Buddy/Ignore List
03-28-2020, 10:23 PM
I have to assume you are implicating some higher power in the advent of viruses and such, I don't really have any answer for that, as there really can be no answer.
The why of a virus, or any other organic thing, I gave in a previous post.... the Ultimate and Proximate reasons for any organic thing "ABC" to have any trait or perform any behavior "XYZ". That's about the best I can offer. We could speculate about the Proximate reason for the behavior of a virus, but the viruses behavior is so simple I fear it would be quite boring.
About what might and might not be an "accident". People ask me a lot whether I think there is life on other planets, and more amusingly, whether that life has already visited us.
My opinion is there must be life all over the universe, because that is, as it appears to me, how the universe works. When someone in science class tells us that a single oxygen molecule doesn't exist long in our atmosphere because it always seeks out another oxygen molecule to bond with (its a diatomic molecule O2), we don't question this at all. But DNA, which is nothing more than a complex molecule, which obeys every physical law we have so far discovered, must have been created by an intelligence.
So, WHY are there these little bastards, and how do they know what to do?
Why are there oxygen molecules, and how do they know how to bond together? The only difference between your question and mine is that you attribute characteristics to the virus that you do not attribute to the oxygen molecule... to me, its exactly the same question.
How big does the molecule have to get before we just start to reject the natural order of the universe simply on principle... or rather, belief?
The problem of understanding most of us have is simple, and its a problem I myself sometimes have despite my best efforts. Belief is the problem. Most scientists believe things too, its not limited to the God-fearing. Belief, especially in ones own work, is what makes terrible scientists and in my opinion most of them are terrible. Objectivity is a lost art when it comes to science, or really, any questions of existence. When a friend and colleague of mine would ask about how convinced I am of this or that phenomenon, I would always answer, to his amusement "Well I'm fairly certain but I don't just go running around believing in things like the rest of you."
The worst kind of ridiculous people will very often turn this argument around and claim "Well, you believe in science!" That's barely worth answering, but a good scientist at heart only accepts the "facts" for as long as the evidence makes sense, and are equally as ready to drop any theory which doesn't pan out as they are to forge ahead with the ones that do. Unfortunately, this behavior runs counter to ones ability to advance a science career. The government provides the money for science and the people in charge want answers that scientists believe in.
The why of a virus, or any other organic thing, I gave in a previous post.... the Ultimate and Proximate reasons for any organic thing "ABC" to have any trait or perform any behavior "XYZ". That's about the best I can offer. We could speculate about the Proximate reason for the behavior of a virus, but the viruses behavior is so simple I fear it would be quite boring.
About what might and might not be an "accident". People ask me a lot whether I think there is life on other planets, and more amusingly, whether that life has already visited us.
My opinion is there must be life all over the universe, because that is, as it appears to me, how the universe works. When someone in science class tells us that a single oxygen molecule doesn't exist long in our atmosphere because it always seeks out another oxygen molecule to bond with (its a diatomic molecule O2), we don't question this at all. But DNA, which is nothing more than a complex molecule, which obeys every physical law we have so far discovered, must have been created by an intelligence.
So, WHY are there these little bastards, and how do they know what to do?
Why are there oxygen molecules, and how do they know how to bond together? The only difference between your question and mine is that you attribute characteristics to the virus that you do not attribute to the oxygen molecule... to me, its exactly the same question.
How big does the molecule have to get before we just start to reject the natural order of the universe simply on principle... or rather, belief?
The problem of understanding most of us have is simple, and its a problem I myself sometimes have despite my best efforts. Belief is the problem. Most scientists believe things too, its not limited to the God-fearing. Belief, especially in ones own work, is what makes terrible scientists and in my opinion most of them are terrible. Objectivity is a lost art when it comes to science, or really, any questions of existence. When a friend and colleague of mine would ask about how convinced I am of this or that phenomenon, I would always answer, to his amusement "Well I'm fairly certain but I don't just go running around believing in things like the rest of you."
The worst kind of ridiculous people will very often turn this argument around and claim "Well, you believe in science!" That's barely worth answering, but a good scientist at heart only accepts the "facts" for as long as the evidence makes sense, and are equally as ready to drop any theory which doesn't pan out as they are to forge ahead with the ones that do. Unfortunately, this behavior runs counter to ones ability to advance a science career. The government provides the money for science and the people in charge want answers that scientists believe in.
