Return to David's theory of evolution, theodicy and purposes (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, November 11, 2024, 08:24 (10 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You still don't follow my thoughts. You have used reason and purpose synonymously correctly. I am asking for an underlying conceptual reason that creates God's overt action to produce a purpose. Here reason and purpose differ. (dhw’s bold)
And:
DAVID: Above I've explained we conceptualize a reason for action (purpose) and then act on it. For example, God thought I would like organisms that can recognize me and communicate with me. [dhw: I presume “I” refers to God himself, and not to David Turell!]. He then purposely evolves humans. A two step process, not your one-step.

dhw: Thank you for confirming everything I have been telling you, including two of your own reasons/purposes (recognition and a relationship/communication, which you nullify with your insistence that God is selfless.) The purpose/reason precedes and gives rise to the action. There is no difference between “purpose” and “reason”. So what was all this nonsense about “Why must He have a reason?”, “action to produce a purpose”, and “reason” not being synonymous with “purpose” in this context? And what is this nonsense about “one step”? First you have a purpose or reason, and then you have the action that is meant to fulfil or achieve (not “produce”) the purpose. All agreed and all perfectly straightforward use of language. That should be the end of this silly game.

DAVID: Still your problem of gluing reason and purpose as one. There are two brain steps in any action. Conceive of the reason for an action and then achieve it purposely.

You have ignored absolutely everything I have written. This comment merely confirms that reason and purpose are one: First comes the reason or purpose for an action (your God wants to be recognized), and second comes the action meant to achieve the purpose (he creates humans). “Purposely” simply means “deliberately”. Of course he deliberately tries to achieve his purpose!

DAVID: We still look for reasons God produced humans.

And I have listed your own proposals concerning his possible reasons/purposes. What are you arguing about? This discussion is totally pointless, except that it enables you to draw attention away from the subjects that really matter: namely, your irrational theories of evolution (God’s “inefficiency”), God’s nature and wishes (enjoys creation, wants to be worshipped, but is selfless), and theodicy (does more good than evil and is therefore all-good). You have used a similar dodge in the next section.

99.9% v 0.1%

DAVID: I am only following Raup's presentation.

dhw: Once more: please quote the passage in which Raup tells us that the 99.9% of extinct organisms were the mummies and daddies of the 0.1% survivors.

DAVID: Raup opens his book by telling us in evolution 99.9% extinct left the 0.1% alive today. Nothing about your mummies and daddies. Your approach is to slice evolution into yesterday and today as if they were not continuous.

dhw: It’s YOU who told us (October 12 2024): “The 0.1% are the progeny of the 99.9%.” Of course if 99.9% became extinct and only 0.1% survived, the extinct “left” and the survivors remained. And whenever a species goes extinct you have discontinuity, and whenever a species survives you have continuity. Do you or do you not now agree with yourself that we and our food are descended from the 0.1% of survivors, and not from the 99.9% that did not survive?

DAVID: The bold is correct.

Do you now accept that the 0.1% were not the progeny of the 99.9%?

DAVID: Evolution is not discontinuous but a continuous process of producing new species. The discontinuity is part of the continuing process.

You’re off on your silly language games again. If species become extinct, leaving no descendants, then that line of evolution is obviously discontinuous. Continuity is provided by the survivors. You blatantly contradict yourself with your belief that your God designed all our ancestor species “de novo”, i.e. without precursors, during the Cambrian. That is the very opposite of continuity. And please don’t go back to telling us that continuity refers to the fact that all life is biochemical. As you say, evolution is about “producing new species”, not about using the same materials. Now let’s back to the subject:

1) Do you now agree with yourself that we are descended, not from 99.9% of species that ever lived but from the 0.1% survivors?

2) Since you accept Raup’s statistics (I don’t really like such precision), do you now agree that the 0.1% of survivors could not have been the progeny of the 99.9% that did not survive?