More "miscellany" (General)

by David Turell @, Sunday, June 26, 2022, 16:09 (642 days ago) @ dhw

ARCHERFISH

DAVID: The archerfish looks like all other fish. God gave/designed the archerfish specialized neurons.

dhw: Yep. Thought so. Preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago? Or did he pop in and do a dabble on some pre-archerfish? Or did he design them without any precursors? And why do you think their specially designed neurons were an “absolute requirement” for us and our food?

DAVID: Same old answer: part of a necessary ecosystem.

dhw: Same old question: necessary for what? According to you, every single divine programme or dabble was an “absolute requirement” for the design of us humans and our food. So do you believe your God could not have designed us and our food if he hadn’t given the archerfish its special neurons?

God chose to use His desired mechanism of evolution, which also involved satisfying life's need for food by setting up ecosystems at all levels of life.


DAVID: Design but no designer. Logical???

dhw: I’m sorry you don’t wish to comment on the subject of animal and cellular intelligence. Yes, the argument for design is logical. And your God may have been the designer. I am an agnostic. On the other hand, the argument for a sourceless, unknown, unknowable, immaterial being that has simply always been there and designs universes and archerfish neurons sounds more like a fairy tale than reality. I am an agnostic. You might have noticed.

DAVID: A rigid agnostic.

dhw: Fair comment, since I cannot choose between two theories which seem to me equally incredible. From the very beginning, I have agreed that I must be wrong one way or the other, and I started this website because I wanted to expand my own quest for “truth”. I did not set out to proselytize! Thanks in large measure to you, I have certainly expanded my range of knowledge, particularly of the various sciences, but you are right – I remain stuck on my fence, and can only wonder at the certainty with which others adhere to one faith (God) or the other (chance).

Yes, despite the new knowledge, stuck.


Theoretical origin of life

QUOTE: Based on a more recent analysis, eight teams of Japanese researchers (including one from JAXA) recently announced that Ryugu carries strains of no less than 20 different amino acids -the building blocks of DNA and life itself! These findings could provide new insight into how life is distributed throughout the cosmos and could mean that it is more common than previously thought.

dhw: These speculations concerning life elsewhere raise all sorts of questions, especially in the context of God’s existence and – if he does exist – his motives and methods for creating the universe. For example, if such life has not progressed beyond the microbial, why would a God bother to design it? Would such "common" life strengthen the case for chance?

We are here. Can't avoid that fact.


DAVID: that amino acids are found all over the place doesn't solve the problem of the origin of life. Life uses precisely twenty specific amino acids, all left-handed. Since the article makes no comment about chirality, I assume the amino acids found were equally right and left-handed. How did life start using only left-handed amino acids? How did it choose before alive?

dhw: Back to Earth, and once again – in order to restore the balance between us – this is where your arguments seem to me to carry great weight. The mystery and complexity of life as evidence of design is one major reason why I cannot embrace atheism.

I know.


Extremophiles

QUOTE: “So if there is life on Mars with a similar survival strategy, it's likely, according to what we know of both Earth and Mars, to be very small indeed."

dhw: Leading to the same speculations as above.

DAVID: life started during the nasty Hadean period on Earth. It had to be designed to be so tough.

dhw: This, on the other hand, raises all kinds of objections to your theories of evolution. Did your all-powerful God really have to design all these extremophiles as an “absolute requirement” for the design of us and our food? If he didn’t programme the nasty Hadean period, did he lack control? If his one and only purpose was to design us and our food, couldn’t he simply have waited till the nasty Hadean period was over? Why bother with all the other life forms that had no connection with us and our food?

When will you realize, you do not reason like God does? I view the history as His choice of method, for His reasons.


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