# Evolution Isn't True Because STRING THEORY! (Or something...)

An episode of [Viced Rhino: The Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1536972599), 21 Aug 2026, 26 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74356111/pod_censored_10_questions_skeptics_edition_part_2.mp3

Mike Winger continues with his questions for skeptics livestream, this time (not) answering a question about evolution and vestigial structures. You'll never guess where he ends up...unless you read the title. Cards: There's No Human Sacrifice If I Make Up Details For the Story!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apb755kGXKk Original Video: https://tinyurl.com/2cps8hds Sources: Energy flow and the organization of life: https://tinyurl.com/2czzncgl Life as a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics: https://tinyurl.com/2876sudu Thermodynamics of evolution and the origin of life: https://tinyurl.com/24vve76e Key Building Block for Organic Molecules Discovered in Meteorites: https://tinyurl.com/2yhtju92 Big Mysteries Survey: Physicists' Views on Cosmology, Black Holes, Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity: https://tinyurl.com/2b8s8ev7 Understanding naturalness: https://tinyurl.com/26jeccmm Silicon Valley: An argument for silicon-based life: https://tinyurl.com/24xhqe86 Transfer of Quantum Information and Genesis of Superfluid Vacuum in the Pre-Inflationary Universe: https://tinyurl.com/2868mnfp Vestigial auriculomotor activity indicates the direction of auditory attention in humans: https://tinyurl.com/2nuubay9 The common ancestry of life: https://tinyurl.com/2xnktl95 Why the appendix is much more important than we once thought: https://tinyurl.com/2c94v9ph All my various links can be found here: http://links.vicedrhino.com This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/viced-rhino-the-podcast--4623273/support. All my various links can be found here: http://links.vicedrhino.com This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org

## Transcript

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[0:23] Speaker 2: Today's video is brought to you by surf Shark. Hello
[0:26] Speaker 2: and welcome to my channel Vice Rhino. Here today, I
[0:31] Speaker 2: remembered that I started covering one of Mike Wingers ten
[0:33] Speaker 2: Questions live streams that was specifically asking for skeptic questions,
[0:37] Speaker 2: and then forgot about it after question one. So here
[0:40] Speaker 2: I am to give it another look. I'm not sure
[0:42] Speaker 2: how many of them I'm gonna do, but I do
[0:44] Speaker 2: know for a fact that there's at least a couple that,
[0:46] Speaker 2: should I decide to eventually cover, the whole stream will
[0:48] Speaker 2: be skipped. But number two is not one of them.
[0:51] Speaker 2: So let's take a look at question two. But first
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[2:14] Speaker 3: All right, Andre Kirria has the following question. I have
[2:18] Speaker 3: a coworker that is an atheist. He said that there
[2:21] Speaker 3: are parts of our bodies that are not necessary and
[2:23] Speaker 3: that might prove evolution and not a creator. Any thoughts.
[2:27] Speaker 2: It doesn't bode well for the rest of the stream
[2:29] Speaker 2: that when his first question from an actual person rather
[2:32] Speaker 2: than a prepared question isn't actually from a skeptic, but
[2:35] Speaker 2: from someone who knows a skeptic. But to address the
[2:38] Speaker 2: actual question, this isn't something that would disprove the general
[2:41] Speaker 2: concept of God, just something that disproves the younger creationist
[2:44] Speaker 2: view of God. You.
[2:46] Speaker 3: I have several thoughts on that. First off, personally, I
[2:49] Speaker 3: would want to avoid focusing on evolution with a non
[2:54] Speaker 3: believer and focusing on that topic more for like in
[2:57] Speaker 3: house Christian discussions that it.
[2:59] Speaker 2: Looks like Mike is going to waffle on this one
[3:01] Speaker 2: rather than come out with the stance either four or
[3:02] Speaker 2: against evolution. He's just going to leave a vague so
[3:05] Speaker 2: that he can avoid alienating his followers that fall on
[3:08] Speaker 2: either side of this debate. But it makes him look weak.
[3:11] Speaker 2: He's not willing to take a stand on the side
[3:12] Speaker 2: of reality and just say, yeah, evolution happens and that
[3:15] Speaker 2: doesn't disprove Christianity. He is likely going to say something
[3:18] Speaker 2: along the lines of, well, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't,
[3:22] Speaker 2: I don't know, but either way, it doesn't disprove Christianity,
[3:25] Speaker 2: which to me says that he doesn't accept evolution. Because
[3:29] Speaker 2: the fact of the matter is that denying demonstrable facts
[3:31] Speaker 2: about reality like evolution can only serve to make Christians
[3:35] Speaker 2: look bad. So the only reason to waffle about it
[3:37] Speaker 2: is if you deny evolution and don't want to alienate
[3:40] Speaker 2: the segment of your audience that accepts it.
[3:43] Speaker 3: I know that that's going against the grain, and most
[3:45] Speaker 3: people would not agree with me on that.
[3:46] Speaker 2: Statistically speaking, most Christians believe in evolution, and I'd imagine
[3:51] Speaker 2: that most of them don't actually care much about it
[3:52] Speaker 2: either way. So his saying most people would disagree with
[3:55] Speaker 2: him on that indicates that the circles he's used to
[3:58] Speaker 2: running him contain a whole lot fundamentalist evangelicals who usually
[4:02] Speaker 2: lead with a denial of evolution as a prerequisite per belief.
[4:06] Speaker 3: Maybe I'm wrong, Okay, this is Take this as like,
[4:09] Speaker 3: this guy on the internet has a thought that you
[4:11] Speaker 3: can think about. I would avoid this topic. There are
[4:15] Speaker 3: Christians who believe in evolution and Christians who do not.
[4:18] Speaker 3: And you may say, well, obviously one side is wrong.
[4:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's the side who do not believe in evolution.
[4:24] Speaker 3: That are wrong. I want to focus on the topics
[4:27] Speaker 3: that bring this person to christ. Does that make sense.
[4:31] Speaker 3: One way to do this is to try to draw
[4:33] Speaker 3: out the implications of evolution.
[4:35] Speaker 2: And also he's just trying to have it both ways here.
[4:38] Speaker 2: Evolution doesn't matter one way or the other. But come on,
[4:41] Speaker 2: you don't really believe in that stuff.
[4:43] Speaker 3: Do you? So this is this is true. I've heard
[4:47] Speaker 3: many skeptics say evolution means that you know, we don't
[4:51] Speaker 3: need a god or string theory. If vibrating strings are
[4:55] Speaker 3: really the source of all the matter and everything we
[4:58] Speaker 3: see in the universe, then we don't need a god.
[5:00] Speaker 2: Excuse the fuck out of me. Why are you talking
[5:03] Speaker 2: about string theory in response to a question or evolution? Like,
[5:06] Speaker 2: even if you're going the six kinds of evolution route,
[5:09] Speaker 2: where everything in the universe that both changes and proves
[5:12] Speaker 2: the universe to be old is evolution, it must be
[5:14] Speaker 2: denied string theory is not on that list.
[5:17] Speaker 3: Or the multiverse theory that if you trace back the
[5:21] Speaker 3: origin of the universe to there being just multiple universes,
[5:24] Speaker 3: there's so many universes that surely enough some of them
[5:29] Speaker 3: are going to have the perfect situation for life that
[5:32] Speaker 3: this means we don't need a god.
[5:34] Speaker 2: Sure, and at least this one could fit into the
[5:37] Speaker 2: six kinds of evolution thing. But I would just like
[5:39] Speaker 2: to remind everyone that the question was about vestigial structures
[5:44] Speaker 2: in the body, not string theory or the multiverse.
[5:48] Speaker 3: All of these arguments make the same flaw is they
[5:50] Speaker 3: have an artificial stopping point for their explanatory power.
[5:54] Speaker 2: Hey, Mike, what do you think God is if not
[5:57] Speaker 2: an artificial stopping point. The difference here is that when
[6:00] Speaker 2: an atheist stops at the Big Bang and says we
[6:02] Speaker 2: don't know what came before it, that is an honest
[6:04] Speaker 2: position based on a lack of available data, but taking
[6:08] Speaker 2: it a step further back into the unknown and saying
[6:11] Speaker 2: God is not something that is supported by the data.
[6:14] Speaker 2: So actually, the Big Bang isn't really an artificial stopping point.
[6:18] Speaker 2: It's just the point at which we cannot say with
[6:19] Speaker 2: certainty what came before it. Meanwhile, God absolutely is an
[6:24] Speaker 2: artificial stopping point, but it's also one that you have
[6:26] Speaker 2: to jump to with no good reason.
[6:29] Speaker 3: I don't need to explain where the strings come from,
[6:34] Speaker 3: or I don't need to explain where the multiple universes
[6:36] Speaker 3: come from these infinite universes.
[6:39] Speaker 2: I would be willing to bet a lot of money
[6:41] Speaker 2: that Mike wouldn't be happy about the idea of me
[6:44] Speaker 2: asking him to explain where God comes from, because he
[6:47] Speaker 2: defines God as always having existed and not needing a cause.
[6:50] Speaker 2: You see, and defining it like that means you don't
[6:53] Speaker 2: need to explain it.
[6:55] Speaker 3: I don't need to explain on the evolution question, how
[7:00] Speaker 3: on Earth things were so coincidently put together in a
[7:04] Speaker 3: way that intelligent life would form purely by force of
[7:08] Speaker 3: chemical reactions with no controls.
[7:11] Speaker 2: No controls isn't entirely accurate. The laws of physics act
[7:15] Speaker 2: as controls. As I have pointed out in previous videos,
[7:18] Speaker 2: the development of life is an expected result of the
[7:20] Speaker 2: laws of thermodynamics. Think of a water source at the
[7:23] Speaker 2: top of a smooth, featureless hill. The top of the
[7:25] Speaker 2: hill is the low entropy state, the bottom of the
[7:28] Speaker 2: hill is the high entropy state, and the second law
[7:30] Speaker 2: of thermodynamics ensures that not only will the water always
[7:33] Speaker 2: flow down hill, but it will always do so by
[7:35] Speaker 2: following the path of least resistance. On our hypothetical smooth hill,
[7:38] Speaker 2: no particular path is favored at first, but through natural
[7:42] Speaker 2: randomness present in the movement of the molecules, eventually the
[7:45] Speaker 2: water will start to erode some places more than others.
[7:48] Speaker 2: Once that begins, more of the water will end up
[7:50] Speaker 2: in the eroded channels, causing the rate of erosion to
[7:53] Speaker 2: speed up until distinct pathways are formed. These pathways are
[7:57] Speaker 2: more complex than are perfectly smooth hill, but they allow
[7:59] Speaker 2: the water to get from its initial low entropy state
[8:01] Speaker 2: to the final high entropy state much more efficiently. Thermodynamically speaking,
[8:06] Speaker 2: life is a chemical process that takes relatively low entropy
[8:09] Speaker 2: energy from the Sun and takes it to a high
[8:11] Speaker 2: entropy state much more efficiently than would happen without life.
[8:15] Speaker 2: Life is the eroded channel allowing the water to flow
[8:18] Speaker 2: through it. To rephrase a little, life is the universe's
[8:21] Speaker 2: way of turning sunlight into poop with maximum efficiency. So
[8:24] Speaker 2: there's no controls in the sense that the universe doesn't
[8:27] Speaker 2: actually care which part of the hypothetical hill gets eroded,
[8:30] Speaker 2: but there are controls in the sense that the hill
[8:33] Speaker 2: will get eroded and the channels will form. We just
[8:36] Speaker 2: happen to be the channel that formed in our little
[8:38] Speaker 2: corner of the universe.
[8:40] Speaker 3: That's a big leap, Like if you were to say
[8:44] Speaker 3: our reject evolution and therefore clearly we're designed. Some could
[8:48] Speaker 3: say aliens did it. Then you have to ask where
[8:50] Speaker 3: the aliens come from, because that's artificial stopping point too.
[8:53] Speaker 2: And that tells me that you haven't actually read up
[8:55] Speaker 2: on any of these serious proposals for how life originated.
[8:58] Speaker 2: Because the closest thing to alien did it that it's
[9:00] Speaker 2: actually taken seriously is based on the fact that the
[9:03] Speaker 2: building blocks of life have been found to form spontaneously
[9:05] Speaker 2: on meteoroids while they are in space, and that those
[9:08] Speaker 2: building blocks were able to survive the meteoroid becoming a meteorite, and.
[9:14] Speaker 3: You would eventually get back to God. But let's suppose
[9:17] Speaker 3: that you were to affirm, no, no, no, we really
[9:19] Speaker 3: did evolve. It started with just like big bang boom,
[9:22] Speaker 3: a bunch of hydrogen boom splits up into different kinds
[9:24] Speaker 3: of atoms and chemicals in the universe.
[9:27] Speaker 2: Stop talking, Mike, You're only embarrassing yourself. Hydrogen does not
[9:31] Speaker 2: split up into different types of atoms, it fuses into them.
[9:35] Speaker 2: If you can't even get that basic of a fact right,
[9:38] Speaker 2: then why should I trust that you understand enough about
[9:40] Speaker 2: this topic to actually come to any meaningful conclusion one
[9:43] Speaker 2: way or the other.
[9:45] Speaker 3: And you've got energy and matter in dark matter, and
[9:47] Speaker 3: you've got all this stuff in eividually Sun's form and
[9:49] Speaker 3: planet's form, and then water and two oh.
[9:52] Speaker 2: Again, not to be potantic, Okay, that's a lie. Absolutely
[9:56] Speaker 2: to be pedantic. You know that water is H two
[9:58] Speaker 2: oh right, it's not and H two o H two
[10:02] Speaker 2: oh literally is water now dihydrogen monoxide on the other hand,
[10:07] Speaker 2: is a completely different thing. Am I being too nitpicky here?
[10:11] Speaker 2: Quite possibly, But that is two incredibly basic mistakes within
[10:15] Speaker 2: ten seconds of each other. Remember, he is trying to
[10:18] Speaker 2: explain why all of this means that we should believe
[10:21] Speaker 2: in God. What he is inevitably going to land on
[10:24] Speaker 2: is some form of we don't understand X, therefore it
[10:26] Speaker 2: must have been God. But I would argue that if
[10:29] Speaker 2: your scientific knowledge is limited enough that you find yourself
[10:31] Speaker 2: making mistakes like saying hydrogen splits apart to make other atoms,
[10:35] Speaker 2: or talking about H two O and water like they
[10:37] Speaker 2: are two separate things, then you do not have enough
[10:40] Speaker 2: of an understanding of the topic to actually come to
[10:42] Speaker 2: the conclusion that scientists don't understand it.
[10:45] Speaker 3: And then some chemical reactions happen that go from non
[10:49] Speaker 3: life to life, and then some chemical reactions take place
[10:53] Speaker 3: where that life starts to actually have natural selection going on,
[10:57] Speaker 3: and that eventually continues to develop and grow until we
[11:00] Speaker 3: have intelligent life today. And that it all happened, you
[11:05] Speaker 3: could say by random, but it all happened, Let's be
[11:09] Speaker 3: more specific, based upon the fundamental nature of chemical interactions,
[11:15] Speaker 3: the laws of physics, and the quantities of what materials
[11:22] Speaker 3: are in the universe.
[11:23] Speaker 2: Oh wow, would you look at that? It actually is
[11:26] Speaker 2: possible for an apologist to understand that chemicals interacting as
[11:28] Speaker 2: described by the laws of physics is not a random thing.
[11:32] Speaker 2: At least he understands it when he thinks it'll help
[11:34] Speaker 2: his case.
[11:36] Speaker 3: Those are some really big claims.
[11:38] Speaker 2: Are they, though? Life that is capable of developing in
[11:41] Speaker 2: a universe like ours developed in a universe like ours.
[11:44] Speaker 2: If the universe were different, it's possible that a different
[11:46] Speaker 2: form of life would have developed. It's also possible that
[11:49] Speaker 2: the laws of physics are a brute fact. They cannot
[11:51] Speaker 2: be otherwise, And if they aren't, then regarding the extreme
[11:55] Speaker 2: unlikeliness of our specific universe developing, it's also possible that
[11:58] Speaker 2: there are a potentially infinite number of universes, which means
[12:02] Speaker 2: that there are a bunch of universes similar enough to
[12:04] Speaker 2: ours to support life like ours. Now, please entertain a
[12:08] Speaker 2: hypothetical form me here, Mike. If there were no God,
[12:11] Speaker 2: then in which of these universes would we expect to
[12:14] Speaker 2: find life like ours? In the ones that can support it?
[12:18] Speaker 2: And while I wouldn't make the same basic mistakes that
[12:20] Speaker 2: Mike has here. The fact of the matter is that
[12:23] Speaker 2: there are people whose knowledge of these subjects make mine
[12:25] Speaker 2: look as pathetic as Mike's by comparison, and most of
[12:28] Speaker 2: them fall on my side of this particular issue. In
[12:31] Speaker 2: a survey of members of the American Physical Society, twenty
[12:34] Speaker 2: six percent of respondents believe that the laws and constants
[12:36] Speaker 2: of the universe are brute facts that need no explanation.
[12:40] Speaker 2: Sixteen percent believe they are set by a principle, and
[12:42] Speaker 2: twenty percent believe that they are the result of anthropic
[12:44] Speaker 2: selection in a multiverse. Only nine percent believe that they
[12:47] Speaker 2: are the result of intelligent design, which is the second
[12:50] Speaker 2: least popular opinion. The only option that it be was
[12:53] Speaker 2: that they are explained by a Darwinian process, which I
[12:56] Speaker 2: think is really funny, even how frequently this gets lumped
[12:59] Speaker 2: in with biological evolution by apologists like Mike.
[13:03] Speaker 3: How can I you know, we get the watchmaker explanation
[13:05] Speaker 3: that some people have. It's like, if you know, if
[13:07] Speaker 3: you see a watch, there's a watch maker, even if
[13:09] Speaker 3: you show me that the watch, Like let's say a watch,
[13:13] Speaker 3: the watch was a result of a random explosion where
[13:16] Speaker 3: a bunch of material that was all I don't know,
[13:19] Speaker 3: iron or something. It blew up and then it just
[13:22] Speaker 3: sort of fell together in just the right way to
[13:25] Speaker 3: create a watch. And someone say, Mike, you've skipped natural
[13:27] Speaker 3: selection and you've skipped biologically. Yeah, I get that, but
[13:29] Speaker 3: try to follow the analogy. I'm not making analogy about
[13:31] Speaker 3: those things.
[13:32] Speaker 2: I am following the analogy. I wasn't about to talk
[13:34] Speaker 2: about natural selection because you were talking about the origin
[13:37] Speaker 2: of the universe. If you think you got to natural
[13:40] Speaker 2: selection somehow, then you're not being entirely clear about what
[13:43] Speaker 2: you're trying to analogize. So maybe just finish your analogy
[13:46] Speaker 2: before responding to criticisms that aren't being made yet.
[13:53] Speaker 3: Would you not say, Wow, an explosion led to that.
[13:58] Speaker 3: That seems like a very carefully engine explosion. I mean,
[14:00] Speaker 3: how amazing you have to be to make an explosion
[14:03] Speaker 3: that results in that.
[14:05] Speaker 2: Okay, So his analogy is to the Big Bang, which
[14:08] Speaker 2: wasn't actually an explosion and wasn't what set the constants
[14:11] Speaker 2: and the laws.
[14:11] Speaker 3: Of the universe.
[14:12] Speaker 2: It was itself constrained by those things. So it's an
[14:15] Speaker 2: analogy that doesn't actually analogize the thing that he's trying
[14:19] Speaker 2: to yay, But.
[14:22] Speaker 3: The universe is more intense than that because some of
[14:25] Speaker 3: the factors that are involved here. And this is what
[14:27] Speaker 3: I want the atheist evolutionists to consider, is the amount
[14:31] Speaker 3: of material in the universe matters. The rate that the
[14:36] Speaker 3: explosion happens really really matters. Right, if it happens too
[14:40] Speaker 3: fast or too slow, we don't get our universe.
[14:42] Speaker 2: I'm going to skip ahead of it. Yes, all that,
[14:44] Speaker 2: it matters quite a bit. It's not as precise as
[14:47] Speaker 2: the apologist would have you believe, but even if it were,
[14:49] Speaker 2: I would draw your attention back to the fact that
[14:51] Speaker 2: the experts, really, really smart people who study this overwhelmingly
[14:56] Speaker 2: think that the reason for this is not intelligent design.
[15:00] Speaker 2: Its remain options were again One, they are brute facts
[15:03] Speaker 2: that need no explanation. They are what they are and
[15:05] Speaker 2: cannot be otherwise. So to talk about odds or chances
[15:08] Speaker 2: as meaningless. There was one option, So the chances of
[15:10] Speaker 2: that being the one are one hundred percent. Two anthropic
[15:13] Speaker 2: selection in a multiverse, which is the whole. There are
[15:16] Speaker 2: potentially infinite universes, so life arises in those universes in
[15:19] Speaker 2: which it is possible for life to arise. Thing, and
[15:22] Speaker 2: three the values are set by a principle such as
[15:24] Speaker 2: the naturalness principle, which is the idea that a given
[15:26] Speaker 2: quantum field theory might only describe nature at energies below
[15:30] Speaker 2: a certain scale or cut off a statement that I'm
[15:32] Speaker 2: not going to even pretend to understand. My point is
[15:35] Speaker 2: that the people who actually do understand this are overwhelmingly
[15:40] Speaker 2: of the opinion that a God is not a necessary
[15:42] Speaker 2: part of the explanation for why the laws and constants
[15:44] Speaker 2: of the universe are what they are.
[15:47] Speaker 3: The table had to be set in such an intricate
[15:49] Speaker 3: way for life to exist on this planet that just
[15:52] Speaker 3: saying we evolved does not answer the.
[15:54] Speaker 2: Question correct, but neither to saying God none did it.
[15:59] Speaker 2: In fact, I would argue that using God as an
[16:01] Speaker 2: explanation when you hit a wall will stop you from
[16:03] Speaker 2: learning things. If we really wanted to, either of us
[16:06] Speaker 2: could learn a great deal about the naturalness principle and
[16:09] Speaker 2: come to understand it. Maybe not as well as the experts,
[16:12] Speaker 2: but at least enough that I wouldn't have to make
[16:14] Speaker 2: light of the fact that I don't even understand a
[16:15] Speaker 2: basic explanation of it. For me, I won't because there's
[16:19] Speaker 2: so many other things I'd rather spend my time on
[16:21] Speaker 2: but Mike won't because then there would be fewer gaps
[16:23] Speaker 2: in his knowledge for him to stuff God into. That is,
[16:26] Speaker 2: assuming his interest in the subject is genuine and not
[16:29] Speaker 2: just apologetic posturing, because honestly, if he were to take
[16:32] Speaker 2: the subject and acknowledge that he knows nothing about it
[16:35] Speaker 2: and so not use it one way or the other
[16:37] Speaker 2: regarding the question of God's existence, then I'd have a
[16:39] Speaker 2: lot more respect for him. But remember, if you want
[16:42] Speaker 2: to doubt the existence of God, then you have to
[16:45] Speaker 2: be an expert in every field so that you can
[16:47] Speaker 2: answer every question that an apologist might have. If the
[16:50] Speaker 2: answer is I don't know that, that means it must
[16:52] Speaker 2: be God. But if you believe in God, then you
[16:55] Speaker 2: don't have to know jack about you.
[16:58] Speaker 3: You then have to ask what on Earth can explain
[17:04] Speaker 3: such a particular set of circumstances that it allowed intelligent
[17:09] Speaker 3: life to happen through chemical reactions like what made a
[17:12] Speaker 3: hydrogen atom that shape?
[17:14] Speaker 2: And then if you, most likely a layman who study
[17:17] Speaker 2: of physics ended in high school at the latest, can't
[17:19] Speaker 2: give a detailed explanation worthy of publication in Nature physics,
[17:23] Speaker 2: then the only reasonable conclusion is that God did it,
[17:26] Speaker 2: never mind that Mike is also incapable of explaining any
[17:29] Speaker 2: equivalent concepts to the same degree. You only need to
[17:32] Speaker 2: be an expert if you're questioning God, but if you're
[17:34] Speaker 2: advocating for God, that all you need to do is
[17:38] Speaker 2: not know the answers to some of the questions so
[17:40] Speaker 2: that you can then use God as the answer instead.
[17:43] Speaker 3: What made what made the carbon atoms? This perfect environment
[17:49] Speaker 3: for life to end up developing? Carbon based life doesn't
[17:53] Speaker 3: really work with anything else.
[17:54] Speaker 2: Again, it's the anthropic principle. Our universe works for the
[17:58] Speaker 2: development of carbon based life. Carbon based life developed in it.
[18:01] Speaker 2: If the universe worked differently, then potentially life would have
[18:04] Speaker 2: developed differently.
[18:06] Speaker 3: Silicon based life and all. That's all good sci fi,
[18:08] Speaker 3: but it doesn't work to my knowledge.
[18:09] Speaker 2: The reason silicon based life is a concept in sci
[18:12] Speaker 2: fi is because silicon behaves very much like carbon in
[18:15] Speaker 2: a lot of ways, and so in this universe that
[18:17] Speaker 2: we already live in, it seems like a decent alternative
[18:20] Speaker 2: molecule for life to be based on. There are plenty
[18:22] Speaker 2: of issues that make it extremely unlikely, but again, these issues,
[18:26] Speaker 2: as well as its similarities to carbon, are because of
[18:29] Speaker 2: the laws of physics in our universe. In a different
[18:32] Speaker 2: universe with different laws of physics, it could very well
[18:35] Speaker 2: be a different molecule that makes up the chemical backbone
[18:37] Speaker 2: for life. And this is kind of the crux of
[18:39] Speaker 2: the anthropic principle. The universe looks like it's capable of
[18:42] Speaker 2: sustaining life like ours, because life like ours is what
[18:45] Speaker 2: evolved in this universe. If the universe had been different,
[18:48] Speaker 2: so would life if it developed at all.
[18:51] Speaker 3: I would want to push them on their own worldview
[18:53] Speaker 3: and show that their own beliefs about the universe already
[18:55] Speaker 3: point to God. And if they go, well, multiverse, and
[18:58] Speaker 3: they go what makes all those universes?
[19:00] Speaker 2: And no matter what the answer, there will always be
[19:02] Speaker 2: more questions which Mike will always answer with God, rather
[19:06] Speaker 2: than even considering the possibility that he's just wrong.
[19:09] Speaker 3: Well, I don't know, like some of the universe making
[19:11] Speaker 3: machine or something.
[19:12] Speaker 2: How about a pre inflationary state of a soup of
[19:14] Speaker 2: quantum particles in superposition. Your unwillingness to learn what cosmologists
[19:18] Speaker 2: actually think on the matter in order to continue being
[19:20] Speaker 2: able to answer with God does not help your case. Also,
[19:24] Speaker 2: mandatory caveat that the pre inflationary quantum superposition thing is
[19:28] Speaker 2: one hypothesis among many, because the actual answer at this
[19:31] Speaker 2: time is we don't know, but there is no indication
[19:34] Speaker 2: of God.
[19:35] Speaker 3: You keep getting back to god string theory, okay, and
[19:39] Speaker 3: where did the strings come from? You need some eternal
[19:41] Speaker 3: uncaused thing, no matter what you start with.
[19:45] Speaker 2: Okay, why could the pre inflationary quantum soup not be
[19:49] Speaker 2: the eternal uncaused thing.
[19:51] Speaker 3: And that's where I would go with that. As far
[19:54] Speaker 3: as vestigial body parts, which you asked about, andre Ah.
[19:58] Speaker 2: Right, I forgot. This was actually a question about vestigial
[20:01] Speaker 2: structures in the body, and somehow that got us to
[20:04] Speaker 2: string theory.
[20:04] Speaker 3: In the Big Bang, he said, there are parts of
[20:07] Speaker 3: our bodies that are not necessary and that might prove
[20:09] Speaker 3: evolution and not a creator. Losing body parts would demonstrate
[20:14] Speaker 3: evolution in the sense of some change happening, right, Yes.
[20:19] Speaker 2: For instance, my usual go to example is the muscles
[20:21] Speaker 2: around our ears that attempt to rotate our ears towards
[20:24] Speaker 2: sounds that we hear, but fail to actually do so.
[20:26] Speaker 2: Given that we don't have rotating ears.
[20:29] Speaker 3: Loss loss of body parts, it could demonstrate some change happening.
[20:34] Speaker 3: That's not the same as saying we all have the
[20:36] Speaker 3: same common ancestor. That's a huge leap.
[20:39] Speaker 2: Correct, But it's a huge leap that is supported by
[20:41] Speaker 2: mountains of evidence, such as the universality of the genetic code.
[20:44] Speaker 2: The genetic code is the set of rules that turn
[20:46] Speaker 2: the information and coded in a genetic material into proteins.
[20:49] Speaker 2: It's the code on table. Three base pairs translate into
[20:52] Speaker 2: one amino acid, and the sequence of amino acids dictates
[20:55] Speaker 2: the shape of the protein. There is no biological reason
[20:58] Speaker 2: why every organism show would make use of the same
[21:01] Speaker 2: genetic code, so the fact that they all do is
[21:03] Speaker 2: a pretty good indication that the reason we do is
[21:06] Speaker 2: because we all inherited it from a common ancestor. There's
[21:08] Speaker 2: also the conserved genes, genes that perform some of the
[21:11] Speaker 2: most basic cellular functions and which can be found in
[21:14] Speaker 2: any organism you care to look at, from bacteria of
[21:16] Speaker 2: mushrooms to mammals and everything in between. Sure, it is
[21:20] Speaker 2: possible that God just decided to make us all with
[21:22] Speaker 2: the same genetic code, but honestly, I think it would
[21:25] Speaker 2: be better evidence for God if every organism use the
[21:28] Speaker 2: same genetic code except for humans. That would pretty definitively
[21:32] Speaker 2: put to rest the idea that we evolve from common
[21:33] Speaker 2: ancestors with the other animals. But now we instead see
[21:37] Speaker 2: a universal genetic code that could be designed by a creator,
[21:41] Speaker 2: but fits so perfectly with every other aspect of evolution
[21:45] Speaker 2: that it renders God an unnecessary part of the equation.
[21:49] Speaker 3: And it's not the same as saying that abiogenesis takes place.
[21:51] Speaker 3: These are just very different categories.
[21:53] Speaker 2: Correct Again, Mike is aware that evolution and a biogenesis
[21:56] Speaker 2: are two separate things. Way too many apologists are willing
[21:59] Speaker 2: to bring up things that we don't know about abiogenesis
[22:02] Speaker 2: in their case against evolution, and it does get rather
[22:05] Speaker 2: tiresome explaining that abiogenesis is a different thing from evolution. So,
[22:09] Speaker 2: while I am still unsure of how Mike ended up
[22:11] Speaker 2: on the string theory in the response to a question
[22:13] Speaker 2: about evolution, at least he knows this distinction.
[22:16] Speaker 3: But I really wouldn't want to argue with him about it.
[22:18] Speaker 3: You could say, well, hey, they foun out that the appendix
[22:20] Speaker 3: really has a purpose and a lot of the vestigial items,
[22:24] Speaker 3: which means like evolutionary leftovers, actually do have functions and
[22:27] Speaker 3: purposes in humankind.
[22:29] Speaker 2: Using vestigial structures as evidence for evolution does not require
[22:32] Speaker 2: the vestigial structure to be completely devoid of purpose, as
[22:36] Speaker 2: appears to be the case with their ear muscles. It
[22:38] Speaker 2: merely requires evidence that the structure is no longer being
[22:40] Speaker 2: used for a purpose that it would have had in
[22:42] Speaker 2: our ancestors. So for the appendix, it was originally an
[22:45] Speaker 2: extension of the secum that acted as a fermentation chamber
[22:48] Speaker 2: to help our ancestors digest tough plant matter that was
[22:50] Speaker 2: rich in cellulose. It lost this function as our diet diversified,
[22:54] Speaker 2: but it has picked up a couple of other functions,
[22:56] Speaker 2: such as regulating the gut microbiome and contributing to the
[22:59] Speaker 2: maturation of some certain types of white blood cells during
[23:01] Speaker 2: the development of an infant's immune system. And therein lies
[23:04] Speaker 2: the problem with Mike's objection to vestigial features. We are
[23:07] Speaker 2: not losing the appendix. Its function is shifting. It's evolving,
[23:11] Speaker 2: one might say. People who oppose evolution usually don't accept
[23:14] Speaker 2: the idea that new functions can evolve, but their objections
[23:17] Speaker 2: to vestigial features usually rely on the fact that these
[23:20] Speaker 2: features have evolved their way from one function to a
[23:23] Speaker 2: different one.
[23:25] Speaker 3: Also, losing things like losing the use of your wisdom
[23:28] Speaker 3: teeth doesn't prove improvement, it just proves change.
[23:33] Speaker 2: But we're losing our wisdom teeth because our jaws changed
[23:36] Speaker 2: to adapt to our diet and environment. We don't need big,
[23:39] Speaker 2: strong jaws like the other great apes anymore. So our
[23:41] Speaker 2: jaws got smaller to better fit with what we eat,
[23:44] Speaker 2: which is an improvement, except the result is that we
[23:47] Speaker 2: now have too many teeth to fit into our new
[23:49] Speaker 2: and improved jaws. So we are now seeing more and
[23:52] Speaker 2: more people who are just born without wisdom teeth, reducing
[23:55] Speaker 2: the need for surgical intervention to remove them. I'd say
[23:57] Speaker 2: that that is an improvement that So for this one,
[24:01] Speaker 2: today's comment to the day comes just from hiding in public,
[24:03] Speaker 2: who says, I just realized you came out as by
[24:06] Speaker 2: or Pan years after making your channel icon a furry.
[24:09] Speaker 2: My first assumption is that any person representing themselves as
[24:11] Speaker 2: a furry cannot be wholly heterosexual. Did this ever cross
[24:14] Speaker 2: your mind before coming out or even realizing it yourself. Well,
[24:17] Speaker 2: as far as I can tell, the difference between me
[24:19] Speaker 2: and an actual furry is that I don't actually do
[24:23] Speaker 2: any of the furry stuff. The rhino isn't my persona.
[24:25] Speaker 2: I don't go to the conventions. I don't have an
[24:27] Speaker 2: interest in art involving anthropmorphic animals any more than any
[24:30] Speaker 2: other art. And I landed on a rhino because I'm
[24:33] Speaker 2: bad at coming up with usernames, so I typed Eric
[24:35] Speaker 2: Hovind into an anagram generator and saw vice rhino as
[24:38] Speaker 2: a top result. Thought it was kind of neat, so
[24:40] Speaker 2: went with that rather than looking for anything better. So No,
[24:43] Speaker 2: representing myself as a furry wasn't a clue for me,
[24:46] Speaker 2: because that's not what I was trying to do. It
[24:48] Speaker 2: was actually more of an I don't care if people
[24:50] Speaker 2: think I'm a furry thing. Come to think of it,
[24:52] Speaker 2: it might be the other way around, rather than I'm
[24:54] Speaker 2: representing myself as a furry, therefore I might not be
[24:57] Speaker 2: entirely straight. It's more I'm not entirely straight, so I'm
[25:00] Speaker 2: actually okay with people thinking I'm a furry, and of
[25:02] Speaker 2: course mandatory caveat that. Well, many furries are LGBTQ. I'm
[25:06] Speaker 2: sure there are straight ones as well, just as I'm
[25:09] Speaker 2: sure there are at least a couple of IT professionals
[25:11] Speaker 2: who are not furries. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to
[25:14] Speaker 2: go to serf shark dot com slash rhyino for an
[25:15] Speaker 2: extra four months for free. I'll be back next Friday
[25:17] Speaker 2: with more, but if you need to get your Ryo
[25:18] Speaker 2: fix in before then, I live stream of service every
[25:20] Speaker 2: Wednesday eight thirty Eastern on my other channel, The Watering Hole.
[25:22] Speaker 2: Thanks to Piper for being my editor, and special thanks
[25:24] Speaker 2: as always to my patrons, who are the quantum soup
[25:26] Speaker 2: that existed before the universe that is my channel. If
[25:29] Speaker 2: you'd like to sound more delicious than you actually are,
[25:31] Speaker 2: you can join us on Patreon for as little as
[25:33] Speaker 2: a dollar per week over at patreon dot com, slash
[25:34] Speaker 2: vice Rhino, or by supporting the channel and one of
[25:36] Speaker 2: the other methods that can be found at linkst viceround
[25:38] Speaker 2: dot com, which is also where you'll find links to
[25:40] Speaker 2: my other projects. If for whatever reason, you want to
[25:42] Speaker 2: send me stuff, my pobox addresses in the description see
[25:44] Speaker 2: and next time.

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