Return to David's theory of evolution and theodicy (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, November 16, 2023, 10:47 (371 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We are part of the surviving 0.1%, but a part of the 99.9% were human ancestors, and the remainder were ancestors of every other organism now living.

dhw: The surviving 0.1% include our fellow life forms. Until a week or two ago, you had always accepted that the 99.9% of extinct life forms had no connection with us or our food.

DAVID: That was always your claim which I thought I clearly rejected.

Ten days ago, after you had first proposed and also contradicted your new theory that 99.9% of extinct species were the direct ancestors of us and our food, I pinned you down with a simple exchange:

dhw: We and our food have evolved from 0.1% of evolution’s products.

DAVID: Yes.

Not 99.9%, but 0.1%.

dhw: Now you are claiming that 99.9% of extinct life forms were the direct ancestors of us and our fellow live organisms. At the same time, you claim that we and our fellow animals arrived without any precursors during the Cambrian period.

DAVID: Not a claim, but currently factual. The evidence of a gap is stronger now than in Darwin's time.

So how can you claim that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of species that ever lived if we and our fellow mammals are descended from species that arrived 540 million years ago without any precursors?

dhw: Can you trace a direct line from, say, cats and dogs and crocodiles and lizards to all the life forms that existed during the 3000,000,000 years before the Cambrian (most of which are probably unknown to us anyway)? Even dinosaurs have disappeared without any connections with the present apart from birds.

DAVID: Per Gould there lots of smaller gaps than the Cambrian.

Now please tell us if you can trace a direct line etc. etc., as bolded above.

DAVID: Part of your confusion is not understanding Raup's statistics for evolution. He analyzed the process to determine why extinction happened and concluded it was mainly luck.

dhw: Irrelevant to your claim that your God deliberately designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species unconnected with his purpose.

DAVID: As a side effect He offered a total for extinctions since life started as 99.1%. The fact that we now run the Earth in every way we can means what exists on Earth can be used any way we wish. From a purpose standpoint, this is exactly what a designing God would create for a big brained primate.

dhw: […] Regardless of percentages, you have no idea why your God deliberately designed all those branches which did not lead to us and our food, although you say we and our food were his only purpose. Please stop dodging.

DAVID:[…]. I have clearly shown you our dominion over the Earth allows us to use anything we choose as our diet. A purposeful God would have done exactly this result.

Not disputed. Irrelevant to the bold.

DAVID: You have repeated your foolish complaint about God using evolution. Evolution is a fact. God is a belief. You cannot complain about the results of evolution…..

I have never complained about your God using evolution or about the results of evolution, and I agree that evolution is a fact and God is a belief. My complaint is about your theory that your all-powerful God’s only purpose was us and therefore he specially designed and had to cull 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with us.

DAVID: ...and you can complain irrationally about my belief in God's actions.

I complain rationally about the irrationality of your theory concerning God’s totally illogical method of achieving the purpose you impose on him.

DAVID: For the last time (I hope) my straight logic: God exists and created our reality, evolved us and an Earth and a bush of life prepared for our use.

On the assumption that God exists, your logic is almost straight, but sadly leaves out the combined theories bolded above, which together are so crooked that you can only keep whining that you cannot know your God’s reasons. Added to this is the confusion over your new theory that we and our food are directly descended from the 99.9% of extinct life forms, although at the same time we and our food are only directly descended from 0.1% of extinct life forms.