New Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 06, 2025, 20:07 (28 days ago) @ dhw

First life

dhw: You have abandoned the subject of 70,000,000 years being a surprisjngly short time for the development of life and therefore evidence of design. I presume you have now realized that as there are no criteria, your surprise and evidence were without any foundation.

The answer is really life is so complex and surprising, its sudden appearance is shocking. It becomes an issue of when did God start to do it.

Evolution

DAVID: When one realized God did it as His goal, it all makes sense.

dhw: How can it make sense if your God’s one and only goal was to design the 1% but he also designed and then disposed of 99% which had nothing to do with his goal? That is why you ridicule him as being a messy, inefficient designer!

Wrong. I'm disturbed about God's use of evolution, not His designer ability.

T-cells and immunity

DAVID: My use of the word inefficiency applied only to His use of evolution. Don't expand its meanings to specific DNA instructions.

dhw: I have said that this is another example of his inefficiency: if millions of people die in spite of his 3.8-billion-year-old instructions, then clearly his instructions don’t always work. That = inefficiency.

The design of life is not insufficient design. Your usual complaint has missed the reply of proportionality of side effects of His good works.

The brain

DAVID: Neurons self-design following instructions.

dhw: More word games. Are you now saying that every design made by your brain cells was predetermined 3.8 billion years ago? If not, what did these “instructions” consist of?

We know where thoughts are handled but not how neurons follow instructions to accommodate thinking.

Extremophiles

dhw: Nobody will deny that this portion has conditions suitable for life! That does not mean that the unknown rest of the universe is also “fine-tuned” for life.

DAVID: It is assumed so.

dhw: An assumption based on 5% and ignoring 95% leaves a lot to be desired.

The whole 100% universe is shown in the CMB with no different areas. Fine-tuning is accepted as universal. Your thinking is oddball.

dhw: And we needn’t dwell on your absurd belief that every species and ecosystem for the first 3.X000,000,000 years of life’s history was specially designed for the sake of the humans who were not even around at the time.

We are in charge, taking everything for our use. The present tells the story of God's intent.

DAVID: All evolutionary preparation for our arrival.

dhw: There we go again! 99% of species and ecosystems had no connection with us and our food. You have confirmed above that only 1% have evolved into the current world, but you still disagree with yourself.

DAVID: I don't slice up a continuous evolution as you do.

dhw: The continuity consists of the 1%. There is no continuity for the 99%. They went extinct. Remember?

Yes, evolution 'extincted' them away to reach the surviving 0.1%. That's evidence of continuity.