New Miscellany: theodicy, climate change, evolution (General)

by dhw, Thursday, March 06, 2025, 10:28 (3 days ago) @ David Turell

Back to Fine tuning

New CMB findings

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

DAVID: There is a new study of the CMB showing one segment is slightly different:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.15786

DAVID: a minor asymmetry exists between the two hemispheres of the CMB. This does challenge the standard model. It does not challenge that the universe originated as fine-tuned for life.

This is quite unbelievable. Fine-tuning comes at the end of a process, not at the beginning. The universe originated with the basic materials for life, but we know that the universe itself is not and never has been fine-tuned for life because the only part of the universe which we know is fine-tuned for life is Planet Earth. Now read what you wrote on Monday, March 3:
DAVID: […] I have accepted the Wilsonian view of fine-tuning in my statement.

dhw: […] since you have now explicitly accepted my argument, then of course we can close the discussion. Thank you.

DAVID: Yes, close.

Having accepted my definition, you now want to go back to the same ridiculous distortion of language which you started with. Please stop it.

Theodicy

DAVID: You magnify a small problem, the side effects of God's 'good' works, without which we would not exist. It is still proportionality. Or God knew what He was doing and accepted the consequences as necessary to achieve His goals.

dhw: […] theodicy is not a problem so long as you stick your head in the sand.

DAVID: My head is clearly out of sand and you know my position is unchanged by your arguments.

You simply have no answer to my arguments. You refuse to acknowledge 1) that “proportionality” does not make evil disappear (= head in the sand); 2) that a God who cannot avoid creating evil, and sometimes even tries in vain to prevent it, cannot be labelled omnipotent; 3) that a God who knowingly creates evil in order to ensure that he is genuinely recognized and worshipped can hardly be labelled all-good.

Climate change

Timing a probable glacial period

DAVID: The Earth and its humans can tolerate a degree or two of more warmth, which may then plateau. Our defense again clearly destructive glaciation is heat!!!

dhw: Humans are creating extra degrees of warmth through their use of fossil fuels, deforestation, and their methods of transport and agriculture. You keep agreeing […] that these need to change! Your only objection is to a panic-stricken rush that would create social and economic disaster. Now you’re pretending that we can carry on using the same methods and miraculously their effects may plateau! […]

DAVID: […] There are existing theories that CO2 will flatten. Only a few degrees of heat can stop the glaciers from appearing.

dhw: How can existing degrees of CO2 “flatten” if we continue to use the fossil fuels, deforestation, and methods of transportation and agriculture that are causing degrees of CO2 to increase?

DAVID: There are physical climate theories that counterintuitively say CO2 will flatten out.

dhw: You have agreed that we should find alternatives! Over the next few thousand years, we shall need to find practices that will ward off glaciation. How does that change the current need to prevent escalation of current dangers?

DAVID: The heat is needed! It is what will ward off glaciation is the point.

So now you have changed your mind and are advocating continuing the practices which are already damaging our environment because although they can only increase the damage, someone prophesies “counterintuitively” that they won’t, and we need to keep burning in order to protect ourselves against the glaciation prophesied to happen in about 11,000 years’ time. And you accuse those who demand a halt to current known damage of panicking!!!

Chemical control of ecosystems

QUOTES: "Krug’s experiment confirmed that when alderenes seep into the mud, they restructure the entire community. They drive species out…”

'You have a single slug species making some pretty straightforward little chemical defenses, and it’s changing who’s there and who’s not there,” said Kubanek, who was not involved in the research. “The slug goo is having a really big effect on the whole ecosystem.'”

DAVID: animals and plants speak to each other in chemical signals, which create automatic responses as my bold insists. That some key molecules shape ecosystems is an amazing but a logical discovery.

Amazing and logical, as this is just one of the ways in which ecosystems have constantly changed throughout the history of life on Earth. For me it only confirms the distinct impression that the history is one of a continuous free-for-all.