Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 01, 2023, 17:38 (422 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: We assume He could create us outright since He made direct creation of life.

dhw: You have omitted your belief that we and our foods are descended from Cambrian species that had no precursors.

The Cambrian gap has existed since its discovery before Darwin moaned about it. It is not belief but fact that every animal here descended from it.

DAVID: Did God evolve us or not? We are discussing my belief in God a designer. I view evolution as showing purpose. You are stuck with Darwin's random process where everything is survival.

dhw: If God exists, he would have created the process of evolution, of which we are the latest product. We are not discussing your belief in God the designer, but the purpose, methods and nature of your God, assuming he exists. I have no doubt that if God created the world, life and the process of evolution, he would have had a purpose. I do not see evolution as a random process, because I see that every adaptation and innovation is tightly geared to the purpose of survival. However, in my various theistic proposals, I offer two which place special focus on humans as a possible purpose. See your next dodge:

Survival is your emphasis, because you haven't recovered from your worship of Darwin. Raup says survival depends on luck, which means it is a random process. God designs species so they will survive facing current tests with some adaptability.

dhw: […] evolution does not mean your God’s only purpose was us and our food.

DAVID: The only way to interpret God's intent is to evaluate His works. You give lip service to how unusual and special we are. Pual Davies doesn't view that way, recorded here in the past. And of course, Adler's well-known proof of God.

dhw: I have never denied that we are special, but as usual you attempt to gloss over the main bulk of your absurd theory that your God’s one and only purpose from the very beginning was to design us and our food, and therefore he designed countless life forms which had no connection with us and our food, and which you label “mistakes”, “failed experiments”, “wrong decisions”, and a mess, while at the same time telling us how brilliant your designer God is. You also believe he could have designed us de novo if he’d wanted to, and did in fact design our ancestors and those of our food de novo, although even then he went on making mistakes on the way. What’s more he knew he was making mistakes. In two of my alternatives, I give special prominence to us humans, but your God manages to design them without any mistakes.

DAVID: I've purposely overstated how messy evolution of life actually is. But God used it. Successfully, we are here.

dhw: What was your purpose? Are you now saying that when you called his efforts “mistakes” and “failed experiments” etc, you didn’t actually mean they were mistakes and failed experiments?

I've certainly got your attention. You initially raised the question of the indirect way evolution produced what God wanted to produce. We have now investigated the issue and I've got you defending my God with your extrapolations of pure initial theory. based on looking at cells and noting they operate intelligently. At the biochemical level current research shows how automatic their actions are.

dhw: Your comments are so full of contradictions that you are forced to acknowledge that you have no idea why your God would have invented such a faulty method, and I should go and ask him why he did it.

DAVID: How can I know God's reasoning? I am not His righthand assistant. I cannot interpret beyond assigning importance to aspects of His works. Humans are enormously important.

dhw: We are certainly enormously important to ourselves, and in two of my alternatives I have actually allowed for our enormous importance, offering perfectly logical reasons for your God’s methods, even including your own belief that he was experimenting. Meanwhile, how can you know that your God reasoned that he must make 99 mistakes for every 100 of his designs?

God knew in any evolutionary process each step to the present would depend on past performances. Raup analyzed the system. I assume God invented it. He knew how it would work.

DAVID: Once again going to your usual extremes only to defend my God!! I love it.

dhw: Then maybe you should take my proposals more seriously before you opt for an inefficient, cumbersome bumbler who invents a method that forces him into making the mess you have criticized him for.

Your theories are totally unreasonable based on current biochemical reasearch on living organisms.