More Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Saturday, April 13, 2024, 14:26 (16 days ago) @ David Turell

Origin of humans

DAVID: I'm sorry you can't jump in and see the logic.
dhw: The only logic you have offered us is the design theory. You admit that you can’t find any logic in your theory of evolution, and that your often self-contradictory views of your God’s nature are based on your wishes, not on “logic”.

DAVID: You won't see the purpose, so the logic never shows up.

I see your wishes and what you agree is your irrational faith that they are the reality. I note that you can’t find any logic to support your faith in your messy and inefficient theory of evolution, and you have no evidence to support your often contradictory faith that the God you wish for is the real God.

Evolution and purpose: teleonomy.

dhw: I do not think a reviewer should criticize a book for not dealing with the subject he/she would like it to deal with. Why should a scientific study of how evolution works have to discuss theology? […]

DAVID: a reviewer is free to review however he wishes. A book is not presented with any iron-bound rules that it must be seen from one rigid viewpoint. The reviewer used it to make his point. Why does that bother you?

Of course anyone can write whatever they want to write. Go and see “King Lear” and write a review castigating Shakespeare for not making it a comedy. This review bothers me because I think critics should judge such a work by the degree to which it fulfils the purpose it sets out to fulfil. I can only comment on the article you presented to us, but the quotes suggest that it is a scientific study of the manner in which plants and animals design their own means of survival. As a potential reader, I want to know what the book is about, and whether the reviewer finds it convincing. If not, why not? I don’t expect the reviewer to ignore the actual subject and complain that the authors didn’t write about the subject he/she is interested in.

Giant viruses

DAVID: from my view of purpose acting in evolution, all forms of life that are here play a necessary role.

dhw: Necessary for what? All forms of life, extinct and extant, have played and play a role in the history of life. (Nothing to do with your theory of evolution, in which 99.9% of forms had no link with the present but for no conceivable reason were specially designed and culled by your God.)

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

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.

dhw: […] please tell us, for example, 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?

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. 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.

Cell complexity: formation of the centriole

dhw: I’m amazed by the fact that humans are able to analyse the different parts of such a tiny organism, and the amazement is massively multiplied when we think of the design itself. This is where faith in chance becomes as irrational as faith in an unknown, unknowable, immaterial, eternal, sourceless, omnipotent, omniscient, all-good form of consciousness.

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.

I don’t understand your third sentence. I would use the complexity as evidence that a designing mind might exist. And yes, the big step would entail ignoring my last sentence.