New Miscellany 1 & 2: evolution, brain, alien life. (General)

by dhw, Friday, April 18, 2025, 11:11 (1 day, 4 hours, 12 min. ago) @ David Turell

Evolution

DAVID: […] Sapiens are a marvelous miracle and you remain blind to it.

dhw: […] Humans are indeed a miracle, and so are all forms of life, and all the natural wonders you present us with. I love and appreciate life every bit as much as you do. Please stop dodging.

DAVID: I try to remind you of our specialness, and you dilute it by equating us 'to all forms of life'. Your view is distorted.

The fact that humans are special does not alter the fact that the whole of life is a miracle, and it does not lend one iota of logic to your theories 1) that we and our food were your God’s one and only purpose, and therefore he had to design and then cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with us and our food but you don’t know why, and 2) we and our food are descended from the 99.9% that had no descendants.Stop dodging!

The human brain

DAVID: The big brain like preceding ones used complexification to handle all new needs. This required a store of functional neurons in excess of original needs to supply the complexification processes.

dhw: Once again you’re telling us the new neurons were not used (excessive) but simply hung around for thousands of years doing nothing.

DAVID: Don't you understand 'functional neurons' are working???

dhw: Don’t you understand that if functional neurons are working, they cannot be called excessive?

No response from you. I then repeated my question whether your God inserted the new cells so that, for example, we could send rockets to Mars 3000 years later, or he inserted them simply so that we could respond to unknown future requirements as and when they arose.

dhw: The reason for my asking is that I’d like to know what you think your God saw in his crystal ball.

DAVID: Exactly what we are doing now.

What does that mean? That he gave the first sapiens redundant cells because in his crystal ball he saw that you and I would be having a discussion, and only then would the redundant cells be required? Your theories become more and more absurd the more we discuss them – but that no doubt is why you are always at such pains to avoid answering the questions that will reveal the absurdity.

Logical ordering of bacterial genes

DAVID: God uses de novo developments when needed. Note the Cambrian explosion.

dhw: When needed for what? The article emphasizes the fact that evolution works through changes to existing organisms that will improve their chances of survival. This can only happen through trial and error, but you say it doesn’t. So are you telling us that your God created today’s brands of bacteria “de novo”?

Not answered.

DAVID: He evolved them.

Evolution entails a process of trial and error (hence extinctions, adaptations and innovations). That would explain why, if your God exists and had certain purposes in mind, he must have needed to experiment in order to create autonomously thinking bacteria and autonomously thinking humans. Alternatively, he experimented to see what would happen if… The one version of God you are not supporting is that of a God who knew exactly what he wanted and exactly how to create it. Hence your ridicule of his inefficiency and incompetence.

Possible alien life

A chemical only from life is found on distant planet:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/science/astronomy-exoplanets-habitable-k218b.html?ca...

DAVID: From a previous discussion: "Thus fine-tuning is throughout the universe while life appeared so far only on Earth. We think life might be out there somewhere because the same factors are everywhere, so we discuss possible alien life."

You never give up, do you? The all-important environmental and biological factors are NOT present everywhere! My view: Only if life is proven to exist in a particular place can it be said that that place is fine-tuned for life. March 2, 2025 you wrote: “I have accepted the Wilsonian view of fine tuning.” Please accept what you have accepted.

DAVID: this raises theological questions. Did God intend to have life everywhere? Does it reduce our central role importance? Or does God intend to produce alien humans elsewhere at a later time with possible different outcomes compared to our history. Does their potential appearance reduce God's interest in us?

The theological implications go far beyond those you have listed. If there is no alien life, why the heck would your God have created all the billions of stars etc. that have come and gone? Non-life would strengthen the case for atheism and a single lucky combination produced by an infinity of ever changing combinations. If there is primitive life, an atheist will ask why the heck your God would bother to produce a planetful of life that consists of nothing but algae? Instead, life would be the result of a natural process triggered by the minuscule number of right conditions in a universe which is otherwise NOT fine-tuned for life. Your own questions basically revolve around your obsession with your theory that your God created the entire universe in order to produce humans plus food.