New Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Sunday, February 16, 2025, 11:26 (18 days ago) @ David Turell

Evolution and T-cells and immunity

DAVID: I view it differently. An all-knowing God will chose the best system to achieve His goal.

dhw: You insist that the method he used (designing and having to cull 99 out of 100 species) to achieve the goal you impose on him (us and our food) was messy, cumbersome and inefficient. Those are the adjectives you used, so how come you view it differently from the way you view it?

DAVID: I differentiate organism design from designed evolution as a process. His organismal designs are perfect.

That is why I wrote: “Like many of us humans, he seems to be a mixture – good at one thing and bad at another!” His inefficient system of evolution, his inadequate programme for immunity (you dismiss the millions of failures because lots more people survive), and his creation of evil are also possible examples of YOUR God’s inefficiency. I emphasize “YOUR”, because when I put on my theist hat, I have offered you alternatives which show God efficiently achieving precisely what he wanted to achieve.

DAVID: The evolutionary process is messy but effective, as we agree here.

I have never ever agreed that YOUR version of the evolutionary process is “effective”. How can it be, if it is messy and cumbersome and inefficient?

Fine-tuning

DAVID: [i]For the whole universe to exist all the factors must be fine-tuned, to exquisitely narrow points of accuracy. Earth's life allowing adjustments are a different issue entirely.[/i]
And:
DAVID: Apparently you weren't following the discussions thirty years ago. The whole universe exists because of the fine-tuning factors, about 20+ of them. It is all very sophisticated physics. "Universes" by John Leslie will explain it.

dhw: Apparently you have totally misunderstood the focus of the debate:

DAVID: No I haven't.

dhw: You have argued twice that fine-tuning applies to the existence of the universe, instead of to the existence of life in the universe! You even say the adjustments (= fine tuning) which have produced life on Earth are a different issue!
I offered you three quotes confirming the fact that “fine-tuning” refers to the existence of life, and not of the universe.

DAVID: The entire universe can only exist if the fine-tuning factors are correct. That is the fine-tuning understanding I use from thirty years ago, not confined to only our galaxy. Davies is correctly coming at it from a different viewpoint.

Your understanding of fine-tuning as referring to the existence of the universe simply means that if the universe was not as it is, it would not exist as it is! Not much of a revelation, is it? So please stop dodging! The discussion is on whether the universe is fine-tuned for life, and I am simply pointing out that although all the ingredients for life are of course present in the universe, the only instance we know of in which those ingredients plus all the necessary environmental conditions have come together to produce life is Planet Earth, which at most means that our galaxy is fine- tuned for life. It is the combination that makes for the “fine tuning” – not the mere existence of the materials. And so I suggest to you that unless life is found throughout the entire universe, we cannot say that the entire universe is fine-tuned for life. Now will you please explain why you disagree.