If ice didn't float, life as we know it wouldn't be possible anywhere in the universe. (It doesn't exclude life that doesn't require water, though—if that's possible.)
Ice freezing and sinking would be an issue on earth, but the habitable zone extends much closer to the sun than the earth because extremophiles can survive up to at least 122 C.
Similarly a denser atmosphere more eventually distributes temperature so planets don’t actually need to have very high surface temperatures to avoid water freezing.
> If ice didn't float, life as we know it wouldn't be possible anywhere in the universe.
I cheerfully propose this is evidence of a hacked universe. More specifically that there was a design flaw in the core structures and that water got tweaked as a band-aid - rather than rip the germ-code apart and rewrite it.
subscript: my premise requires a fallible creator. the most interesting kind, imho
Evidence and a clue are very different. Just because a scientific hypothesis us incorrect, or there is no explanation, does not mean that alternatives must be right.
Eg: disproving darwinism does not mean creationism is correct. Just that darwinism is flawed. You have to affirmatively prove alternative theories, can't just disprove something else and claim that makes you right. Yet more, creationism is not falsifiable, that's outside the scope of science. In the realm of faith, clues are taken as evidence, and this is where I quibble with you if we are talking science fact.
My apologies for not rebutting your original statements as directly as I could. I am trying to understand better why your comment gave me a relatively visceral reaction.
I think the reason is that it feels somewhat common to see the realm of science as complementary to religion. There is tension for sure there. As a given, religion attempts to essentially explain everything. Therefore when science begins to explain more and more, religion explains less and less.
To that extent, how exactly is something working in a way we do not understand actually evidence of anything? Perhaps understanding more would finally be evidence for why exactly water freezes - but nothing more.
Last point, the logic is flawed. Seemingly you are conveying an implication relationship (ie: if A, then B) - notably: because physics & chemistry were hacked, life can exist. Looking at the truth table of the implication relationship [1], the latter being true, that life exists, the relationship no longer guarantees the former proposition (that physics and chemistry were hacked) to also be true. Which means we could equally say "because so much time passed things lined up - therefore life could exist."
The key is, you have to figure out why the preposition (ie: A, that physics & chemistry were hacked) is independently true of life existing. In other words, independent of life existing, you must prove that physics and chemistry were hacked in order for that to be evidence of why life exists. Otherwise, using the existence of life as evidence of a hacked chemistry & physics is circular reasoning.
Given that life exists, and life requiring improbable actualities, those actualities existing are not evidence. We are very lucky, we live in a geological era at a specific location of the universe that has hit the jackpot of actualities to allow life to be sustained.
I might be mildly autistic, I'm not sure how to say this more cheerfully.. but no - the fact water behaves slightly differently is not evidence for intelligent design. What's more, there can never be evidence for intelligent design because it is a non-falsifiable assertion. It is faith.
This just feels familiar to the intelligent design vs evolution debate. The idea being that if 'evolution' can be shown to be false, then intelligent design is true. First, intelligent design is not science, it is faith - it cannot be shown to be false and therefore a prime requirement of a scientific hypothesis fails. Further, if evolution is false in the end, then it does not mean intelligent design is correct, it just means we have no clue - we only are left with more questions and fewer answers.
What's the reasoning here? You think that life would not have survived ice ages if ice didn't float? Life would probably have adapted even if the oceans froze bottom-up with deep sea "snow" no? It could even have led to a more consistent global temperature as the albedo of earth didn't change through colder periods.
Similarly a denser atmosphere more eventually distributes temperature so planets don’t actually need to have very high surface temperatures to avoid water freezing.