It is pure hubris to say any of us truly understands the universe.Our science has made great progress, but even our most advanced scientists admit they don't understand what's really going on. We do not evolve as individuals, we evolve as groups & societies. The ability to observe, to analyze, to understand differences & similarities, to experiment, to invent has been a great evolutionary advantage. The development of language & symbol, including manipulation of mathematical symbols, has given us great survival value as societies, which has fostered our survival as groups & individuals.

Progress & learning in children & society has often come about by play. Certain individuals have been motivated to "play", to get involved in activities that have no immediate practical benefit, but have helped develop capacities that have long term survival value. Conditions change naturally through climate & resources, but human activity often brings about change. The group with the greatest repertoire of potential adaptive behavior has the greatest chance of surviving change . The post seems to imply only immediate practical adaptation has any real value & knowledge can be "excessive". This narrative seems a very narrow "bean counter" view of what evolution is all about.

This especially holds now when we are becoming cyborgs in a symbiotic relationship with our technology. If you have a smart phone in your pocket, you have much more computing power than NASA had to send astronauts to the moon. Quantum mechanics may seem the play thing of a few woo-woo scientists, but the society that develops effective quantum computers will have enormous survival value against other societies.

We face adaptive challenges that can easily wipe the human race from the face of the earth--climate change, nuclear proliferation, population explosion. Solving these existential challenges depends on our courage & willingness to evolve

So our real task is not to understand the universe, it will take care of itself, but to understand ourselves & hopefully avoid catastrophe.

I don't try to understand it, others spend their lifetimes doing that for me for which I am eternally grateful. I want to learn about it and enjoy my life that has been given to me by this universe, until the day of my demise.

So much of human knowlege is accessible on my iphone. I think cybernetics will completely change what humanity is capable of imagining and understanding. If we are not exterminated first.

Actually, intelligence CAN be accounted for by standard evolutionary theory. As "Naked Apes" were ill equipped to deal with the natural environment, it was the intelligent ones and their descendants who were intellectually most able to overcome the environment, that fared best. Of course, man being a communal species, it was not necessary for everyone to be intelligent to survive, and now that most natural impediments have been surmounted, one can be a complete moron and not only survive, but survive quite nicely, which is most fortuitous for the likes of me. So no, natural theologists do not have a valid point in arguing that "such an excess of knowledge cannot be accounted for by standard evolutionary theory". And it should be noted that intelligence and knowledge are not the same thing. Intelligence is the ability to use the knowledge you have acquired.
"Intelligence in the normal range is a polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced by more than one gene, more specifically, over 500 genes, and is thought to be 50% to 80% genetic in origin."
[en.wikipedia.org]
[sciencemag.org]

Do you mean that none of us will ever completely understand the universe and its infinite complexity? If you didn't, you should have.

There has been a selection pressure for inventiveness, curiosity and sensitivity. Because of those traits maybe mankind developed religion, art, technology and science.

Despite science, I feel that our understanding of the universe is only superficial. Those mathematical models are beautiful, and they partially describe the way things are, but they don’t tell us why things are the way they are. That is because our minds are locked in a sub-realm of reality and the perception needed for survival in that sub-realm is not true vision.

Another issue is that “selection pressure” idea—I’m not convinced that evolution is driven by selection pressure alone. Selection pressure plays a role for sure, but I don’t think the selection is always rote and mindless. There’s an element of intelligence involved IMO.

No one understands quantum mechanics. Show me someone who claims to and I will show you a liar.

Fossil records show that our evolution to higher inteligence was extremely rapid and the cause of this evolution is proposed to be things like social development, our tendancies to migrate, rapid climate swings, and a rapidly changing food supply.
[google.com]

One theory is that because a child would not know what type of world they would find themselves in, they couldn't have a set stimulus/reaction type of mind most common in nature. Thus being able to think abstractly and understand novel concepts became necessary for survival.

It's also important to note that humans and other primates are not the only organisms capable of math.
[bbc.com]

I don't see anything that unbelievable about the advanced mathematical capabilities of some humans given our ability to learn such a broad range of skills.

For me my knowledge of the universe and my perception of it is in a state of perpetual change which is also a good song by YES. And there you are.

I can't explain how self awareness evolved but it did. What was the evolutionary recipe of environment and biology enabled this? No idea. But that's why we can understand the universe.

No one really understands the Universe, not even the best quantum physicists. We simply do our best to understand and explain the data we observe through theoretical models. A thousand years from now, if we survive, our current understanding of the Universe will no doubt seem quite primitive. As for natural theologists, that is a nonsensical argument. What in evolutionary theory prohibits us from developing observational and analytical skills which no doubt gave us a considerable survival advantage in the survival of the fittest? What in evolutionary theory says we have to be dumb and ignorant to survive?

Who in the world says the problem of humanity is that we have an "excess of knowledge"? Seems to me that the world in general suffers from a lack of knowledge. Just one example is that that we are destroying ourselves through climate change, and some of us don't even acknowledge it is happening. Call that smart and knowledgeable? And how much do the theologians say that we are "supposed" to know, with more after that becoming excessive? And at exactly what point in our history did our knowledge past this boundary line and become excessive? Can they name a year? Absurd.

Some people just cannot or will not think outside the box. Let your mind wander free.

I think the very fact that we can even come up with such ideas shows our capacity to step outside our own mind/body limits. A well known philosopher, Ken Wilbur, [markmanson.net] once explained evolution as being in stages and one top stage the noosphere [en.wikipedia.org] "The noosphere represents the highest stage of biospheric development, its defining factor being the development of man-kinds rational activities." We are starting to learn that we may not be alone in this level of evolution and some higher sentient beings may also have it. The big problem to me is that when it starts to have little value we resort back to our baser instincts. Right now the competition for a shrinking resource base is doing just that and this level of human evolution will end.

“There has been a selection pressure for inventiveness, curiosity and sensitivity. Because of those traits maybe mankind developed religion, art, technology and science.”

• WilliamFleming

Why some are more inclined than others? I don't know. I do find that fascinating though.

Nobody understands the universe which is why we have so many names of things followed closely with the word "theory."

I have a few thousand of them.

I understand the universe in the limited manner in which it has been presented to us. Only recently have we been able to get half way decent pictures and I'm sure that in time all this will change and we will have a new model of things.

Because some have an over-inflated sense of ego and only consider what they can perceive with no thought about what they can’t.

I suggest it is delusional

None of us understands any of it. we appear to have awareness which extends from our ability to agree about what we observe. This often instigates a sense of knowledge and therefor understanding. But, it ain't so.

The Universe is not complicated - Infinite time and space, with matter interacting at a constant rate.
The Universe did not have a beginning - its always been here.

We understand what we do about universe due to science. Science is learning something new all the time. People use to say god did, then science proved it was natural.

The average I.Q. for humans is only 100. Those below and those nearby, do not have the capability to understand the universe. It takes superior intelligence to understand complicated things. I.Q. level appears (to me at least), to be random chance, not directly related to the intelligence of the parents and not found in all the siblings.