More miscellany (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, July 21, 2024, 20:04 (123 days ago) @ dhw

Back to David’s theory of evolution

DAVID: Inventions evolve: chuncks 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!!!

dhw: “Trial and error” by a God who is supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient? At the very best, this concept would fit in with experimentation, but you keep dismissing that as “humanization”. Now you are all for “humanization” – your God provides us with a mirror image of human fallibility.

Stop stretching. Just examples of evolution you asked for.

Genome complexity

dhw: […] 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?

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

dhw: Nobody even “knows” if God exists! However, the above follows on directly from your belief that your God enjoys creating, and it chimes in with your statement that your God “would not have enjoyed watching our development if he knew it all in advance”. It is not a matter of “requires entertainment”, as if somehow he’s needy. What is wrong with doing something because you enjoy it?

Biochemical controls (99.9% versus 0.1%).

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!

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

dhw: There is no complaint about Raup’s statistics! The complaint is your non-sensical claim that we are descended from 99.9 species which have no descendants. Why do you keep forgetting your agreement?
dhw: Do you believe that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of all the creatures that ever lived?

DAVID: No. From the 0.1% surviving.

dhw:But now you believe that we are descended from organisms that had no descendants!

The 0.1% descended from the 99.9%!!!

Symbiosis

DAVID: [...]The exactly required bacteria to fill the need must arrive. How does that exact solution happen? Not by chance!! A designer is required to bring the plant and bacteria to be together. From a theodicy viewpoint this is a good bacterial infection!!

dhw: Nobody would question the good that is done by bacteria. The problem is the bad, which your all-powerful, all-knowing God knew would happen but lacked the power and knowledge to prevent, or which he actually wanted.

Knowing there would be problems, He gave us the brain power to solve them.