Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, February 04, 2024, 11:53 (291 days ago) @ David Turell

99.9% versus 0.1%

You have ignored all of yesterday’s post, and so I’ll repeat it as preparation for my reply to your single statement. Firstly, your agreement with the following:

dhw: 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.

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.

In your reply (far below), you have ignored all of this.

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

dhw: 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.

It is a common device of yours to reproduce what is generally agreed, and to ignore those of your theories that make no sense.

God’s culling

DAVID: God did not destroy species.

Contradicted by:

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.

Blatant contradiction ignored.

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.
And:
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: Bad luck means to you that it was all planned. Just as “God did not destroy species” but he destroyed many species.

Ignored. There is no falsehood – only your own contradictions.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.

dhw: 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” [...], whereas at least two of my alternatives hail his work as wonderfully successful with no wasteful loss at all.

Also ignored. Now to your reply: You have bypassed all these contradictions and gone back to the one part of your theory which we agree on, as follows:

DAVID: A repeat: The 0.1% surviving lost 99.9% of their ancestors to reach here.

Correct. That does not mean 99.9% of all the species that ever lived were the ancestors of today's species. 99.9% of them were dead ends, e.g. the dinosaurs.

DAVID: Humans are one species of over eight million on Earth. Like humans, each one had a line of ancestors.

Correct.

DAVID: Viewing life as a bush, all species are at the end of twigs at the top of the bush.

I presume you mean all current species are at the top of the bush. If so, correct.

DAVID: The body of the bush is the 99.9% lost.

If you mean all the branches and twigs that ended below the top, correct.

DAVID: Your now-bolded statement is wrong. The 99.9% led here to over eight million.

Completely wrong, as you agreed in all the quotes at the start of this post. The 99.9% did NOT lead here, e.g. the dinosaurs. If birds were the only surviving species, then 99.9% of dinosaurs were branches that did NOT lead here. Only 0.1% have reached the top of the bush. The “body” is the 99.9% that didn’t! You have agreed multiple times: current species are descended from the 0.1% of the branches that continued to evolve, i.e. that survived; the 99.9% stopped evolving and became dead ends. Listen to yourself again:
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.

Correct. So please stop dodging.