Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, January 30, 2024, 17:35 (296 days ago) @ dhw

99.9% versus 0.1%

dhw: You have agreed that the 99.9% of extinct species were NOT the ancestors of the current 0.1% of survivors.

DAVID: I have not agreed with the bold. 99.9% ARE the ancestors of the 0.1% surviving. Except for the Cambrians and the insectivores noted by Bechly, everything alive today can trace its origin back twig by twig through 99.9% extinct, per Raup.

Jan 2nd: dhw: Only the 0.1% led to current forms.
DAVID: We agree. And Jan 9th: I am not disagreeing.

Jan. 11th: dhw: Do you believe that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of all creatures that ever lived?

DAVID: No. From the 0.1% surviving.

Jan 10th […] DAVID: Dinosaurs are 100% dead. They might be the ancestors of birds, but that is disputed now.

dhw: Which means it’s possible that not even 0.1% of dinosaurs were the ancestors of current species!

dhw: Please explain how the above quotes mean that you do not agree that only 0.1% led to current forms.

0.1% are the current living forms. 99.9% are their dead ancestors.

DAVID: Species were not culled out.

dhw: Statements by you:

“The 0.1%, of which we are a part, are the survivors of the culling process.”

“Evolution had to cull 99.9% to reach today’s surviving 0.1%." (dhw: According to you, your God controlled evolution – the process of evolution did not control God. Ergo God had to cull…)

“What lives today are the survivors of the culling process of evolution.”

And yesterday (bolded above): “That 99.9% went extinct is a result of the culling.”

dhw: How do those statements come to mean that species were not culled out? [...]

DAVID: You are confused. I am not. My quotes are consistent with my point of view.

dhw: Please explain how the above statements mean that species were not culled out.

All species today can be traced back twig by twig to ancestor forms. The analysis is simply that 99.9% of forms died out to produce today's species, the result of extinctions. The purpose of evolution was to produce today's survivors, the desired species. On the average 99.9% went extinct in the process of producing today's 0.1%, in each twig line as above.

DAVID: Read what I've entered today. It should unconfuse you.

dhw: I read everything you write, and this discussion is not about what Raup and Bechly did or didn’t say. I have compared your conclusions of today with your conclusions earlier this month, and they are a direct contradiction of one another. So let’s see if we can get some straight answers:

You are totally misinterpreting what I write. One more try: we are here from a line of 99.9% dead ancestors. Each other species has the same history. What is here today was planned by God.

dhw: Do you believe that 99.9% of dinosaurs were the ancestors of species living today?

Yes, birds from some branch of dinosaurs, which percentage I don't know.

dhw: Do you believe that your all-powerful God designed every species, but had no control over the culling of 99.9% of them?

Raup considered extinctions bad luck, which means to me God planned for their extinctions by creating new challenges they could not handle, thus culling. I have found: "could account for the sudden transformation from a 300-pound theropod to the sparrow-size prehistoric bird Iberomesornis."

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dinosaurs-shrank-and-became-birds/

What percentage of dead dinosaurs that is I do not know.