Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, December 29, 2022, 11:10 (693 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have agreed that 99% of your God’s special designs (organisms and ecosystems) were NOT necessary for the design of his one and only goal: humans and our food. I have called them "dead ends", and you have called them “mistakes”, “failed experiments”, “wrong choices” and part of the mess for which he is responsible. You have stated that your God does not control local climate and environmental changes such as those that lead to forests turning into deserts (hardly "daily" or "yearly"), which means that he was relying on luck to provide him with an environment that would be suitable for us and our food. I don’t know why you are now claiming that all this is a distortion. (David’s bold)

DAVID: My discussion of daily weather not in God's control has now morphed in your fertile mind to mean major changes as forests into deserts!!

You constantly accuse me of distortion when all I do is repeat your exact words!
23 December:
dhw: So if a tropical forest turns into a desert because of an uncontrolled change in climate patterns, what role did he play in changing the tropical forest environment into a desert environment?

DAVID: None. The Earth runs its own weather patterns.
And:
DAVID: I believe local climate is not something God dabbles with.

We had finally sorted out the messy illogicalities of your original theory, and now you want to start all over again!

DAVID: God may or may not have done these events. But they are off the point now bolded above. God, as a master designer, outfitted all new species with the abilities to handle whatever they needed to as conditions changed. When they fell to Raup's 'bad luck' they were failures, in the sense they do not act as a stage to advance complexity.

According to you, your God’s one and only purpose was to produce sapiens and our food. In your theory, the dead ends were only failures because they did not act as stages on the way to achieving the goal you insist on. If he had not started out with that goal (as in the other two theories I have offered you), they would not have been “failures” (see below)! And if they failed because of “bad luck”, those which survived must have failed because they were lucky, so God depended on luck (a) for conditions that would suit his purpose, and (b) for the survival of life forms that he could work on under the new conditions in order to achieve his purpose.

DAVID: What I am doing is agreeing with you God chose a round-about way to produce humans. And it worked! It seems God knows/knew what He was doing, and never gave thought to what you see as problems.

I have no idea what he thought, but according to you, his method involved countless mistakes, failed experiments, wrong choices and a thoroughly messy way of achieving his aim. Those were all your terms, not mine!

DAVID: We have your picture of a bumbling God because He used the very messy process called evolution.

If he exists, he didn’t just use it – he invented it, and was responsible (your word) for what you believe to have been the whole mess.

DAVID: Evolution, as a precise definition consists of moving from one failed experiment to another until a successful one moves to a new level of complexity.

It’s not a matter of complexity, but of a fixed goal! The experiments are only failures if there is a goal. If he experiments in order to find out what might happen if he does xyz, there is no failure. If he creates a free-for-all, again there is no failure. And the definition of evolution consists of life forms descending from earlier life forms. Please note: two days ago you told us “God was not experimenting”, and in this post you tell us once again that the evolution he designed entails failed experiments.

DAVID: Evolution of life is moving from simple to complex. The most complex result, the human brain is here, despite the messy arrangement. God chose to do it this way, despite your objections. I am sure He knew what He was doing. Many years ago, there was an admonition: "keep it simple, stupid". I guess you live by it. God doesn't. He evolves all His different levels of creation, universe from Big Bang, Milky Way gobbling up little galaxies, the Earth from rocks to life, life from Asgard Archaea to us. A definite pattern!

I am not denying evolution! You have just accepted the theory that your God experimented in order to achieve his one and only goal (us and our food), the vast majority of his experiments were failures, mistakes, wrong choices etc., and he invented the whole system which you regard as messy. What are you complaining about? I have accepted your experimentation theory as one possible, logical explanation of the mess.