Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 07, 2023, 11:40 (444 days ago) @ David Turell

There is no point in repeating all the exchanges, as they lead to two questions which David never answers: 1) why would his God, whose only purpose was to design humans plus food, design every single life form, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder etc., knowing that 99% of his designs would be mistakes/failed experiments? 2) How do his mistakes and failures make him less human and more godlike than a God who – in my theistic alternatives - achieves his purpose without making any mistakes? I'll repeat David's comments and respond accordingly:

DAVID: If God is in charge, He is directly related to the history of evolution which has a failure rate of 99.9%. Your theories are simply inventions to disconnect God from a direct connection, and in so doing present a weakened form of God, not in total control but allowing secondhand design.

If he exists, then of course he is the inventor of evolution, and we agree that 99% of life forms failed to survive. But your theory blames him for his mistakes and failed experiments, partly caused by his being restricted to designing species that can fit in with conditions over which he has no control. My alternatives are: 1) All his experiments are successful, in so far as they create living organisms (e.g.dinosaurs, who ruled the Earth for 150 million years), but he continues to experiment in his quest to create a being like himself (the purpose you give him). No mistakes or disconnection. 2) New ideas: he learns as he goes along, and eventually comes up with us. No mistakes or disconnection. 3) A free-for-all (though he can dabble if he wishes to), for which he has designed the mechanism that leads to all the different species that have come and gone in the constant battle for survival, with ourselves as the latest product. No mistakes or disconnection. (See “extremophiles” for more on this.)

DAVID: My view of a real God is all-powerful, all-purposeful, all designer who does His designs with a full notice of where He is going without coming up suddenly with a new idea, which is the way humans work, a system you have implanted on your preferred view of a humanized God.

Why is a God whose designs are 99% failures and mistakes, and who knows he’s going to make all these blunders, less human and more real and more godlike than a God who, as in all three of my alternative theories, achieves his purpose without any failures or mistakes?

DAVID: God doesn't reveal his reasons for his actions. God fully controlled evolution with its dead ends. Therefore, He knew in advance dead ends appear, but it didn't matter, as with His designing powers He cold achieve humans. No added contrived form of God needed. God remains all-powerful, all-knowing, etc.

If God exists, it is of course true that he doesn’t reveal his reasons. So why do you assume that your God had the purpose you impose on him and chose to make blunder after blunder although, being all-powerful, he was perfectly capable of achieving that purpose without a single mistake? And why is a God whose designs are 99% failures and mistakes, and who knows he’s going to make all these blunders, less human and more godlike than a God who, as in all three of my alternative theories, achieves his purpose without any failures or mistakes?

Extremophiles

DAVID: Living organisms can find many different ways to live. Adverse climates can be conqured by living organisms. It explains why God does not have to control all climates as dhw worries. God's supreme design of living organisms takes care of it.

But that does not explain why, if your God’s only purpose was to design us and our food, he designed 99% of organisms which had no connection with us and our food. Apply your comment to "cellular intelligence" instead of "living organisms", as means of finding their own “different ways to live” or to “conquer adverse climates”, and you will see how perfectly it fits. This theory removes all the nonsense about an all-powerful God who makes mistake after mistake in his tunnel-visioned pursuit of a single purpose. Extremophiles would be a shining example of your God’s “supreme design” leading to the history of evolution as a gigantic free-for-all, in which the autonomous mechanism lives on (either by adapting or by innovating), or perishes in the constant struggle for survival. No humiliating mistakes or failed experiments.