More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, August 25, 2024, 18:13 (22 days ago) @ dhw

99.9% versus 0.1%

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.

dhw: 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.

You constantly fall back on a statistical distortion of Raup's work. What survives today (0.1%) had 99.9% extinct ancestors. It is God's reasoning to evolve us which I accept. Perfectly reasonable.

The universe

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.

dhw: 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.

We can agree a mind is required. We see a fine-tuned-for-life universe, an organism with a deeply thinking brain.

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.

dhw: 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!

You are welcome.

How mosquitoes find dinner

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

dhw: 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?

You might add why the deadly parasites? The mosquito is an innocent carrier. The article quote is wrong.