Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, January 28, 2024, 12:29 (90 days ago) @ David Turell

I am juxtaposing and editing comments from both posts for the sake of clarity and to avoid masses of repetition.

dhw: a) Do we now agree that we and our contemporary species are not directly descended from 99.9% of all the organisms that ever lived, but are descended from only 0.1% of the organisms that ever lived? (We are accepting the current estimates, but they are not set in stone.)

DAVID: Finally, a true point.

dhw: Yes, finally! So let’s hear no more nonsense about 99.9% being our ancestors.

DAVID: 99.9% of our line are our dead ancestors!!!

Correct. But 99.9% of all extinct species were not our ancestors or the ancestors of our contemporary species, and they are the problem, because you have no idea why your God would have created and then culled them if his only purpose was to design us to take charge of the other survivors of the 0.1%.

DAVID: All of evolution created what we benefit from, as Tony noted.
And:
DAVID: All of evolution is for us.
And:
DAVID: What is not us is for our use.

“All of evolution” includes all the species that have existed from the beginning of life, 99.9% of which did not lead to us or to our contemporary species, and you have no idea why your God would have specially designed and culled them. And so you continue to focus solely on the present in order to ignore the incongruence of your theory, with your next (bolded) comment providing the laugh of the day:

DAVID: The survivors are God's intended survivors for our use. Our species is a tiny percentage of all living species which are the 0.1% final survivors. We need to only discuss the 0.1%. It is so simple.

You only want to discuss the 0.1% of today so that you can dodge the absurdity of your theory that he specially and messily and inefficiently designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 extinct species that had no connection with the 0.1% of today, which you say were his sole purpose. Same technique as with the problems of theodicy and your crystal ball: if your theories throw up problems you can’t handle, you want to (and do) ignore the problem.

DAVID: Tony and I view God's purpose as producing an Earth filled with species for our use. Everything on Earth today is here because of God's purpose.

Tony objected to your theory that we and our dominance were God’s sole purpose, and you agreed. Tony can speak for himself. You have spoken: you don’t want to discuss any other possible purpose for the creation of the 99.9% of species irrelevant to the one purpose you impose on your God.

DAVID: Stop complaining about the evolution God created. It is all for our use. We run Earth. The fact you don't think teleologically is the problem with your conclusions.
And:
DAVID: You can't look at purpose, it implies a God. All evolved is God's purpose.

I have no complaints whatsoever about evolution, and if God exists, I have no doubt that he would have designed evolution to run as he wanted it to run in order to serve whatever may have been his purpose. I object only to your absurd theory that he would have specially designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to the single purpose you impose on him. How many more times are you going to dodge the issue? I have offered various theistic explanations for the diversity of past species which you are unable to explain, but you reject them all because they entail different possible purposes and "humanizations" from your preconceptions, i.e. those you “wish to believe in” (see the entry on “Milky Way” under "More Miscellany").