Vorkosigan

... functionning as organisms which otherwise would be reduced to simply nothing. Can evolution engender perfection is my question ?

Welcome aboard! We're always happy to have people to talk to...but it helps a lot if you are able to break up your posts into smaller and more easily processed units, as well as putting in proper punctuation:

• now to go back to our topic: would we survive without the universe?
  
  Who says that the universe is not sustaining our environment and therefore the species which would have evolved on our planet? Or was it just there? Maybe it was created? This is another mystery science cannot quite explain.
  
  Try modifying of a couple of degrees the oscillation of the earth.....move the sun a couple thousands miles closer...it is all related. Our existence depends on the actual balance of the universe. A comet comes too close and we are exterminated.....All that engineering... where did it come from?
  
  Perfection is revealed to us by the knowledge on a daily basis that our very existence depends on the equilibrium around us. I cannot quite attribute that equilibrium to an "accident".... "perfect" is the word to qualify what promotes life, existence, breathing, functionning as organisms which otherwise would be reduced to simply nothing. Can evolution engender perfection? That is my question

Not to insult you, of course.

Good luck. We aim to please, and are happy to provide answers to all comers. Do you have more specific questions that we can work with?

Vorkosigan

Silent Dave

I keep having this fantasy about religious rocks . . . I mean, a universe in which nothing but rocks, asteroids, exist, just hanging out and occasionally bumping into each other. Then, suddenly, one rock hits upon the idea:

"Say, isn't it remarkable that we exist the way we are? We're rocks -- we're strong, durable, and if we do collide with something big, it just makes more rocks! And isn't our design so aesthetically pleasing, so beautiful and perfectly rock-like? Why, do you realize if the universe was anything other than what it was, we'd all be ugly, soft, fleshy, breakable things made of mostly water? This must prove that there is a Creator!"

And the rest, as they say, is a page right out of history.


Dave

Oolon Colluphid

Hi Sabine!

Sure, if things were different, we wouldn’t be here.

However, if your parents had not met, you wouldn’t be either... but other offspring of them separately might be.

If the meteorite/comet hadn’t hit the earth when it did, maybe dinosaur descendants would be here instead.

Or if conditions were different, maybe different life would have evolved.

Or on another planet... or on none at all.

The point is that organisms evolve to fit their niches. It’s like a mosquito larva being amazed at how well the puddle it’s in fits the hole in the ground. We are here because this planet happens to have the right basic conditions for life of our sort, and we have spent billions of generations getting good at living on it. There are plenty of planets (all those so far discovered, I believe) where conditions are not suitable... and so most likely there is no life on them.

The universe being ‘just right’ doesn’t indicate anything at all. If it were different, perhaps different life, or none, would be here instead.

Well, evolution is about biology, so has nothing to say on matters of cosmology such as these equilibria you refer to. But within biology, who claims evolution engenders perfection? Are you saying that the universe was designed, but that living things were not (and are the product of evolution)? If so, it’s over to the cosmology experts. But if you think living things too were designed and show perfection, I’ve got some news for you...

Cheers, Oolon

Peregrine

I would me inclined to believe in god and accept design if just one of these factors was missing. if this "equilibrium" you speak of didn't exist.