More miscellany (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, July 25, 2024, 07:59 (45 days ago) @ David Turell

Back to David’s theory of evolution

DAVID: […] Evolutionary processes as an own subject is fully understood by most folks.
dhw: And so you believe that your unique, omnipotent, omniscient, perfect God is just like all the human creators who followed him, and he and they produce imperfect, inefficient designs by trial and error, although he certainly isn’t human in any sense. Meanwhile, your schizophrenic self accuses me of humanizing your God!

DAVID: I never said we produce imperfect products by evolutionary designs!

You have said your God’s designs are imperfect and inefficient, and “culling” is part of any evolution, citing human inventions as your example. “Much is trial and error per Addison’s quotes” and you say you have “every right to use human evolutionary efforts as a comparison.” You have done so in order to justify what you call your God’s imperfect and inefficient method (“trial and error” = designing and culling the 99.9% of irrelevant species). You could hardly find a more obvious example of “humanization”.

Biochemical controls (99.9% versus 0.1%).

Earlier:
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.

Now:

DAVID: The eliminated are the ancestors of the living, yes or no.

dhw: No, as you agreed above in bold.

DAVID: Yours is the contradiction. The 0.1% have to descend from the 99.9%. The process of Evolution must add up to 100% to follow Raup's analysis!

From what you have told us, Raup merely states that 99.9% of species have gone extinct, and the survival of the 0.1% has been a matter of luck. 99.9 + 0.1 = 100%. The 0.1% would represent those lines of organisms which survived and were the ancestors of the organisms that now exist. We can't really know know the exact figure – it’s simply the one we’ve agreed to use. The process of evolution is the development of the survivors from which we are the descendants, as you agreed above: we plus our food are descended “from the 0.1% surviving”. The example we fixed on was that of the dinosaurs. Regardless of the precise figures, 696 were NOT our ancestors. Only 4 led to modern descendants. Why do you continue to contradict your own agreement?

Symbiosis and theodicy

dhw: Why would an all-good, omnipotent, omniscient God create problems of evil? If he was omniscient, clearly he knew how to solve them, and so your answer was that he wanted to challenge us. Why do you think he would want to challenge us?

DAVID: To test the brains He gave us?

dhw: A test is a challenge. Why do you think he wanted to test our brains?

DAVID: So we would learn to use them. Brains don't come with instructions.

Thank you for yet again confirming that your God did not provide instructions but only the ABILITY to complexify as the brain produced its own ideas. (See the “brain” thread.) Why would your God want us to learn to use our brains? Once upon a time, you suggested he might have wanted us to recognize his works and worship him. Remember? And you've agreed that he would not have enjoyed watching us if he already knew what was coming (= enjoyment as a purpose). Any other possibilities?

killfish

QUOTE: "It has long been observed that organisms modify their traits, including reproductive patterns, in response to changes in their environment. This type of evolutionary plasticity has been observed in many types of animals in different habitats and with varying predators.”

DAVID[…] More than likely these instincts are designed. How would early forms have survived without this adaptation? How quickly does a species learn a lesson to survive? Very quickly is my guess.

dhw: Yes of course they must be able to process the information and work out how to handle it.[..] Unthinking, automatic instinct requires no thought-processing or decision-making. Why would the absence of such abilities be more likely to come up with solutions? Or are you back with your 3.8 billion-year-old book of instructions for every solution to every problem, or your God popping in to teach organisms the solution every time they have a problem?

DAVID: Yes, they may follow God's instructions.

Passed down through 3.8 billion years, but “instinctively” they pick the right one? Or God keeps popping in.

Multicellularity

QUOTES: By working together as a collective, the algae could preserve their mobility.

Intriguingly, when the scientists took these little clusters from the high-viscosity gel and put them back at low viscosity, the cells stuck together. They remained this way, in fact, for as long as the scientists continued to watch them, about 100 more generations. Clearly, whatever changes they underwent to survive at high viscosity were hard to reverse, Simpson said — perhaps a move toward evolution rather than a short-term shift.

A perfect example of how evolution may have worked in general: by combining, cells form new communities which perform different tasks and, having been successful, they remain fixed. The more communities that bind together, the greater the range of activities and capabilities and novelties – hence the origin of species, as proposed by Shapiro.