New Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Sunday, February 09, 2025, 14:39 (25 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The striking point is how quickly life appeared after the Earth Formed. Strongly supports the concept of a designer at work.

I have pointed out that there are no criteria by which to judge whether 70,000,000 (or even 40,000,000) years make for a long or short time, since we do not know of any other form of life. Your statement has no foundation. One could also ask why it took an omnipotent, omniscient God 9.2000,000,000 years and countless solar systems to produce a planet suitable for life. Surprisingly “short” time? And why your God had to design and cull 99 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to what you say was his only goal (us and our food).

DAVID: Your human brain is challenging God's choice of method, just a I do. Are we right/wrong?

I am not challenging your God’s choice of method! I am challenging your THEORY concerning his choice of purpose and method, and your conclusion that he is a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer. As below:

Evolution

DAVID: […] Great designer of organisms, in a slow inefficient system.

dhw: And who, according to you, designed the inefficient system?

DAVID: God. Again, why not direct creation? Didn't happen as God chose His method.

And the designer of an inefficient system is an inefficient designer. You have asked a highly pertinent question, but you simply refuse to accept that your God (if he exists) might have had other reasons for starting evolution.

T-cells and immunity

DAVID: You don't understand the cells at work. One mechanism makes the antibodies from one reactive system placing a foreign antigen into a destructive molecule. It uses the enemy to fight it. Not endless specific instructions for each threat, just one.

dhw: You told us “God gave all organisms a degree of adaptability to use.” Every new threat demands a different response, so I take this “adaptability” to mean the ability or mechanism or intelligence to adapt their responses accordingly. What else could it mean?

DAVID: Reread what I just presented. That is how it works; stop reaching for something out of context.

Yes, you have described the process (“how it works”), but you have glossed over what you mean by the “mechanism” which is what directs the process. And you refuse to explain what you mean by a “degree of adaptability”. The mechanism must be able to adapt to every new threat, and that requires the processing of new information and making decisions based on that information. Hallmarks of intelligence. Please explain what else your degree of adaptability might consist of. (See also the spliceosome article.)

dhw: Meanwhile, the death of millions denotes the inefficiency of your God’s “instructions”, whatever you mean by that. The bad doesn’t disappear just because his instructions have led to more good than bad.

Ignored.

Genome complexity: the spliceosome makes mRNA

QUOTE: "Based on this structural information, the scientists were able to understand which errors occur during splicing, how the spliceosome recognizes faulty processes and subsequently aborts the splicing, thereby sorting out the faulty complex. […] The scientists therefore assume that the mechanisms for recognizing and sorting out faulty spliceosomes have remained largely unchanged over the course of evolution."

DAVID: more evidence for design. Something this complex cannot appear by chance mutations.

I agree. The complexity is a good argument for theism. (We needn’t repeat the arguments against theism here, as that is not our subject.) I also agree that the “mechanisms” must have been present from the start of evolution. And I suggest that “recognition” and “sorting out” require some form of intelligence.

Fine-tuning

DAVID: As the CMB is the early blueprint for all the universe there are no odd ball areas. It is the same everywhere. In all fine-tuning discussions years ago, no one raised your point. You might want to join the multiverse folks.

dhw: For all we know, ours is the oddball area, and indeed you keep telling us how unique it is! I don’t know who raised what points years ago, but please explain to me why YOU are so sure that the 95% of the universe that we do not know is fine-tuned for life.

DAVID: explained it to you above. Take a look at what was discussed by experts years ago in their books and papers. It is a vacuum to you.

What is a vacuum to me? Please stop telling me to read books and papers from years ago, and explain to me why YOU are so sure that because the 5% of the universe which we know is “fine-tuned” for life, the 95% that we don’t know must also be fine-tuned for life. And do you think the stars and systems that have gone extinct were also fine-tuned for life?