim that all the dead ends were required for the design of us and our food. And as you yourself have repeatedly agreed, all the extinct, dead-end “odd doings” of the PAST have nothing to do with the giant ecosystem of the PRESENT.

DAVID: What I said was past ecosystems in the past fed life in the past and current ecosystems feeds life now, and were evolved from the past systems. Stop distorting!!!

That is indeed what you agreed in the past. However, this time you wrote: “All of the odd doings you pick on creates the giant ecosystem that barely feeds us eight billion now. It was all connected with his goal.” The “odd doings I pick on” are the dead ends from which our giant ecosystem has NOT evolved and were therefore NOT connected with his goal (us and our giant ecosystem). Please stop dodging!

Reading God’s mind

DAVID: No, my speculations are Mine, not gospel. And gospel is group think as to what should be published, human best guesses. […]

dhw: So why did you suddenly decide we must discuss the God described in the Bible?

DAVID: We must start somewhere, and the God generally presented is all-powerful, all-everything else.

That’s how you have always presented him, so why suddenly bring in a book which you regard it as “group think as to what should be published”? Skip it – we don’t need these digressions.

DAVID: We do discuss the concept of all-powerful but end up with my type and your type, with no agreement between us. My all-powerful is direct, certain, and has a clear view of all desired endpoints to his actions. End points are planned, because every evolutionary process requires them, yes or no!

dhw: I‘m not sure why you have suddenly introduced end points, when the dispute is over the relevance of all the dead ends to your God’s single purpose. An end point is the completion of a process. I don’t know what you mean by every evolutionary process requires completion. Do human-made evolutions like political and philosophical and educational systems, architecture, the arts require completion? My answer is no. They have always been ongoing. As for types of God, I remain open-minded. I test each of your imposed “humanizing” attributes against the history of life and your own observations of it, and I find that if his “clear view” of his one and only purpose is us and our food, the creation of-dead end failures is the opposite of “direct”.

DAVID: I wish you would respect that the issue before us is a theoretical God, whom I accept. Under that approach I have every right to assume that what is here in reality represents God's wishes and accomplished works. I used 'direct' in the sense of His personality, not something 'speedy'

See above for “wishes and accomplished works”. Not a word about the “end point and completion” nonsense, and I have no idea what you mean by his “direct” personality in the context of why he created dead ends instead of directly creating the only things he wanted to create. Please stop dodging!

DAVID: You are still using your distorted view of any evolutionary process. Try this:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/evolution
"Evolution is the process by which the physical characteristics of types of creatures change over time, new types of creatures develop, and others disappear."
Note my bold things disappear!!! They have to go to make way for the improved models.

You really are clutching at straws. The “improved models” are the life forms that DID evolve from earlier life forms. The dead ends are the ones that did NOT evolve into anything. In your theory the "others that disappear" are the dead ends which you say your God specially designed as preparation for us and our food although they had no connection with us and our food! Now you are saying he specially designed the irrelevant dead ends because they had to disappear! Curiouser and curiouser.