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

by dhw, Sunday, September 29, 2024, 08:52 (19 days ago) @ David Turell

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 [now repeated below] 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.

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

Every God envisaged by every believer is “some sort of God”! You proposed that he might have created life and us because he enjoyed creation, was interested in his creations, and might want us to recognize and worship him, but then you disagreed with yourself because you proposed that he is selfless. You dismiss my alternative theistic theories of evolution on the grounds they “humanize” God, but you agree that having human attributes does not make God a human being. So please stop contradicting yourself, and please stop dismissing alternative theories to your own on the grounds that they “humanize” God.

99.9% v 0.1%

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.

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

I accept it. I do not accept that the continuous use of biochemistry means that every single life form that ever existed was our ancestor. You don’t accept it either. And when you claim that our ancestors were created “de novo” during the Cambrian, I see no reason why you should then tell us that every life form created before the Cambrian was our ancestor.

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?
And:
DAVID: Everything living came from extinct forms. Extinct species left living species throughout evolution […]. If the extinct left no descendants no one would be here.

I gave you a complete answer to this, which you have totally ignored. I’ll break it down for you: 1) Raup slices evolution up into extinctions, 2) On average, each extinction results in 99.9% loss and 0.1% survival. 3) Once a species is extinct, it will no longer produce any descendants. 4) Only the 0.1% of survivors will produce descendants. 5) The survivors and their descendants will continue to produce new species until the next extinction, when once again 6) 99.9% will become extinct, and 0.1% will survive and produce new species during the next slice. 7) This process continues right through to the present, in which we and our contemporary species are descendants of the 0.1% that survived the last extinction. It is believed that we ourselves are descended from the tiny proportion of mammals that survived Chixculub, but the only direct descendants are the avians, which constituted 0.57% of dinosaurs. Will you now please at last explain to us why you were insane when you agreed that we and our food are NOT descended from 99.9% of all the creatures that ever lived, but from the 0.1% that survived.

Theodicy

DAVID: The life we live is the only life that can work.

(See under "Biochemical controls" on the "more miscellany" thread re "availability".)

DAVID: 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 also “disordered patterns” on the “more miscellany” thread.)

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

Thank you. If your God wanted a “degree of free-for-all”, it is not unreasonable to argue that he might even have wanted a total free-for-all.