Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, February 20, 2023, 14:16 (423 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: David is constantly accusing me of distorting his theory, and so I will go through it point by point. David, please tell us which of these points is a distortion:

dhw: 1) Your God does not control changes in the environment, such as forest turning into desert.

DAVID: Yes

dhw: 2) This means that he can only design organisms which will be able to survive under those conditions.

DAVID: Yes.

dhw: 3) When conditions change again, 99% of his designs again fail to survive. This is due to his faulty design.

DAVID: Absolutely not. His designs at a given stage are perfectly adequate for those conditions, but when the requirement for new species appear, He designs them. His designs for adaptation do not carry over into outright speciation.

The given stage = when conditions change. He then designs new life forms (= species), but when conditions change again, 99% of his designs fail again. The reason, according to you, is: “The design failed a necessary adaptation to changes. It is a design fault in a lack of adaptability”. God is your faulty designer, and you call his failures “messy”, “mistakes”, “failed experiments”, “wrong decisions” etc. because they do not lead to his sole purpose (us and our food).

dhw: 4) It is bad luck for the non-survivors that they are victims of your God’s faulty design.

DAVID: No. See above for the answer.

You have agreed that their failure to adapt is due to a fault in God’s design. That is their bad luck. What else could it be?

dhw: 5) You believe your God’s only purpose for creating life was to design H. sapiens and our food.

DAVID: Yes. Ancillary purposes are how we relate to God having recognized His existance.

Presumably like worshipping him and recognizing his wondrous powers. Very human of him.

dhw: 6) 99% of your God’s designs had no connection with his only purpose, which is why you call them “mistakes” and “failed experiments”, and hold him responsible for what you call the “mess “ of evolution.

DAVID: Absolutely no. Life started by God's action at the Archaea bacterial level. The evolution we know lasted over 3.8 billion years, constantly modifying forms until humans were achieved.

The 99% failed because they were not “modified” (modification = adaptation). You say that outright speciation (see 3) led to us and our food, and these life forms were produced without predecessors. So why bother with the 99%?

DAVID: Without the 99.9% loss, evolution could not have happened. Do you want to just throw out the process?? As for so-called mistakes and failed experiments, it is my way of bringing up this discussion and recognizing God chose a messy process to create us. It is you who first mentioned direct creation is a much better method for an all-powerful God. But God didn't do it.

I’m not questioning the 99% loss, and it’s you who would like to throw it out in order to justify your topsy-turvy argument. Evolution could not have happened without the 1% successes. The failures were dead ends that did not evolve into anything! You call them “mistakes” and “failed experiments” and “faulty designs”, all of which is a direct criticism of your God. But you cannot bear the thought of our not being his prime purpose, and so you blame your God for incompetence, and refuse to consider the possibility that his purpose in designing, for example, the 99% of dinosaurs which had no connection with us and our food (the other 1% was birds) may NOT have been to act as what you used to call “absolute requirements” for designing us and our food.

dhw: 7) Your God was perfectly capable of designing any species he wanted to without predecessors, but instead of designing his one and only purpose directly, he deliberately invented a method which he knew would force him into designing 99% of mistakes.

DAVID: Not mistakes, just failure to survive.

See 3).

Meanwhile, in answer to points you have raised today:

DAVID: Every species survived until it went extinct. However, during their presence advanced biochemical processes were developed and were present in the next forms.

dhw: Any advances could only have been passed on by the 1% of survivors. The other 99% were dead ends, which you regard as being your God’s ”mistakes”, resulting from his faulty designs.

DAVID: You fail to understand my view of God.

dhw: Correct. I do not understand why an all-powerful God, who could design anything he wanted to whenever he wanted to, would choose to fulfil his one and only purpose by deliberately designing life forms which he knew were mistakes that had no connection with his purpose. You have told us that your theory “makes sense only to God”, which means you don’t understand it yourself.

DAVID: Trust in God removes all of your problems with God. It is obvious God chose this method for His own reasons. Trust means I don't need to know them as I accept God knows exactly what He is doing. Never second guess God.

All the above problems are not with God but with your rigid belief in an all-powerful God who blunders for reasons you cannot understand. You refuse to consider the possibility that an all-powerful God would not make blunders.