More Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Sunday, April 14, 2024, 13:52 (15 days ago) @ David Turell

Origin of humans

dhw: […] you have no evidence to support your often contradictory faith that the God you wish for is the real God.

DAVID: No one knows the 'real' God. But I accept an all-knowing purposeful God who evolved us and provided the resources of the Earth for our use.

For all-knowing, see the evolution thread. If God exists, I agree that he must have had a purpose, and that evolution produced us and all the other species and resources throughout our planet’s history. I do not accept your theory that 3.8 billion years of life’s ever changing history was “for our use”, since 99.9% of that history had no connection with us. Stop dodging.

Evolution and purpose: teleonomy.

DAVID: There is no rule that a writer cannot use a book as a discussion point from which he presents his view. A reviewer need not be neutral.

No review will be neutral, as judgements are always subjective. There are no “rules”, but in my opinion a book which presents scientific evidence that organisms themselves shape the course of evolution should not be criticized for not delving into theology. If you explained the nature of and possible cure for your patient’s illness, would you expect the patient to disagree because you didn’t discuss the extent to which God was responsible for it? I think the context should determine the approach.

Giant viruses

DAVID: If you don't like my reasoning, try and understand it from the viewpoint of a purposeful designer.

dhw: That is exactly what I have done, and if I were a designer with a single purpose, I would not deliberately design and then get rid of 99.9 out of 100 items that had nothing to do with my one and only purpose.

DAVID: Same leap back to the same muddled distortion of the history of evolution which actually required that degree of extinctions.

I didn’t know history had requirements. How many evolutions have you experienced? I thought you thought it was your God who decided he must design and extinguish the 99.9% of species irrelevant to his purpose, though you can’t find any reason for his doing so.

dhw: […] please tell us […] what you think is the necessary role of the influenza virus.

DAVID: Just like Covid. God-given brains are challenged and protect us.

dhw: Millions die or are impaired for life, and that is necessary because God gave us brains to protect ourselves with. I find your logic incomprehensible.

DAVID: Millions died or are impaired. Where did you find such statistics to extrapolate?

dhw: One website gives the number of known Covid deaths as 7,010,631. The flu epidemic that hit the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people.

No response.

dhw: But you think such suffering is justified because your God wants to give us a challenge. Please tell us why you think he wants to challenge us.

DAVID: If you wish everyone sat peacefully around doing nothing just eating and sleeping, would you want a life like that? I'll take the challenges!

I have no idea why you think an interesting life would be impossible without rape, murder and millions of deaths from the diseases for which you blame your God. You keep telling us under “Theodicy” to ignore the evil and focus on all the good your God has created! Now we should forget all the good (the joys of love, family, friendship, art, sport, travel, etc.), and you thank God for creating or allowing evil to prevent you from getting bored.

Cell complexity: formation of the centriole

DAVID: Quite an intricate design, isn't it? Yes, chance is an irrational conclusion. But we mustn't conclude a designing mind might exist. The big step is MUST exist. […]
Later:
DAVID: Design means a designer did it.

Yes, That is a rational conclusion. But if a complex life requires a designing mind, the designing mind must be so complex that it too would require a designer: you need blind faith to believe that an unknown, immaterial, superpowerful form of consciousness can simply exist without a source. That is why I remain on my picket fence.

Homo luzonensis
QUOTES: "The implication is that some population of hominins, wandering vaguely eastwards, made their way to Luzon – accidentally or on purpose. Isolated on the island, they evolved bodies different to those of other hominins, ultimately becoming the distinct species we call H. luzonensis.”

“…evolution often throws up the same thing multiple times in different species: it’s called convergent evolution.”

DAVID: Environment causes adaptations.

Existing organisms respond to new conditions, and so there is clearly a mechanism that produces the changes – not just adaptations but also speciation. It ties in with the book on “teleonomy”: “The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable”. This dispenses with Darwin’s random mutations, but confirms the heart of his theory, which is common descent. How such an autonomous mechanism came into being would be a different subject. Thank you, David, for your objective presentation.