Is the evolution story really scientific?

[Farmageddon]

Jereel Hunter said:

Farmageddon said:

Of course Jesus would say that.

Jereel Hunter said:

Physical laws are the same. Liquids grow more dense as it gets colder... except water. It grows more dense to a point, but when it reaches freezing temperature, it instead expands, causeing ice to float, and thus create a protective layer at the top of bodies of water, instead of turning lakes and rivers into huge blocks of ice and killing everything in them.

I won't comment on the rest cause I'd rather not get into another discussion, but this is a very prevalent argument and it includes a misconception. Water is not the only anomalous liquid. There are, infact, many other substances known to also behave like this and some others expected to by simulations, besides many more untested, I'd expect.

This study is concerned with modeling water, but it mentions on it's introduction how other tetrahedrally-bonded molecular liquids can have such anomalities: http://www.if.ufrgs.br/~barbosa/lattice-3d.pdf

These liquids, by the way, water included, are actually way more impressive than just this. They have quite a few other "weird" properties.

Also, I'm not too sure big bodies of water, and specially oceans would really freeze over if ice didn't float. Sure it seems like something "everyone knows" but I'd be interested in finding some actual models and scenarios, if any is even feasible.

First, there would a ton of complications, like maybe more water on the atmosphere which is hard to predict the exact effect of. There's also the fact that if ice just didn't float that would mean some very fundamental properties of chemestry itself would have to be different, with limitless implications, making analisys of the consequences pretty  much impossible. So perhaps it's easier to imagine water being replaced by some other similar liquid which just doesn't have this property. Similar as in same triple-point, same fusion point, same specific heat, similar densities on some range, etc.

Even them, for one, the ocean is a HUGE thermal resovoir and even whithout the floating of ice you'd need to get vast expanses of it down to the cooling point in order to freeze anything (besides shores, that is), and that's quite a bit below the ocean's current mean temperature. Freezing the ocean at warm areas would seem specailly hard. It's not clear to me that the loss of ice caps would be able to do this at all. Also, this would depend a lot on the specifics, but frozen salt "water" tends to loose it's salt content, which would artificially lower ice's density compared to that of "water". This just might be enough to actually form some kind of an ice cap, if thinner, but I have no idea wether this would be the case, and this would need water to already be at a cooling point to even happen. Another point is that ice forming out of the ocean or on shores could "slide" into it way before the ocean had any semblance of a chance of cooling enough, which would create and extra cap. How relevant this might be I don't know.

Even if simply replacing water with such liquid might mean the freezing of the oceans on earth simply making taking planet a little closer to the sun, or near a "warmer" star, or a planet with bigger oceans or different atmosphere or whatever might be ways to make sure the "oceans" don't freeze. We could also just change the specifics of such liquid. So this idea of water, this single mystical molecule, being absolutely essential to life anywhere is very arrogant and not at all based on fact. Hell, life might not even need oceans at all.

I mean, sure, humans wouldn't exist if some other anomalous liquid took the place of water (temperatures would have to be different too and so on). Neither would we exist if ice sunk, but this means absolutelly nothing at all unless you require humans to be the goal of the universe, which is kind of begging the question: saying that a universe meant for the existence of humans has been made so that humans can exist isn't really saying much.

First of all, I only mentioned lakes and rivers - oceans may not be cold enough to freeze, but they wouldn't have to be. Liquids which grow denser with cold can 'change state by compression. (i.e. to get liquid nitrogen, you compress nitrogen). So the deep ocean, which is cold, and under extreme pressure, would likely freeze under these different circumstances. 

As for "this idea of water, this single mystical molecule, being absolutely essential to life anywhere is very arrogant and not at all based on fact. Hell, life might not even need oceans at all." - Water is essential for OUR lives, and the lives of most organisms on this planet. Maybe not any form of life that could theoretically exist, but that is outside the scope of seeing how finely tuned the laws of nature are to OUR existence. 

And the idea of believing in a creator means that yes, human existence is the primary purpose for the universe's creation. 

You did mention "bodies of water" too, but that's not really the point. My stress on the oceans is partly because life is thought to have emerged from them.

All I was trying to point is that water isn't quite so special in a broader sense. Now, sure, i conceded if it behaved differently we wouldn't be here. In fact, if any major aspect of the world was considerably different it's a safe bet that we wouldn't be here. But when you realise, and that was my whole point, that even if we couldn't be here other forms of life could, and that calls into question the whole idea of this planet being fine-tuned for us on the basis of the anomalous properties of water.

If worlds can exist and support life, in any given life-supporting world changing any major aspect would probably mean a given life-form wouldn't have come to be. Still, others could. Whatver life -form evolves would have as much right as you do now to believe the world was "fine-tuned" for them. Which makes sense only and if only they're somehow "special" on the grand scheme of things, above all other possible forms that could have emerged. And nothing on this argument gives that stance any credence.

Now you could also, on the other hand, see the life-forms as being fine-tuned to their world, instead of the other way around. We are the way we are because water is the way it is. We are accidental, not essential. And that's a consistent view, and the only one that makes sense if you don't suppose any given form of life to be a goal of the universe. Of course we, or some ants or petrol, or whatever else, might be "the universe's goal" for this planet of ours. But the point is that there's absolutelly no reason to suppose it has to be so, much less to suppose we, among the absurdly many present-day and future alternatives, are the "important" ones.

"And the idea of believing in a creator means that yes, human existence is the primary purpose for the universe's creation. "

Well, that's precisely my point. This argument only makes any sense IF we suppose humans are the universe's goal. Thus you can't use it to show that humans are so, since that amounst to saying "If A, then A". Much less can you use this argument to try and prove some creator exists by saying "if there's a creator humans are the primary purpose of the universe" - which by itself is a beseless assumption - "thus humans are special. So the fact that humans wouldn't come to exist if water was different means water is the way it is just so it could support human life, which in turn means there must be a creator, whose purpose for the universe is humans".

That boils down to the exact same as saying if God exists then God exists which would mean God exists, therefore God must exist if God exists.

Actually, it's weaker than that, because it supposes that if a creator exists than humans are his ultimate goal. That would be a possibility, sure, but in absolutely no way a necessity. Even granting that, it also is very loose with any other possible attributes for the "creator". Besides being barren of meaning, as described above.

So this argument really just doesn't stand as a proof-positive. At most it's not inconsistent with itself, but that's not quite a feat given how little it actually says.