Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, March 02, 2023, 10:42 (414 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: 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.

As usual, you dodge the issue. You claim that your God’s sole purpose right from the start was to create us and our food, but that he created our ancestors and our foods de novo during the Cambrian. Therefore all the life forms which preceded the Cambrian, and which you call his “mistakes”, “failed experiments”, “wrong decisions”, were totally unnecessary. Your explanation? God invented a system he knew would result in his designing all the “mistakes” etc. (including most of the forms he designed even after the Cambrian), but we are here, and so he’s a brilliant designer.

DAVID: […] I view evolution as showing purpose. You are stuck with Darwin's random process where everything is survival.

dhw: 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. bbbbHowever, in my various theistic proposals, I offer two which place special focus on humans as a possible purpose.bbb See your next dodge:

DAVID: 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.

According to you, your blundering God designed species so that 99% would NOT survive! If survival is a random process, your God depends on luck to provide him not only with the conditions he needs in order to design us and our food, but also with survivors he can “evolve” in his next series of failed experiments – except that he didn’t need any of them prior to the Cambrian, when he started the whole process all over again de novo. You blame God for this mess, whereas it is your theory which provides the mess. You have totally ignored my two theories which allow for your purpose, but have him experimenting without the mistakes you accuse him of.

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?

DAVID: I've certainly got your attention. You initially raised the question of the indirect way evolution produced what God wanted to produce.

Correction: The question concerns the indirect and error-strewn way in which your God produced what he wanted to produce.

DAVID: […] 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.

More dodging! The intelligent cell theory only concerns the mechanisms by which evolution advances - nothing to do with your God’s blunders in pursuit of his only goal! Once more: are you now telling us that when you accused him of mistakes etc., you didn’t mean to accuse him of mistakes etc., and when you tell us he knew he was making mistakes, you didn’t mean he knew he was making mistakes?

DAVID: God knew in any evolutionary process each step to the present would depend on past performances.

And so he kept making mistakes until the Cambrian, when he started all over again de novo, and then carried on making mistakes, but finally succeeded in designing us and our food although he could have done it without all the mess if he had wanted to.

DAVID: Raup analyzed the system.

Well done, Raup.

DAVID: I assume God invented it. He knew how it would work.

If God exists, of course he would have invented it. And thank you for confirming your belief that he knew the system he invented would lead to all his blunders.

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.

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

The theories that 1) your God experimented in his quest to create a being like himself – and did so by means of countless successful experiments until he hit on the best formula – and 2) that his successful experiments resulted in more and more new ideas on what to do with his invention of life, both fit in with the history of life, have nothing whatsoever to do with the theory of cellular intelligence or current biochemical research, and mercifully free your God from the image you present of an inefficient, incompetent, cumbersome bungler, who depends on luck to allow him the chance to do what he wants to do.