Intelligent design and extinctions

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from smilingsynic:

How 'bout a serious attempt to answer my question instead of attacking me for actually asking it? You seem to have a propensity for mocking others. Grow up already.

I wouldn't hold your breath. The Disgusting Idiot Troll Zzz actually posts nonsense in order to bait others, then responds with a series of non-sequiturs, denials, evasions and weird pictures.

That's what he does, in order to construct some sort of life for himself.

 

[ZZZzzzzzzz]

I am not attacking you for posing such a silly ridiculous question.

I am asking why as an adult it is that you think you would be in a position to understand the answers of why from a creator of the Universe, from a Supreme Being?

Do infants really understand the thinking of their parents? Children ask why questions all the time and don't understand the answers to their questions, as they lack the development to understand the answer.

The gap between an infant and an adult is so small relative to the intelligence of the most advanced human being and a Supreme Being who could create the entire Universe.

It is a simple point, I am surprised that it appears to escape you...

Quote from smilingsynic:

How 'bout a serious attempt to answer my question instead of attacking me for actually asking it? You seem to have a propensity for mocking others. Grow up already.

Thinking is driven not by answers, but by questions. Without quetions, there would be no knowledge.

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

I am not attacking you for posing such a silly ridiculous question.

I am asking why as an adult it is that you think you would be in a position to understand the answers of why from a creator of the Universe, from a Supreme Being?

Do infants really understand the thinking of their parents? Children ask why questions all the time and don't understand the answers to their questions, as they lack the development to understand the answer.

The gap between an infant and an adult is so small relative to the intelligence of the most advanced human being and a Supreme Being who could create the entire Universe.

It is a simple point, I am surprised that it appears to escape you...

Perfect example here. There isn't even an attempt at framing the 'argument' in terms that everyone can agree upon. Just pure assertion and assumption. The existence of 'the Supreme Being' is assumed, and then you are denigrated for not understanding how the Supreme Being would operate.

In fact the belief in a 'Supreme Being', like the belief in ghosts and goblins and Santa Claus and the Man in the Moon, is simply a faith based belief with no basis in fact. It is unprovable and as such belongs in the privacy of one's home or place of worship.

There isn't a shred of value in the post the Moron Troll ZZZ just made. There is nothing constructive about it, nothing that contributes to the discussion.

This is typical of his posts here. Please remember, he has an average of 16 posts a day for the past 2 years. He was also banned twice, under the names Optional777 and ARogueTrader.

We have asked him to explain why he was banned from this site twice. So far he has declined to provide any hint.

 

[fhl]

It gets to be funny after a while reading liberal posts, whether it be on global warming, evolution, whatever. Always the same modus. Pretend that the only science that exists is the liberal argument. Ignore all the scientists that disagree with global warming or evolution, and proclaim that theirs is a concensus, or just plain say that their side is a scientific fact.

Last time I checked, statistics was considered a science. Tell us again the statistical odds of evolution.

 

[Turok]

fhl:
>Tell us again the statistical odds of evolution.

How about we both return with some statistical odd -- shall we?

I'll bring the odds for a relatively low powered, low IQd, sickly, prickly, die quickly species/creatures to originate through evolution (amazingly large for sure).

You bring the odds for a omnipotent, omniscient, eternal species/creature to have originated period (stupid large).

Do you have the balls to calculate/return with/compare those numbers? I doubt it.

Unless you do, you're just making yourself look dumbass.

I'm an agnostic who doesn't claim for minute that evolution is the origin of the species, but I find it entertaining to hear from those who attempt to use "odds" as an argument against it -- all the while weaving fantasmigorical tales of creatures in the sky whose odds of existence make evolutions odds look like death and taxes.

JB

 

[stu]

Quote from fhl:

It gets to be funny after a while reading liberal posts, whether it be on global warming, evolution, whatever. Always the same modus. Pretend that the only science that exists is the liberal argument. Ignore all the scientists that disagree with global warming or evolution, and proclaim that theirs is a concensus, or just plain say that their side is a scientific fact.

Last time I checked, statistics was considered a science. Tell us again the statistical odds of evolution.

In Godland, statistical odds are anything you want them to be. A source for pretty much the most. “liberal argument” imaginable.

 

[I am...]

Quote from smilingsynic:

If there is some intelligent designer, then why have there been several mass extinctions in which 75% or more (in some cases, much more) of all species have gone extinct?

The most famous mass extinction of all took place 65 million years ago when a celestial object crashed right off the Yucatan, wiping out the dinosaurs and most life; but an even bigger mass extinction took place 250 million years ago, the so-called Permian extinction, which eliminated 90 plus percent of all species.

If there truly is an intelligent designer, how can these mass extinctions (and others) be explained? They make little sense. Why would an intelligent designer have to destroy life and start over again, many times. Wasn't the designer happy with the dinosaurs? What about that fascinating life fossilized up in the Canadian Rockies, in the Burgess Shale?

Any explanations?

It's a good question.

One explanation is that the designer is intelligent, and that it's design functions as designed.

Note that nothing lives but that something else dies. As a rule of thumb, everything devours everything else. Worms live when they devour carcasses. Then the worms themselves are devoured by bacteria. This leaves mulch on the ground from which plants may live. The plants die to support this and that. And the food chain keeps revolving.

So there are these patterns.

This brings the designer's motives into question. Why would a designer set it up this way? Is it the "best" it can come up with given what it has to work with? Is the designer given restrictions, such as entropy that it must work with...or...is it the designer who incorporates entropy into its design?

I concluded that this is not acceptable. And this led to a better understanding of the mind of the designer. As you get further into the mind of the designer, you find a kind of logic, but not much sanity. The designer of this world is not exactly a 'friend', and it's design is not exactly friendly.

The design kills off everything that is designed, and treats some of it's most magnificent designs like disposable razors. The impression is that the designer is toying with a macabre drama. Just when something reaches maturity, bam!, it get's nailed by some intervening circumstance. Disaster is everywhere, and the cycle of rebuilding commences only to be destroyed again.

I concluded the designer was sick...that this design was intentionally unloving. And I undertook to become a healer.

I concluded that there was another creation which was loving and perfect, and that this design was mocking the original creation.

By seeing this design as upside down, opposite and backwards to the original creation, I was able to infer what the original may have been like. And then I got confirmation.

Jesus

 

[smilingsynic]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

I am not attacking you for posing such a silly ridiculous question.

I am asking why as an adult it is that you think you would be in a position to understand the answers of why from a creator of the Universe, from a Supreme Being?

Do infants really understand the thinking of their parents? Children ask why questions all the time and don't understand the answers to their questions, as they lack the development to understand the answer.

The gap between an infant and an adult is so small relative to the intelligence of the most advanced human being and a Supreme Being who could create the entire Universe.

It is a simple point, I am surprised that it appears to escape you...

You are begging several questions: (1) the existence of a supreme being; (20 that the assumed supreme being thinks; (3) that the assumed supreme being is intelligent; (4) that the connection between supreme being and individual is analogous to that of parent/child.

If there IS a supreme being, the fact that this planet has had several mass extinctions suggests incompetence, indifference, and poor design. Kind of like the character of Big Stein on Seinfeld ("Big Stein wants an eggplant calzone!")

 

[james_bond_3rd]

Quote from fhl:

Last time I checked, statistics was considered a science. Tell us again the statistical odds of evolution.

1
One
Uno
一
100%

It is the same statistical chance that tomorrow will be different than today, in any manner.

 

[Hansel H]

Quote from Turok:

fhl:
>Tell us again the statistical odds of evolution.

How about we both return with some statistical odd -- shall we?

I'll bring the odds for a relatively low powered, low IQd, sickly, prickly, die quickly species/creatures to originate through evolution (amazingly large for sure).

You bring the odds for a omnipotent, omniscient, eternal species/creature to have originated period (stupid large).

Do you have the balls to calculate/return with/compare those numbers? I doubt it.

Unless you do, you're just making yourself look dumbass.

I'm an agnostic who doesn't claim for minute that evolution is the origin of the species, but I find it entertaining to hear from those who attempt to use "odds" as an argument against it -- all the while weaving fantasmigorical tales of creatures in the sky whose odds of existence make evolutions odds look like death and taxes.

JB

Some scientists, in particular those of the 'Rare Earth' school have worked ot the 'Anthropic Coincidences' probability to be > 10^(-120); that's a mighty slim chance derived from consideration of a needed chain of cosmological, chemical, and physical coincidences.

Other scientists suggest different, but more or less similarly unimaginable odds. None of these estimates can be taken as anything other than extremely rough approximations but it seems reasonable that if there was a moment before the Big Bang and before the parameters necessary for human existence were determined the odds against the eventual appearance of human life were at that moment unimaginably huge.

The probability at this moment of the Universe being compatible with human life is of course 1.0 .

The God probability, of course, is impossible to assess. It might be zero; it might not.

If there is God, God needn't be some cartoon character in the sky; the Universe itself may be God. God may be something related to our own mindstuff that is present throughout the Universe like salt is in the sea, etc., etc, etc...

There may be ways to use probablity in the God debate but I don't see how, given that the pro-God odds can't be assessed.