New Miscellany 1: evolution, eco,insects, atheism, future (General)

by dhw, Thursday, May 22, 2025, 11:35 (11 hours, 37 minutes ago) @ David Turell

The smelly hoatzin

I’ll leave out the non-factual basis of your illogical theory of evolution, since you have only responded to the following:

DAVID: […] Your contorted view of evolution is again displayed. All evolutionary processes cull less advanced forms.

dhw: […] There are no evolutionary processes comparable to that of life’s history, and I challenge you to name a single evolutionary process in which designers knowingly design and then destroy things which are irrelevant to their purpose.

DAVID: Everything appliance we use in life has undergone evolution, from vehicles, to TV to computers as examples. It is an equivalence.

So you think the inventors of every appliance deliberately designed and discarded 99 out of 100 functional appliances (all God’s culled species were living creatures) that had no connection with the vehicle, TV or computer they wished to design. More nonsense. There is no equivalence!

DAVID: Evolution responds to needs. Do you see 'needs'? I don't.

What are you referring to? New species arise when new conditions create new “needs”. These may be met by adaptation (the species survives), innovation (new species evolve from the survivors), or failure to adapt or innovate (the species becomes extinct). I wouldn’t call cars, TVs and computers responses to a “need”, so much as responses to our desire to improve our living conditions. How does that come to mean that their inventors design and “cull” 99 functioning inventions that have no connection with their cars, TVs and computers?

DAVID: Yes, the first points do not prove God as fact, but Adler used our brain to make a God proof.

You don’t need Adler, since you rightly argue that all life’s complexities can be viewed as evidence for a designer God. That is not the issue between us. Stop dodging.

DAVID: We have the Cambrian gap to exhibit de novo creation and we have an evolutionary process there after. We can recognize Cambrian descendants in today's organisms.

dhw: So why would a God who according to you can create species “de novo” have to create and then cull all the species that were irrelevant to his one and only purpose?

DAVID: There is no answer, just that it was God's chose of method.

Why do you always present your theory as fact even though it ridicules your God? He could have created a free-for-all (through cellular intelligence) but could also have intervened if he had had new ideas, and even designed our ancestors “de novo”, as you wish. That is more logical and less insulting than the nonsensical method YOU choose for the purpose YOU choose.

Eco systems and Animal minds: Insect tool use

DAVID: You can poo poo ecosystems importance all you wish, but the Earth is covered with an interlocking mechanism of them.

I have never “poo-pooed” ecosystems’ importance for the life forms that live in them. I only poo-poo your insistence that every ecosystem extinct and extant has been specially designed and 99.9% “culled” by your God to enable him to design us and our food. Please stop distorting the argument.

DAVID: As for the resin, it may be an acquired instinct but we should test, not guess.

Many activities would have become an acquired instinct after their initial design by intelligent insects. But having agreed that they are intelligent, you now want to test whether what looks like intelligence was in fact divinely designed 3.8 billion years ago, or was the subject of courses your God gave to these insects on the use of resin to kill their prey, because this was essential for his design of us and our food.

New oxygen research now Atheism

DAVID: That God exists is a 50/50 statement for you, so at least 50% of your thinking is atheist.

dhw: Of course, but in our discussions concerning your ridicule of your God by means of an absurdly illogical theory of evolution, and when I offer you alternative theistic interpretations of life’s history, it is my theistic 50% that is talking.

DAVID: Unfortunately, I feel you come across as 90% atheist.

Don’t you think a 90% atheist would challenge the existence of God rather than criticize your ridicule of your God and propose alternative, less insulting interpretations of a possible God’s nature, purpose and method? Your comment is as illogical as your theory of evolution.

End of evolution?

DAVID: The future is unknown to us.
And:
DAVID: Do you see any speciation? Evolution is over.

dhw: There is no speciation at the moment, but since the future is unknown to us, it is illogical to assume that there will be no further speciation in the future! (NB For all we know, future speciation may produce life forms vastly less intelligent than humans but better able to survive new conditions.)

DAVID: What 'new conditions' do you imagine? I see none.

Possible changes to the sun, massive objects smashing into the Earth, human activities (uncontrolled climate change, nuclear warfare etc.) rendering the planet uninhabitable by humans, but habitable by other organisms that can cope. Do you really believe that in a million years’ time the Earth and its inhabitants will be the same as we have now?