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

by David Turell , Friday, April 18, 2025, 19:03 (20 hours, 20 minutes ago) @ dhw

Evolution

> 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.

dhw: 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!

Without the 99.9% extinct the 0.1% would not be here!

The human brain

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.

dhw: 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.

Your distorted view of our brain is amazing. We are using a brain that is 315,000 years old that comes from a time of much less complexity in living and thinking and only recently uses language to express ideas as you point out we do.

Logical ordering of bacterial genes

dhw: 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.

Only a Godless evolution entails trial an error. God created exactly what He wanted to create by evolving all of the currently living for use by humans.

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."

dhw: 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.

I follow your view that life's presence indicates fine-tuning! Inverted: life can appear wherever there is fine-tuning. Potential vs. actual.

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?

dhw: 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.

Fine-tuning involves more than 20 integrated factors, NOT minuscule. Now you have my belief as an obsession!!! Do not name-call!