Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 04, 2021, 15:43 (1174 days ago) @ dhw

Einstein theory

DAVID: A great review of the whole history and all the wonders about the universe it has produced:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/einstein-theory-general-relativity-gravity-black-ho...

DAVID: a ten minute read well worth it.

dhw: Thank you. It took me more than ten minutes, but was well worth the time spent. Just one quote:

“General relativity has become the foundation for today’s understanding of the cosmos. But the current picture is far from complete. Plenty of questions remain about mysterious matter and forces, about the beginnings and the end of the universe, about how the science of the big meshes with quantum mechanics, the science of the very small.”

While we marvel at the extent of what we know, the fact of the matter (I use the phrase deliberately) is that we know next to nothing!

And with that 'nothing' we try to debate about God and His works.

Xxxxxx

spiders lasso, lift huge prey

DAVID: They certainly know how to use their webs. The usual debate will be how much did God help? He designed their ability to spin steel-like webs but this may be their own learned adaptation.

dhw: I don’t know if this is the usual debate, but I’ll join in. What do you mean by “he designed their ability”? Do you mean he gave them the intelligence to work out how to design webs, or do you mean that as part of his goal of evolving humans and their food supply, he popped in to give spiders courses in web-spinning, or he operated on pre-web-spinning spiders to give them their web-spinning apparatus, or 3.8 billion years ago he provided the first cells with programmes not just for the evolution of spiders but also for their web-spinning ability?

Of course, I meant God designed their steel-like web making. Whether they stumbled accidently on hoisting heavy prey is a definite possibility. Spiders don't usually do this so it is difficult for me to assume God taught a special class to this isolated group. I think they accidently stumbled into it and it worked and became an instinct. I am convinced many instinctual activities developed just that way. We train dogs by repetition and then they react as if instinctual. Observation and memory may teach these special spiders..