Confronting Friends and Family

[Aractus]

Survival of the individuals. Natural selection applies only to the individuals.

Well then I think you've missed the evidence. Penguins don't selfishly huddle in the middle and let the other individuals of their species freeze to death!

Penguins don't die because of this. If a behavior doesn't kill the individual, it is not against the evolutionary interests of the individual. Feeling cold for a while doesn't prevent the penguins from reproducing.

You've missed the point. The huddle is a feature of the system, not of the individuals. Show me a penguin that can do it on its own! It's not something that's a part of the individual at all, it's a group behaviour, it's a feature of a larger system! You seem to think they came to this behaviour through "trial and error", that's nonsensical. Their behaviour converged because of a force of attraction working though the system.

Correction: We know how evolution works at the level of the individuals. We still have to fully explain how genetics works.

Well that's incorrect, because Evolution isn't concerned with individuals!

You are looking for an "overarching law" that doesn't exist. Biology is a kind of chemistry, which is of course of kind of physics. Thereis no need for "overarching laws" of biology, because natural selectionis the result of the laws of physics.

Actually, I'm certain that it exists, I just don't know what it is. But, that said, I know what it does. It develops life and populations, and behaviours.

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Finally, you're once again assuming that the universe is specifically made for us. The truth is that we're specifically made for this universe.

Even if you don't take the view that the universe is made for us specifically, it is still made for life. Life isn't "made for the universe", you can't just take an arbitrary universe with arbitrary laws and expect life designed for that universe to suddenly pop up.. and even if it does, it would probably die again just as quickly.