Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, December 22, 2022, 09:24 (485 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Evolution wasn't as messy as you describe, and we are here so it worked.

dhw: It is you who have used the terms “mistakes”, “failed experiments” and “messy”. I simply proposed that experimentation would account for the dead ends.

DAVID: I do not assume God ever experimented in the sense He did not have a definite goal in sight, us. Dead ends were for former necessary ecosystems, no longer needed as evolution advanced to new forms requiring new ecosystems for food.

The whole point of the experiment theory is to fit in with your theory that your God started out with the intention of designing us and our food. All the dead ends (species and ecosystems) were what you have called his “failed experiments”, “mistakes”, “wrong choices” and “mess”. Why are you starting this discussion all over again?

Transferred from “More miscellany, Part One”:
dhw: I see no reason to suppose that every new species suddenly appeared globally.

DAVID: I'm sure, agreeing with you, species are local. Lions in Africa, tigers in Asia.

dhw: Thank you. That is why your belief that your God did not control local climate changes (which would have changed local environments) constitutes one crucial factor in evolution which was beyond his control.

DAVID: Only God speciates, so He took local weather into account when necessary.

dhw: You still have him reacting to conditions beyond his control, as opposed to his being “in tight control”.

DAVID: God is in tight control of continuing speciation which responds with forms adapted to new conditions.

The God you are presenting is in tight control of his own responses to conditions which are not of his making. If he started out with the intention of designing us, but conditions outside his control were not suitable for us, he would have had to wait until chance provided him with the conditions that were suitable for us. This fits in nicely with your theory that evolution as he designed it was full of “mistakes” and “failed experiments” and thoroughly messy, but none of it fits in with your theory that he was in tight control of evolution. Luckily – according to your new theory – suitable conditions eventually arrived, and he was able to achieve the goal he started out with.

DAVID: It is generally accepted that the Earth is fine-tuned for life to appear. In your wild suppositions that fine tuning didn't happen is a distortion of the real history, in which God provided fine tuning. He speciated to fit changing environmental requirements, chance never involved. Earth's relatively fixed climate controlling previous previously discussed.

Since life appeared, no-one is going to argue that conditions were not suitable for life to appear. If God exists, then it’s fair enough to say he fine-tuned the conditions. But according to you, he set up a system whereby he did NOT control local climate changes, which led to environmental changes, and environmental changes are an essential factor in speciation: your God could hardly design species that would not survive in the environment he did not create. See above for the rest of the non-argument.