More miscellany (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, July 20, 2024, 19:51 (89 days ago) @ dhw

Back to David’s theory of evolution

DAVID: You misunderstand. On Earth we evolve many items. That is my reference.

dhw: I’ve understood. And I’ve asked you how many earthly items have been invented by omnipotent inventors etc., as bolded! If you can’t tell me, that is because your reference is totally inappropriate! We only know of one evolution which you assume has been invented by an omnipotent, omniscient, yet messy and inefficient God.

Inventions evolve: chucks of ice to hydrofluorocarbon refrigerators. Model T to today's luxurious sedans, early tiny black and white TV screens. Much is trial and error per Addison's quotes. I have every right to use human evolutionary efforts as a comparison!!!

Genome complexity

DAVID: Don't confuse two thoughts! With our free will I believe God does not know what we will do. [...]

dhw: I’ll rephrase my objection. Your God would not have enjoyed our human development if he knew all of it in advance. So don’t you think an unpredictable evolution might possibly have been more enjoyable for him than knowing all the new species, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc. in advance?

You scurry back to your humanized fellow. How do you know God requires entertainment?

How we got water

dhw: I think most of us would accept that our planet and life are exceptional. How does that explain the sterility of the rest of the universe?

DAVID: The quote says it is all God's doing. Accept it as God's unexplainable work. I do.

dhw: I know that you are happy to accept whatever you think is God’s work, even though it makes no sense to you. You start with the God you wish for.

Yes, a good start. Humans cannot be expected to fully explain God's works.

Natural selection
QUOTE: "[…] Sir Charles Lyell had warned Darwin (in company later with Alfred Russel

DAVID: 'Natural preservation' is exactly on point. Natural selection is totally a nebulous, attractive ploy creating nothing.

dhw: Natural preservation doesn’t create anything either. Both terms boil down to exactly the same meaning: Nature determines which life forms will survive. Silly word game.

Exactly. Both are useless.

Biochemical controls (99.9% versus 0.1%)

DAVID: The 0.1% surviving came from the 99.9% culled.

dhw: So the 0.1% of survivors came from the 696 species of dinosaurs that had no descendants. And there was me thinking that the only descendants were from the four species of dinosaurs that had descendants. Apparently in your topsy-turvy world, our ancestors are species that had no descendants.

DAVID: The 99.9% are the ancestors of the living 0.1%!!!

dhw: So 696 dinosaurs which had no descendants were the ancestors of current species. Only the four species which evolved into current species were not the ancestors of current species. Astonishing!

Snatching 696 dinos out of all evolution to complain about Raup's overall statistic's is nonsense.

The role of viral DNA (Theodicy)

DAVID: If God is viewed as a designer, He introduced viruses as helpful design components for DNA evolution. dhw will complain about the trouble some of them cause. The answer is God's good works far outweigh the bad side effects.

dhw: Theodicy does not question your God’s good works – it asks why an all-good God would knowingly invent or allow evil, such as a flu virus that killed 50 million people. Harping on the good does not explain or justify the bad, given the conventional view of God as all-good, omnipotent and omniscient.

Understood. A death rate of .0166% is important, but 98.44% survived.