Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, December 09, 2022, 09:08 (713 days ago) @ David Turell

This thread and “More Miscellany” Part One deal with the same issues, so I have combined and edited the exchanges,

Definition quoted by David: "Evolution is the process by which the physical characteristics of types of creatures change over time, new types of creatures develop, and others disappear." (David’s bold)

DAVID: Note my bold things disappear!!! They have to go to make way for the improved models.

The definition does not say that things "have to" disappear or that disappearing forms are required! It is simply a fact that they disappear! (Raup says it’s all a matter of bad luck, which doesn’t say much for your God’s total control, does it?) 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. But you have your God specially designing all the forms that did NOT evolve into the only forms he wants to design. Why? Apparently so that he could make them disappear because all evolutions must have dead ends, and he found that his own “failed experiments” were cluttering up the available space!

DAVID: Does any evolutionary process result in dead ends. Yes or no?

Yes. Would an all-powerful God deliberately design countless life forms that had no connection with the only life forms he wanted to design? Yes or no?

DAVID: Yes. Using an evolutionary system results automatically in dead ends.

That was not what I asked! We know that dead ends occur in human-made evolutions and in the evolution of life. But your “yes” means that your all-powerful God deliberately designed countless life forms which had no connection with those he wanted to design! Why? See above for your now bolded explanation, which I’m afraid I just cannot take seriously.

DAVID: Did a giant bush of life appear now? Yes. Dead ends are naturally discarded older forms during an evolutionary process:

dhw: I agree. How does that come to mean that your God deliberately designed dead ends which had no connection with the only life forms he wanted to design, and then had to get rid of them?

DAVID: Same old: God used evolution as His system of producing us.

According to you, your God individually designed every stage of every life form, including all those that had no connection with us and our food. Hence my question which you have dodged yet again.

https://massivesci.com/articles/evolving-toward-extinction/
QUOTES: "It’s easy to view the progress of evolutionary selection as one-directional – leading toward ever more refined and useful traits. In Darwin’s words, “natural selection will tend to render the organization of each being more specialized and perfect, and in this sense higher.
"But nature does not always make the right choices. Sometimes those choices lead to evolutionary dead ends."

dhw: The above quote could hardly be clearer. You believe your God specially designed all the dead ends. So in your theory we must substitute the word “God” for the word “nature”: God does not always make the right choices. Sometimes those choices lead to evolutionary dead ends. Your all-powerful but oh so “humanized” God makes the wrong choices – in keeping with your other faux pas, when you told us that “all evolutions advance from failed experiments”, but then backtracked to tell us that there were no failures and no experiments in your God's totally controlled direction of evolution.

DAVID: Yes, God totally controlled evolution which always will produce dead ends.

If your God controlled it, then you are telling us that he actually wanted to make wrong choices!

dhw: I do not know of any evolution in which designers deliberately set out to create failures, as you seem to think your God did.

DAVID: I view God as deliberately deciding to evolve us.

And deliberately deciding to evolve (= design) every other life form that ever lived, including all his wrong choices, which he wanted to make because all evolutions produce dead ends aka failed experiments aka wrong choices.

DAVID: Evolution always has dead ends which naturally occur or are allowed by God to occur.

The dead ends are species that led nowhere, and according to you they did NOT occur naturally and they were not “allowed” by God. According to you, he deliberately designed them. Why? That’s the problem you keep dodging.

DAVID: Evolution is a process in which simple gives way to complex.

That is certainly part of the process, but it has nothing to do with your theory that your God deliberately designs failures.

DAVID: Whatever appears is God's intent. We appeared at the end of evolution. Ergo, we were His final intent. Again you turn Adler's argument on its head.

Adler used human uniqueness to prove the existence of God. This has nothing to do with your theory of evolution. I doubt if the next billion years or so will see no changes in the history of life on Earth, but in any case, your claim is that we and our food were your all-powerful, in-total-control God’s one and only intent from the very beginning, and so yet again, why design all the dead ends? You either dodge the question, or come up with answers like the one I have bolded at the start of this thread, or with the advice that I should go and ask God because your theories make sense only to him.