More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, August 25, 2024, 12:06 (22 days ago) @ David Turell

99.9% versus 0.1%

DAVID: Of course, it took 696 to find four to produce 10,000 bird species. Small numbers become huge numbers in evolution. 99.9% extinct are the ancestors of the 0.1% surviving. And the 0.1% are an enormous population compared to the past smaller numbers.

dhw: Since you believe God is responsible for speciation, why do you think he needed to create 700 dinosaurs in order to “find” four? That is the whole point of this discussion. You insist that he designed and had to cull 99.9% of species irrelevant to the ones he wanted! Hence his messy inefficiency! No, the 696 were NOT the ancestors of the birds now living. Only four were. That has nothing to do with the fact that current species have multiplied. You are still stuck with your ridicule of your God’s method of achieving the goal you impose on him.

DAVID: Yes, I find it hard to understand full blown creation in the Cambrian and then a slow evolution until now. All I can do is accept God's reasoning.

So your theory that he deliberately created and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 pre- and post-Cambrian species that were irrelevant to his goal has nothing to do with your ridicule of his inefficiency? What you accept is not his reasoning, which you cannot know, but your own theory which makes no sense even to you.

The universe

dhw: It is you who keep repeating that designs had a designer, instead of responding to my comments.

DAVID: Yes, to repeat: how did intelligent cells appear? From the designer, who for you can't exist?? Circles.

dhw: Will you please stop pretending that I am an atheist! I accept the logic of the design argument. I also accept the logic of the argument that if mini-consciences must be designed by a mega-consciousness, why doesn’t a mega-consciousness need to have been designed? “First cause” God, or “first cause” chance? I don’t know. Nor does anyone else. But theists and atheists have blind faith in one or the other.

DAVID: So, you are not blind? The design you recognize must have a designing mind. Perhaps we can agree there is/was a designer who may not care about us. No Godly attributes. Fair enough? Sort of a deism.

This thread is not about a possible God’s possible nature, but about his very existence. (But if he does care, that is a human attribute, and you have rejected deism because you believe he has this human attribute although he has no human attributes.) Atheists are blind to your design argument, and you are blind to their argument that if complex minds require a designer, how can an infinitely more complex mind exist without having been designed? My eyes are open to both arguments, but I admit to my ignorance of the truth. Agnostics don’t try to persuade people that they know the answers. We can only explain why we can’t believe in the answers that are on offer.

Stone Age engineering: the Dolmen of Menga

QUOTE: “The incorporation of advanced knowledge in the fields of geology, physics, geometry, and astronomy shows that Menga represents not only a feat of early engineering but also a substantial step in the advancement of human science, reflecting the accumulation of advanced knowledge..."

DAVID: a major advance over Stonehenge. See the amazing illustrations. These folks were well beyond caveman status.

Simply amazing. The image of our ancestors as ignorant cavemen is gradually being obliterated. This applies also to the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, who not only interbred with sapiens but also produced evidence of sophisticated culture. Re Stonehenge, it is now believed that some of the stones were transported not from Wales (which is far enough) but from Scotland, which is a huge distance. How the heck did they do it?
Once more, many thanks, David, for yet another eye-opener!

How mosquitoes find dinner

QUOTE: "'Despite their diminutive size, mosquitoes are responsible for more human deaths than any other animal."

Thank you again, David, for another extraordinary article. I’m surprised, though, that you didn’t add your usual comment that this extremely complex mechanism must have been designed. As such, it provides yet another question under the subject of theodicy. Why would an all-good God design such a lethal weapon against humanity?