Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, January 10, 2023, 11:34 (681 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

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

DAVID: You do not recognize how you stretch my points. For example, the Saraha desert appeared naturally under Earth's own climate patterns. God provided the Camal design to fit.

I was replying to your accusation: “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.” Now once again, you agree that your God did NOT control the morphing of forests into deserts. And so once more you have your God responding to environmental changes over which he had no control. Some websites suggest that the modern camel (I presume that’s what you’re referring to) evolved about 5 million years ago from ancestors going back 40-50 million years. According to your original theory, they were specially designed as absolute requirements for H. sapiens and our food – presumably while he waited for a stroke of luck that would provide him with an environment in which he could design our ancestors and eventually us (plus our food). You are absolutely right to describe this method as a mess.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Today, I will add: Bad luck for animals or plants is never bad luck for God. He will design to fit all needs, as necessary.

Usual question: necessary for what? You now have your God entirely dependent on chance to provide him with the various environments and the various survivors which he dabbles with in order to enable them to survive or exploit the new environments. And all these environments and species come and go independently of his control, in order for him eventually to produce us and our food. Yes, it is a total mess. But a God who relies on luck, and keeps messing things up, is consistent with the history of life as we know it, and your theory makes sense.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Yes, the failed branches are experiments in survival, and many were good designs in Raup's view, succumbing only to 'bad luck' events. God does not control every little event in reality, only those that need to be controlled. And I'll repeat, God can design around or past any seeming obstacle.

Fine. You are confirming your belief in the “messy” God I have described above, who relies on luck to provide him with the environments and surviving species he can work on in order to continue his succession of failed experiments until he finally creates the only species he set out to create at the very beginning. It fits in with the history of life as we know it. It just doesn’t fit in with the all-powerful, totally-in-control God you envisaged at the start of these discussions, but you are perfectly entitled to change your mind. Why is this discussion continuing?