>"God did it" accounts perfectly for every possible measurement
Yes, but it is a very poor explanation.
There are an infinite number of theories that are consistent with the data. But, it turns out, only one that is both consistent with the data and a good explanation.
Well, in the context of this discussion, the appropriate people to ask are scientists. You won't find many peer reviewed scientific papers advancing "God did it" as a serious hypothesis.
Except "scientists" didn't come around until 1833 (etymologically speaking). Before that the people doing the work were natural philosophers—which goes back to the original post of mine that kicked off this sub-thread: that there are certain metaphysical assumptions that you have to make before you start thinking you can explain the cosmos (kosmos, κόσμος).
> Except "scientists" didn't come around until 1833 (etymologically speaking).
What difference does that make? The correct people to ask about this today are the people who are doing science today. The label you choose to attach to those people is irrelevant.
> there are certain metaphysical assumptions that you have to make before you start thinking you can explain the cosmos
Friend, you know some people -- it is a small number even if you are a popular fellow. But let's say, for fun, that you know millions or even billions of living people.
These people, if pressed beyond a superficial level of conformity, would disagree _with one another_ on many points of _dogma_. They would mostly agree to practical compromise with one another and with reality. Doors open, Time passes, flame cooks food, arrows pierce flesh, machines must be repaired with new parts... and let's not fly hijacked aircraft into buildings to defend $ourdeity.
In short, these lots of people don't really agree very much among themselves. And some will kill others if they _believe_ enough. There isn't much uniformity of considered opinion among most people, but there is a good deal of pragmatism in action, if not in _word_.
> certainly more than half of humans who have lived
This argument is a sort of speculative vote by dead parliamentarians. And most of these parliamentarians couldn't even write or do high-school math.
The current living human population is larger than any that we can reasonably assume to have existed before. Let's assume that a parliament of 8 billion Homo sapiens is a sufficient indicator of diversity of superstition and practicality.
Other genus Homo may have been different, but Homo sapiens may _believe_ and or say just about anything. Homo sapiens is a practical animal that functions rather well given the mix of under-utilised rational capacity and noodles inside its head.
But it is clear that nonsense abounds in the human mind.
"God did it" accounts perfectly for every possible measurement, where any theory at best approximates our results. Yet, we reject that at the outset.