Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Thursday, October 07, 2021, 09:13 (933 days ago) @ David Turell

Survival
dhw: […] did your God change pre-whale legs into flippers in order to improve their chances of survival, or not?

DAVID: of course. Your point? Survival happens but does not drive evolution. God does.

We are going round in circles. There is no contradiction. In your theory, God drives evolution (i.e. the appearance of new species) by making changes that improve chances of survival, and so it is absurd to claim that “survival has nothing to do with the appearance of new species”.

Trilobite eyes
DAVID: Still descended from the Cambrian Explosion.

dhw: So what was all that about “From nothing to these eyes with no intermediate steps”?

DAVID: Any eyes in the Ediacaran? Ediacaran to Cambrian, no intermediate.

You used the example of this newly discovered Devonian species and its special eyes to illustrate your point about no precursors. A totally inappropriate example, since clearly it was descended from earlier trilobite species.

dhw: 20,000 species, and you pick on one later variation to tell us there’s a gap which we cannot deny. And while you contemplate your response, do please tell us why this particular extinct species of trilobite was necessary for the design of humans and our food.

DAVID: You cannot deny the gap.

dhw: I’m not denying the gap in general. I’m simply pointing out that this trilobite was one very late variation out of 20,000 forms of trilobite.
And I asked why you thought this particular species was necessary for the design of humans and our food.

DAVID: The early ones arrived as totally new.

So this species is irrelevant, and we still don’t know why your God specially designed it.

DAVID: It [the gap]is still there, not gone with your theoretical suppositions of excuses.

dhw: Of course the gap is still there. But this is not a good example. Why do you use the word “excuse”? Your theory concerning the gap is no more proven than my own proposals.

DAVID: The gap exists. Your excuses are pure unproven theory.

Again, what “excuses”? Your theory is no more proven than any other theory.

DAVID: And trilobites ended up as evolved forms which we eat today. The whole bush is food to feed our huge population.

dhw: Your usual self-contradiction. How often must I quote you? “The current bush of food is NOW for humans NOW. There were smaller bushes in the PAST for PAST forms”, and “Extinct life has no role in current time.”

DAVID: All true obvious statements, but not in your topsy-turvy Alice looking-glass view. We are observing different times during 3.8 billion year's of evolution of life, all connected by the process of evolution.

Yes, we are observing different times, different species, and different foods. Yes, they all evolved (except for those which you think did not evolve – see your Cambrian theory), but no, we do not eat them all. Most of them had no connection with humans, and so the whole bush was not “food to feed our huge population”.