Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, February 03, 2024, 08:44 (84 days ago) @ David Turell

99.9% versus 0.1%

I’ll try to edit out some of the repetitions. There are two sets of statistics that David has offered us: 1) 99.9% of the ancestors of each species are now extinct. This I can well believe. 2) Current species, including humans, are directly descended from 99.9% of all the species that have ever lived. This I hotly dispute, and have produced quotes from David which explicitly contradict this theory. Relevant quotes:

dhw: only the 0.1% led to current forms.
DAVID: We agree. (And later: “I am not disagreeing.”)

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.

DAVID: Dinosaurs are 100% dead.They might be the ancestors of birds but that is disputed now.
dhw: you have confirmed the obvious fact that at the very least, the vast majority of dinosaurs were NOT the ancestors of current species.
DAVID: Agreed. They are part of the 99.9% culled.

Having repeatedly agreed that 99.9% of past species were NOT ancestors of current species, you now attempt to conflate THREE theories:

DAVID: The 99.9% are the direct ancestors of the 0.1% surviving!!!

See all the quotes above. Only 0.1% of past species are the ancestors of current species (who are the survivors). Clearest of your examples: the dinosaurs. Only one branch led to survivors (birds), and even that is in dispute. The remaining 99.9% (or whatever the figure might be) led nowhere.

DAVID: They represent all the lines of forms that previously existed to get here. Each twig and branch go back to the beginning.

99.9% of them were lines that eventually led nowhere. Only 0.1% of lines “got here”. But yes, third theory: all forms of life (twigs and branches) go back to the roots of the bush. But 99.9% of them were dead ends that did not go forward to us and our contemporaries.

God’s culling

DAVID: God did not destroy species, but instead purposely created the species humans would need. What was removed were transient forms being perfected into today's excellent results.

This statement was contradicted by the following:

DAVID: Raup considered extinctions bad luck, which means to me God planned for their extinctions by creating new challenges they could not handle, thus culling.

dhw: He didn’t destroy them, but he planned to cull them by creating challenges he knew they couldn’t handle. Sounds pretty destructive to me.

DAVID: Yes, destroyed many.

So God did not destroy species, but he destroyed many.

dhw: Summary: 99.9% of the ancestors of current species are extinct. Only 0.1% of all extinct species were the ancestors of current species. You believe current species, with humans in charge, were your God’s one and only goal, and you have no idea why he would have specially created and culled the 99.9% of extinct species that had no connection with his one and only goal.

DAVID: Stop your repetition of a falsehood. All are connected to humans, since we run the Earth and used all of it. All living forms now are here because God put them here for us.

dhw: What falsehood? […]

DAVID: Your total confusion is about the 99.9% statistic from Raup. Raup simply was telling us that to achieve today's living, 99.9% went extinct along the way. He did not use the word species."

So the rest of the discussion concerns your interpretation of Raup’s statistic. Back we go to your powers of interpretation:

DAVID: Raup considered extinctions bad luck, which means to me God planned for their extinctions by creating new challenges they could not handle, thus culling.

Bad luck means to you that it was all planned. Just as “God did not destroy species” means “God destroyed many species". And you think I’m confused?

DAVID: The intent was only to produce all that are here. Losing forms was an intended part of the process. All culled were for good reason, to produce the current result. Not your turn-about tortured ridiculous interpretation of wasteful loss.

This is just another way of saying that your God’s only purpose was to produce us and our contemporary species (our food), and so he deliberately designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 species that did not lead to us and our food. The “good reason” is what I keep asking you for, but you admit you can’t think of one. And finally, it is you who ridicule your version of God’s method as “messy”, “cumbersome” and “inefficient” (presumably because it is so wasteful), whereas at least two of my alternatives hail his work as wonderfully successful with no wasteful loss at all.