Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, January 31, 2023, 08:10 (660 days ago) @ David Turell

Once again, in order to avoid repetition I will only reproduce and reply to David’s comments, apart from one earlier exchange.

DAVID: We know that over 99% of all previous species are gone. They failed to survive, so evolution produces failed species.

Since you insist that your God specially designed all those species, it is your God who produces “failed species”. However, failure to survive is not synonymous with “failed species”. See the next exchange.

DAVID: God designed evolution and therefore produced failures as part and parcel of the system. The failures allow progression to surviving forms that are improvements over the past.

You have left out the all-important part of your theory, which is that your God had only one purpose in designing them all: us and our food. And that is why you label 99% of his “experiments” as mistakes and failures. These do not “allow” progression! They are dead ends. They cannot be “improved”! It is the one per cent of survivors that allow progression and improvement. And you continue to ignore the argument that if it was God’s intention that different life forms should come and go, then their “failure to survive” does not make them “failed species” or mistakes or failed experiments. See yet again my alternative theories below.

DAVID: You miss my extremophile point which is God can design for any set of extreme circumstances, and therefore doesn't need to control conditions. The bolded point above doesn't recognize, if God created our known evolutionary history, He created the 99+% failure rate, to repeat my point.

If he only wanted to design us and our food, he needed conditions which would allow us and our food to survive. You have him being forced by conditions outside his control into designing vast numbers of life forms which had nothing to do with us and our food, which is why you call them mistakes and failed experiments. His ability to design species unconnected with his purpose, and your repeated belief that he created his own 99% failure rate, do not fit in with your image of him as all-powerful, all-purposeful and always in tight control. As regards extremophiles, I asked you last time if you thought they were among the 99% of his mistakes or among the 1% that he developed into us or our food. You haven’t responded.

DAVID: Did God produce our known evolutionary history is the point. I claim He did.

If he exists, then of course he did. But that does not mean he produced it for the one and only purpose you impose on him, or that he was so incompetent that 99% of his designs were mistakes.

DAVID: […] how did God manage to achieve our appearance on the scene?

dhw: If his initial purpose was to create a being like himself, he could have done so by continuously experimenting with different life forms which were successful in themselves (they lived and survived for long periods) but which he felt he could improve on. Alternatively, he could have started out on a voyage of discovery, getting new ideas as he went along, and humans were the latest of his ideas. Or he could have invented a mechanism (cellular intelligence) leading to a free-for-all, in which case either humans evolved naturally from cell communities constantly creating new forms as conditions changed, or (as I always specify) your God could have dabbled if he wished to. No weakness, no mistakes, no failures.

DAVID: Back to humanizing a God who has no preconceived goals.

I have bolded his goals (the “voyage of discovery” also applies to the free-for-all). See below for your absurd comment on “humanizing”.

DAVID: If you can accept the point that God is in charge and God produced our evolutionary history, God then produced a 99+% failure rate. And successfully produced us with our giant complex brain.

If God exists, I accept that he produced our evolutionary history. I also accept that our brain is one of the products of the process of evolution. But I don’t understand why you keep repeating that your God was responsible for a 99% failure rate, as if somehow that makes him more powerful, more in control, more competent, less "human" and more godlike than a God who achieves precisely what he wants to achieve, without making any mistakes or conducting any failed experiments.