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

by dhw, Sunday, February 11, 2024, 08:47 (76 days ago) @ David Turell

99.9% and 0.1%

We agree that approx. 99.9% of the ancestors of current species are extinct. You keep agreeing that 99.9% of all the species that have ever lived were NOT ancestors of current species. I shan’t repeat all the quotes, as this one will suffice:

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.

Dinosaurs are a clear example. You wrote: “Dinosaurs are 100% dead. They might be the ancestors of birds, but that is disputed now.” If they were the ancestors of birds, then approx. 0.1% of dinosaurs evolved into birds and the rest were dead ends. If dinosaurs were NOT the ancestors of birds, they were 100% dead ends.

DAVID: There are no dead ends!! Everything living came from the 99.9% now dead.

No, everything living came from the 0.1% of extinct species that evolved into current species: in your own words, “from the 0.1% surviving”.

DAVID: Nothing existing today is irrelevant.
And:
DAVID: Everything here is relevant. Their ancestors make up 99.9% extinct in the descendent lines.
And:
DAVID: It is the extinction rate in each line contributed to the resultant 99.9% sum.

Yes, 99.9% of species in our ancestral/descendant lines are extinct, and yes, they contributed to the 99.9% of extinct species. But there were millions of lines that did not lead to us, and so if your God’s sole purpose was to design nothing but today’s species, the 99.9% of organisms that were NOT our ancestors were irrelevant to his purpose. You have agreed, and admitted that you don’t have a clue why your God would have designed and culled them, and only he can explain it.

Most of this post simply repeats your refusal to acknowledge all the lines that did NOT lead to us. I’ll skip to this one:

DAVID: Raup would not recognize your interpretations. I read Raup!!! The 99.8% are today's ancestors. Remember my triangle example. The point is the start of life; the base is the present life, and the area of the triangle is the 99.9%.

Your triangle was discredited. Life is a bush. All species go back to its roots, but the branches do not join up, as in a triangle; they spread out far and wide, and 99.9% died out, leaving just 0.1% surviving at the top. I have no doubt that Raup came up with the figure of 99.9% of species being extinct, but I’d be amazed if he said that current species were descended from 99.9% of all the creatures that had ever lived. You yourself said they weren’t – as quoted at the start of this post.

Purpose

DAVID: Yor sense of purpose in life is laughable. Every reaction is purposeful. Every step in evolution is purposeful.

dhw: I agree that every step is purposeful: from the viewpoint of every organism, the purpose is survival, though we humans have devised a vast range of additional purposes for ourselves. From your God’s point of view, I have offered you alternative purposes for every step – but as you have said elsewhere, you first choose a form of God you wish to believe in. The rest follows.

DAVID: Your meander about God is from baselessness.

Each of my alternatives is based fairly and squarely on the history of evolution as we know it, and none of them impose a purpose and method on your God that could be described as “messy”, “cumbersome” or “inefficient”. Please tell us why you have denigrated your God’s work in this manner.

DAVID: Allegorical means those words relate to God in a special way.

dhw: When you used the words “recognize him”, “worship him”, “have a relationship with him”, he “enjoys”, he is “interested”, did you think to yourself that they didn’t mean recognize, worship, relationship, enjoy, interested? YOU knew what YOU meant, and if you think the words mean something else, then there is no point in using them.

DAVID: Why do I have to repeat? Those words in our meaning might be altered in some way when applied to God. God does not tell us what those words mean to Him.

You told me why you thought your God might have wanted to design us. There is no point in using such words unless you mean what you and I know they mean! Do you think your God has his own dictionary which says “worship” means don’t show me how much you love and respect me?

DAVID: God obviously wished us here.

If God created millions of species that had no connection with us, then presumably he “wished” them here as well.

DAVID: A purposeful God has no needs for Himself to satisfy. I think God assumes we will worship Him. As for creating, I think God likes everything He does.

Only you keep using the word “need”. Why do you think enjoyment and interest can’t be a purpose? Why do you think your God would want us to worship him? Why do you think he would want to create something he will like? I‘d appreciate some answers.