Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Saturday, February 20, 2021, 11:33 (1154 days ago) @ David Turell

Evolution: always advancing or not?

DAVID: Your inverted reasoning is amazing. How do you get from bacteria to humans without the intermediate steps? And you concede God could have chosen to evolve and create known history,

dhw: The problem you so desperately try to avoid is why a God whose only purpose was to “evolve” (by which you mean design) H. sapiens plus food supply chose to evolve the millions of other life forms plus their food supplies which constitute the 99% that had no connection with humans. (The other 1% is the thread from bacteria to humans, in case you haven’t cottoned on.)

DAVID: God has never told me why He evolved us, but since God is the designer/creator, He did.

Unfortunately you left out the bold, which you always try to ignore anyway. The question is not why he evolved us, but why – if we (plus food supply) were his only goal – he designed all the other life forms plus food supplies, 99% of which had no connection with humans. See “theodicy” for your only way out of this endless and pointless repetition of dodges.

Extreme extremophiles

DAVID: [..] Life is so tough it easily survives everywhere.

dhw: How does that come to mean that the prime objective of all life forms is not survival? Please tell us what other purpose these extreme extremophiles might have in “adapting to their freezing home”.

DAVID: Different interpretation: God made life so tough it easily survives everywhere. No struggle.

dhw: It makes no difference whether it’s easy or hard: please tell us what purpose other than survival these organisms might have had in “adapting to their freezing home”.

DAVID: No purpose. Life can adapt to living everywhere and to survive extinction events God knew would happen. He wanted life to survive any eventuality, toughness built-in.

Some life forms survive and some don’t. But if God exists, I’ll go along with the idea that he provided cells with the mechanism which he knew would enable some of them to survive and even to evolve. So if your God wanted life to survive, what makes you think that whatever method he may have used to enable them to survive did not have the purpose of enabling them to survive?

Physical change in speciation

dhw: …please tell us why you ID folks consider it impossible for your designer to have designed a mechanism that would enable cells to do their own designing.

DAVID: Secondhand designing requires too many instructions, and may create mistakes.

dhw: It’s not “secondhand” if God gave them the intelligence to do it, and of course it will create mistakes – that’s why organisms die, or hadn’t you noticed?

DAVID: Silly. Do you expect to die of a mistake? You will wear out as I am doing.

Dear Dr Turell, have you never heard of people and animals dying from errors in the system (i.e. various well-known diseases), from lack of resistance to bad bacteria and viruses, or from an inability to cope with new conditions?

Can we control climate?

QUOTE: The models do not know the future, and neither do the Climategate scientists. But an exaggerated view of future warming provides the ideal background for anti-carbon-based fuels policies that will undermine the economic well-being of every society in the world. We must not allow that.
Be a climate realist.

DAVID: I am a twin with this guy. I knew all the material presented long ago.

dhw: This is really scary. We, the innocent public, are in trouble either way, whether the dangers are real or the vested interests have created a tissue of lies about them. The article is scrupulously fair, though, in acknowledging the very real problems, and restricting the scepticism to the forecasts. I shouldn’t really take part in this discussion, because like most of us, I have no way of knowing how accurate the crystal-ball-gazers might be. But I would still say that the effects of pollution and of human interference with Nature are already devastating, and it is clear that drastic changes are needed if these effects are to be kept under control.

DAVID: A public interest entry. This guy was 'fair' and not like the global warming scare-folks. The UN IPPC is a money-gathering ploy: enough scare, more money donated out of fright. Just go back to the Climategate emails to see the farce. I've read them. And to be perfectly clear, I've read Gore's first alarming book with its debunked claims.

I can’t argue with any of this. I have no idea what the future holds. I have simply said that our present way of life is already creating huge damage to the environment and to all life including our own. You yourself have posted articles explaining how we are upsetting the balance of Nature. Something has to change.

Landing on Mars

QUOTE: "The mission’s goal is to roll around Jezero Crater and collect rock samples from the river delta and an ancient lake that might hold evidence of past Martian life.”

DAVID: Just bringing the news to this site.

Thank you. It’s hit the headlines over here too. Despite the huge expense, I find this thrilling, as an example of humankind’s “perseverance” in the quest for clues to the mystery of life and the nature of the universe we live in.