David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, October 02, 2020, 12:47 (1295 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Maybe they [harmful viruses and bacteria etc.] are necessary in a way we do not understand, just as we don't understand quantum mechanics, but it works. There is no other answer.

dhw: I have offered you an answer. At least it does away with the absurd proposal that a God who doesn’t wish us any harm has designed bacteria and viruses that can do us nothing but harm.

DAVID: I am still of the opinion God does not want to directly harm us.

And that is the problem of theodicy, because: “If you don’t think your in-tight-control God designed them, who did?"

DAVID: I think God did for some purpose we do not understand, as stated.

And I have offered you a purpose: instead of a “dull” Garden of Eden, he wanted a mixture of good and bad. But he did NOT directly design the goodies and the baddies. He designed a mechanism which enabled organisms to “steer their own evolutionary course” (see the Paul Davies post). Now setting aside your own fixed beliefs, please tell me why this is not feasible.

dhw: Why is it inconceivable to you that local conditions may have caused a group of apes to spend more time on the ground than up in the trees, and as a result of this they spent more and more time on two legs as this gave them certain advantages? And in due course bipedalism became the norm, with all the attendant changes to the anatomy? Ditto pre-whales, who spent more and more time in the water, as a result of which their legs turned into fins?

DAVID: As for apes have you watched them move on the ground? They are knuckle walkers. They have to have structural changes to be upright especially in the pelvis and the skull's foramen ovalis. It requires major speciation. Your preposterous suggestion is trying to walk upright caused the anatomy to make major changes requiring design. Same for teh whale series.

But you believe that bipedal humans evolved from knuckle-walking apes! And your theory is that your God operated on a particular group of apes before they descended, although initially he only did part of the necessary operation, because there are fossils which indicate that the early pre-humans were still partially living in trees. So he sort of operated a bit at a time. And you find this less preposterous than the idea that a group of apes descended for a reason (maybe to make a better living) and the new way of life took them off their knuckles and, a bit at a time, in different stages - corresponding to the different operations you think your God must have conducted for every new advance - changed the structure of the anatomy, including the brain, skull and pelvis. (And why all the different operations if he knew all along that he just wanted to produce H. sapiens?)