Return to David's theory of evolution PART 1 (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, June 19, 2022, 09:27 (684 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You constantly ignore that evolution blossoms into the huge bush of life, which then has multiple ecosystems to provide food for all.

dhw:That is precisely what YOU ignore. If your God only wanted to create humans plus our food, why did he individually design countless extinct life forms and ecosystems that had no connection with us? Would we have starved if he hadn’t designed the brontosaurus?

DAVID: The bold is your distorted version of my view of God's choices of purpose. Both Adler and I view humans as proof of God. So you fully disagree with one of the premier philosphers of the 20th century.

I do not “fully” disagree with Adler. I am an agnostic, and do you really believe there were no agnostic or atheist philosophers in the 20th century? I don’t how many more times you want me to repeat that I accept the logic of the design argument: i.e. the complexities of all life, including humans, are such that I cannot believe in chance. The disagreement, as you know perfectly well, is over your theories, (a) that your God’s only goal from the very beginning was humans plus food, (b) that he designed every individual life form, econiche, lifestyle, natural wonder etc., and (c) all the extinct ones were an “absolute requirement” for the design of us and our food.

DAVID: I find your analyis totally illogical and always asked you if you want God to do direct creation for which history offers no evidence. Your tiny human logic is no match for God's choices.

Re direct creation, according to you, your God individually designed every species etc. – although there is much confusion here, because you also believe in common descent. This would mean he redesigned existing species into new ones, but apparently in the Cambrian he did no such thing: he created new species without precursors. Re humans, there is indeed clear evidence that we evolved in stages, but since you believe your God could create new species without precursors, and humans (plus food) were the only species he wanted to design from the very beginning, I ask why you think he chose to design us in stages. You have no idea. It “makes sense only to God.” How does your cluelessness make my analysis illogical?

dhw: […] I find the argument for design (in this case, that of the intelligent cell) perfectly logical, and am therefore open to the possibility of there being a designer. However, while I find it difficult to believe that chance (the other option, given an eternity and infinity of possible combinations) could create such complexity, I find it equally difficult to believe that there is an eternal, immaterial mind that had no source, and has simply been “there” forever, somehow creating vast quantities of matter out of its own immateriality, and exercising its powers of psychokinesis to manipulate the materials into galaxies and solar systems, bacteria and dinosaurs, humans and the duckbilled platypus.[/i]

DAVID: How likely is chance vs an active mind? The picket fence as usual.

dhw: Since both options seem equally irrational, it requires faith to believe in either.

DAVID: The necessity for a designing mind is a very rational thought.

That is what I said in the very first sentence above (now bolded). Why have you ignored the last sentence, which describes the irrational side of your faith?

Ediacaran-Cambrian transition: 410,000 years

dhw: You wrote: “We do not know how species appear or the theoretical times involved”, and you have totally ignored the argument that it is generations, not time that produce new species […]

DAVID: […]. Every species gap we have in fossils is millions of years except the Cambrian!!! Use the whale series as one example. There are many others. No examples of tiny genertional changes in fossils is ever found. All new species appear de novo. (Gould)

dhw: I’m not denying that the Cambrian explosion happened! No matter what theory you embrace, quite clearly there was a new and major development that accelerated speciation (maybe an increase in oxygen). And so in contrast to the long periods of stasis, with no innovations, the sudden change in conditions created a sudden burst of innovations. (This is what Gould called “punctuated equilibrium": periods of stasis punctuated by bursts of innovation.) And still you ignore the argument that it is generations, not time, that produce new species.

DAVID: Neat theory with NO fossil support.

dhw: You continue to ignore all the arguments that explain why a complete fossil record is highly unlikely, and you have not explained why you think it is time and not generations that produce species.

DAVID: Those arguments are no more than logical wishful guesses. I've given you an opinion from an archeologist you refuse to accept, that indicates after 170 years of studying the Camrbian Gap nothing important will be found to remove the gap.

This may well be true, and if it is, I’ve offered you a list of reasons why there may be no more fossils, but you dismiss them all because the list was written in 2019!

Continued in Part Two