New Miscellany 1: evol theories and future; humanization (General)

by dhw, Sunday, June 01, 2025, 11:27 (3 days ago) @ David Turell

Evolution and “culling”

DAVID: God did not tell me why He chose to evolve us when direct creation is simpler.

dhw: Correction: God did not tell you THAT he chose to evolve us by designing and culling 99.9 irrelevant species out of 100. And you would have a hard job telling him how inefficient he is. But you simply can’t imagine that your omniscient, omnipotent God might not be such a blunderer, and might for instance have chosen to allow his invention to do its own designing – as a kind of parallel to the free will which you do believe he granted to humans. An almighty free-for-all, though he could intervene if he wanted to. So much more interesting than a puppet show in which he pulls all the strings. And that’s just one alternative.

DAVID: Your alternative Gods are all very human.

I pointed out several of your own possible “humanizations” (enjoyment, interest, desire for recognition, worship, love), and explained why it didn’t matter two hoots whether your God had a different dictionary from ours.

DAVID: we certainly might reflect God's aspects. My God knows exactly what He is doing with all- out purpose.

Thank you for agreeing with what you agreed many moons ago, that your God may have thought patterns and emotions like our own. So you have no reason to reject my alternative theories on the grounds that they make God “very human”. Your God would certainly know that he is creating and having to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that have no connection with his one and only purpose (us and our food), which is why you ridicule his inefficiency. My alternatives have him creating for the purpose of his own enjoyment and interest (two of the “aspects” you have accepted), experimenting in order to enjoy the excitement of new ideas, or possibly even to find a formula for a creature resembling himself in certain ways. In all these theories, he knows what he is doing with all-out purpose.

Transferred from Part 2:

DAVID: Intelligently designing evolution is not 'messing things up', but gradually replacing older forms with new better designs. 99.9% loss is not surprising.

dhw: But 99.9% of the older forms were not replaced with new better designs. They came to a dead end. As you keep agreeing and then forgetting, we and our food are descended from the 0.1% of survivors, not the 99.9% that did not survive. We’re not talking about surprises. We know the approximate extinction rate. And the question is how we explain it. Your explanation is that your omnipotent, omniscient God kept messing up his own plan to create us plus food. That is why you keep telling us he is inefficient!

DAVID: I agree it is a poor method of creation, but successive species are improvements over preceding forms despite your confused view of evolution. Evolution results in newer, better forms doesn't it? Yes or no.

It certainly results in new forms, yes, and homo sapiens represents a massive leap forward when it comes to levels of consciousness and intelligence. Prior to humans, however, I don’t know what are your criteria for “better”. In what way are elephants “better” than dinosaurs, or aquatic whales “better” than their land-based ancestors? When it comes to survival – which is the prime goal of all species – one could argue that bacteria are “better” than the 99.9% of species that came to a dead end. Evolution has clearly produced more complex forms, yes – and if your God is responsible, then your argument clearly favours the theory of experimentation coupled with new ideas as he goes along. It is no defence of your theory that he kept on blundering with “improvements” that had no connection with us and our food.

End of evolution?

DAVID: Evolution is over. […] What ‘new conditions’ do you imagine. I see none.bbb
But later:
DAVID: This current episode of evolution is over. A new episode after a major change is possible.

dhw: If it is possible that there will be new episodes of evolution, then it is clearly absurd to say that evolution is over. Thank you. That should be the end of this discussion.

DAVID: Please reread my response: "this episode is over". Any new evolution may be in a different form of it.

dhw: You kept repeating that “evolution is over”. Suddenly you changed to “this episode”. Of course if there is more evolution to come, there will be different forms of life. That’s what has always happened. You have absolutely no way of knowing what might happen to this planet during the next million/billion/three billion years, and since you agree that new “episodes” are possible, it is absurd to say that “evolution is over”. Why are you prolonging this discussion?

DAVID: Our sun has a standard life expectancy. Life will certainly end with its end.

Indeed, but during the 5 billion or so years before that happens, there could be many new “episodes” of evolution, and therefore it is absurd to announce that “evolution is over”.