Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, March 04, 2023, 08:16 (413 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You don't understand evolution at the biochemical level. That biochemistry developed until the Cambrian and afterward. Biochemistry underlies, and therefore allows all phenotypical changes. If it ain't there, you can't do it is the rule. And you've forgotten all those lovely bacteria, started life, still here helping.

dhw: More dodging! ALL life is biochemical! And you omit to mention that you have your God using biochemistry to design phenotypical changes, 99% of which had no connection with what you say was his one and only purpose. And you omit to mention that all the biochemical phenotypical changes prior to the Cambrian were unnecessary because he created our ancestors and foods de novo during the Cambrian! It’s you have forgotten the lovely bacteria from which we have descended. How can we have descended from them if your God designed our ancestors without any predecessors?

DAVID: The bold is pure nonsense. The biochemistry developed in the Ediacaran is the same biochemistry that is the basis of the biochemistry used in the Cambrian. And surprise! We are still using much of the same bacterial biochemistry started in them. Predecessors is a word that requires an analysis of phenotype. All phenotypes are dependent upon the underlying biochemistry available to them. Please try to see evolution at two distinct levels!

Of course all phenotypes depend on biochemistry! That’s why I said all life is biochemical. Your theory that he designed our ancestors – his only purpose - from scratch (the Cambrian gap) makes “pure nonsense” of your theory that first he had to design earlier life forms (“mistakes”, “failures”) which had no connection with us, regardless of the fact that they all use the same biochemistry.

DAVID: I've purposely overstated how messy evolution of life actually is..

dhw: 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 completely organisms would fail. To repeat for the nth time: He designed limited adaptability and designed new species as needed.

Thank you for confirming your belief that he knew his design would lead to 99% mistakes/failures, and that the reason they died was his faulty design which prevented them from adapting to new conditions outside his control. This process was repeated until the Cambrian allowed him to design new species which were not even based on the 1% of survivors since he designed them from scratch. Some of these survived the great “mess”, and evolved (through his dabbling) into us and our food. Please indicate any points you wish to reject.

DAVID: You know nothing of Raup's short, brilliant book. Remember, no failures but bad luck when circumstances changed.

dhw: It is you who keep using the word "failure"! The “bad luck” was caused by the fact that your God’s designs "failed" to cope with changing circumstances, and so the 99% perished. You regard non-survival as a mistake or "failed experiment" because the 99% did not lead to what you believe to have been your God’s one and only purpose: us and our food. Stop dodging.

DAVID: 99.9% perished by God's purposeful design. Living evolution shows us 99.9% must die!!!! The dead precursors became our living food!!!

How can dead precursors become anything? Living evolution shows us that 99% became extinct. If 100% had become extinct, there would have been no more life and no more evolution! It’s the 1% of survivors that evolved into us and our food!

DAVID: Failure to survive by brilliant designs making room for new designed species.

So now your God clutters up the planet with 99% of life forms he designed so that chance changes in conditions would get rid of them and make room for another 99% of mistakes until the right conditions happened to arrive etc., as bolded above. And this is brilliant.

DAVID: Blunders is your perverted view of God handling evolution with all its loss of forms that ended up with us.

dhw: Blunder is another word for mistake. The loss of forms did not end up with us. It was the survival of forms that ended up with us.

DAVID: Back to pure Darwin. Survival did not drive evolution. The creator of speciation did.

You have misunderstood. “Lost” forms do not evolve into anything. Only survivors can evolve.

dhw: ][…] why would an all-knowing brilliant mind with a single purpose design 99% of life forms which have no connection with his one and only purpose and which he knows are mistakes and failed experiments? Why do you keep describing your blunderer as brilliant, and sneering at interpretations which have him doing precisely what he wants to do?

DAVID: When will you realize living evolution requires a 99.9% failure rate to survive???

Never. When will you realize that evolution, like life itself, requires survivors if it is to survive? And when will you stop dodging my questions?