Return to David's theory of evolution, purpose & theodicy (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, September 28, 2024, 19:43 (19 days ago) @ dhw

Contradictions

DAVID: You don't recognize your God thinks like a human in His suggestions for actions.

dhw: You’ve just agreed that he can think like a human without being a human! What are you arguing about?

DAVID: The proposals your God makes are typically human and not God-like as I view God.

dhw: Firstly, the above proposals were all yours, not mine. I find them perfectly feasible, but you have rejected them on the grounds that your God is selfless. Secondly, whether you agree or disagree with your own proposals or with others that I might make (e.g. the desire to learn new things, or to create a fascinating free-for-all) still doesn’t mean that these human-like attributes turn God into a human being. They simply confirm that your starting point is what you want your God to be, despite all the contradictions.

I agree. Your God may make humanized suggestions but he is some sort of God.

99.9% v 0.1%

DAVID: Phenotypically correct, but you are again ignoring the biochemistry that is continuous.

dhw: You have agreed that current species are descended from the 0.1% of survivors, and you insist that all our ancestor species were created “de novo” during the slice of evolution we call the Cambrian. Stop dodging.

The de novo is the phenotypical appearance of Cambrian forms from preceding forms totally different. Only biochemistry and DNA is continuous. Please accept this!

DAVID: But we are descended from extinct forms. You keep slicing up evolution into animal forms when the overall statistics are correct. Yes, we are in the survivor group, and we have extinct ancestors in the 99.9% group. Right?

We have already dealt with this! Yes, our extinct ancestors are part of the 99.9% that are now extinct, but they in turn were part of the 0.1% that survived past extinctions! You keep ignoring the fact that Raup’s figures) are based on all those “slices” of evolution that culminated in extinctions. Back in April you wrote: “His study was to explain why extinctions happened as a necessary part of evolution. He concluded ‘bad luck’. Well-adapted species suddenly were unprepared for new circumstances. The losses cumulatively were 99.9% with 0.1% as survivors.” Plural extinctions = slices, cumulatively = an average, and do please explain to me how species that cannot survive under new circumstances are nevertheless capable of creating new species. Only the survivors can do that, which is why you agreed that we are descended from the 0.1% of survivors!

Everything living came from extinct forms. Extinct species left living species throughout evolution, your now bolded to the contrary. If the extinct left no descendants no one would be here.

Theodicy

DAVID: […] Anything evil is a side effect.

DAVID: The life we live is the only life that can work. Earthquakes are part of life-giving plate tectonics. Most bugs are important for us as in microbiomes I've previously listed. Bugs moving into bad places are a problem, but life's forms have freedom of action, like you do.

dhw: If your God gave life forms freedom of action like ours, you have what I call a free-for-all. (See “disordered patterns” on the “more miscellany” thread.)

In this dog-eat-dog reality we now have a degree of free-for-all.