New Miscellany Parts 1 &:2: evolution, zombies, tuning etc. (General)

by dhw, Friday, April 25, 2025, 12:23 (1 day, 0 hours, 41 min. ago) @ David Turell

Evolution

DAVID: Of course He wanted what He created.

dhw: So once and for all, please stop telling us that he inefficiently designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species which had no connection with what he wanted. And please don’t repeat your absurd claim that we are all the descendants of the extinct 99.9% that had no descendants living today. (dhw's bold)

DAVID: The 99.9% extinct produced the 0.1% surviving. Yes or no?

How many more times? NO! The 0.1% of survivors produced the species that are alive today. I don’t like the absolute precision of the figures, but they are generally accepted. For example, out of 696 dinosaur species, only 4 (= 0.6%) produced surviving species. Out of the estimated billions of extinct species (100%), only an estimated 0.1% produced survivors that went on to produce us and our food. Species that die out leaving no descendants cannot produce surviving descendants. For the 100th time, LISTEN TO YOURSELF:

dhw: Do you believe that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of all creatures that ever lived?

DAVID: No. From the 0.1% surviving.

This means that according to you, your God specially designed and had to cull 99.9% of species as they were irrelevant to his one and only purpose (to produce us and our food). That is why you call him inefficient. Yes or no?

A start of multicellularity

dhw: [...] For some reason you insist that [...] your God must step in whenever there is a need or opportunity for a major change.

DAVID: The 'some reason' is I think God is a designer in charge.

dhw: [...] You think your God only wanted to create us plus food, and therefore specially designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 species that had nothing to do with us and our food. You have no idea why, you acknowledge that it makes him into an inefficient designer, but that’s OK because it puts him in charge.

DAVID: Of course.

You cannot believe that what your God created was precisely what he wanted to create. He simply has to be messy, cumbersome and inefficient, because your theory concerning his purpose and method must be right. I wonder how many of your fellow believers would wish to sing hymns in praise of such an inefficient blunderer.

Zombification

dhw: Do you believe your God preprogrammed this strategy 3.8 billion years ago, or suddenly decided that zombification would be a great help to us humans (his sole purpose) and popped in to give zombification courses to all his potential parasites.? Please answer.

DAVID: Designed parts of a necessary ecosystem.

dhw: Once again, necessary for what? Once again: Do you believe he preprogrammed or dabbled zombification because we couldn’t exist/survive without it?

DAVID: All ecosystems are intertwined and are therefore necessary for the whole Earth's living systems.

Still not an answer. Bearing in mind your belief that your God created all systems for the sole benefit of us humans, would you say that zombification is necessary for our existence and survival?

Possible alien life

DAVID: A nuanced difference: potentially any object can modify itself like Earth did to add life.

dhw: I didn’t know you believed in D-I-Y fine-tuning! There are no such “nuances”. Your original statement was that the entire universe is fine-tuned for life. We know that it isn’t, because we know that there are sections of the universe which are neither environmentally nor biologically fine-tuned for life. Why are you dragging this out?

DAVID: "There are no such 'nuances'" WE KNOW OF. Mars may once had life. I define fine-tuning as providing potentiality for life supporting regions.

Fine-tuning includes the environmental and biological conditions necessary for life. Do you believe that the environmental and biological conditions necessary for life are present throughout the entire universe? Of course you don’t. And so it is nonsense to claim that the entire universe is fine-tuned for life. THAT is the whole point of this discussion.

Clever corvids

DAVID: Single cells follow intelligent instructions.

dhw: You agree that single-celled bacteria have their own autonomous intelligence. There is no reason to suppose that other cells are automatons, or that intelligent cells lose their intelligence when they form communities. I don’t ask you to believe Shapiro’s theory but simply to open your mind to the possibility that it's true, and to recognize that it dispenses with chance as well with your need to ridicule your God’s inefficiency.

DAVID: God is in charge no matter what you wish about Shapiro.

It’s not a wish but a theory which dispenses with chance as well as with your ridicule of your God. We can still say he is in charge if he decides to create a free-for-all instead of a clumsy mess of 99.9% failures. The only wishing here lies in the fact that, as you once openly confessed: “I first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.” The rest is one set of contradictions after another, which you yourself once described as “schizophrenic”.