Auld Soul
Just wanted to remind you that your claims of anything like a credible hypothesis are unfounded whilst you avoid answering questions like;
1/ Evolution does require abiogenesis, but without a theory of abiogenesis (I think it's fair to say we have hypotheses) evolution still works as a theory to explain how various forms of life then arose.
ID requires the designer to get things going AND then to pop up at various points since life began to introduce new species.
Thus it is required to be explained IN the hypothesis, unlike evolution which doesn't need to contain an explanation for abiogenesis. I await your explanation for the designer required throughout the ID theory with interest.
2/ Atavisms such as dolphin limbs and human tails are not credibly explicable as 'inbuilt design variations'.
Humans have no conceivable use for tails; if they do, please let me in on your insight.
Likewise, non-functional limbs are a useless design variation to cope with environmental stress for dolphins.
A decent designer could make 'inbuilt design variation' produce usable features within one generation. Thus your claim atavisms are proof of inbuilt design variation is not credible or logical. Please put me right if this is not the case. Are you prehaps advocating 'not very intelligent design'? A bad designer? I can come up with LOADS of bad design examples in nature.
3/ Genetic evidence points to lines of descent due to the unique 'finger print' of an endoviral infection event being inexplicable by other means; you can't credibly say 'oh, each species caught the endovirus independently' as the genetic evidence of this would be different from that we find in (e.g.) chimps and humans. Thus the evidence fits evolution better than ID. Yes or no? If no, why?
4/ Why do you limit the power of the designer? You seem to believe that a designer of the ilk you speculate is limited to producing a range of 'cars' that can modify themselves to suit 'market forces', but will always remain a Ford Taurus/Dodge Viper etc., and never become a bus, a tractor-trailer, etc. Why can the designer not have the design savvey to set up the very rules so the OUTPUT of the system is what it wanted based upon an initial single design event? I would be interested in an answer.
I think we are missing a more basic question that evolution has never answered: why should anything survive?
You assume there must be a reason. Why are you looking for a reason? There is no WHY. There is only IS.
You insisting for reasons when there need be none illustartes your paradigm and why you have such difficulty accepting a different paradigm - not on the basis of anything to do with the other paradigms validty but on the basis of false expectations generated by the paradigm you use.
Sand doesn't propogate.
No, of course not. This does not mean that self-replicating chemical structures cannot arrise.
Water doesn't propogate.
No, of course not. This does not mean that self-replicating chemical structures cannot arrise.
It is incredibly unlikely that life should have survived at all on this planet.
Is it? You've run several "Earth" experiments where no life has occured? How can you state this as a fact?
You might believe this, but on the basis of the EVIDENCE life HAS arrisen, and if we make as much progress in abiogenesis as we have in evolutionary biology in the next hundred years scientists might be able to satisfy far more people - even those who require a level of proof for scientific theories they are philosophically opposed to they do not require from their own pet hypotheses.
As far as the EVIDENCE goes it is as reasonable to suggest that ANY planet 100% identical to Earth WOULD have life as it is to suggest that it is unlikely another planet 100% identical to Earth would NOT have life.
It has been noted that life has an amazing capacity to adapt in order to survive, but why should it have that capacity?
Because if it did not have that ability it (and us) would not be there to pass that comment or be commented upon.
There is surely no need for life to survive, so why does it seem so plainly driven to do so?
Ha, it's not driven. You have it so wrong it is unbelievable. You are impuning 'life' with motive. 'Life' has no motive. It is just those forms of it that are best at passing design data to succesive generations are those that are around in greater quantities in later generations. IS. Not WHY.
DD
What are the rules by which the selections are made, and where do these rules or laws come from?
You mistake the term 'rules' because of the pharsology implicit in 'law of natural seelction'.
The ONLY rule is 'what particular geneotypes of a population with gene flow that are best at passing on their genotype come to dominate the population with gene flow'.
That comes from logic.
What determines which genotypes are best at passing genes on is VERY variable; from one species it can be the reverse of another.
White giraffes don't get to pass their genes on very often. Dappled ones do. White ones get eaten more.
Peacocks with big fancy tails get to breed. The peahens sexual selection is SO important and decisive in deciding which peacocks get 'laid (ho ho) that something as obvious and inconvenient as a peacock tail that undoubtedly gets some peacocks eaten is less of a barrier to reproductive success as not geting chicks (ho ho). Also, any peacock with a big massive tail that doesn't get eaten is obviously very good at not getting eaten, but that is just a co-incidental benefit. Peahens don;t think it through, LOL.
This coincidental benefit does however mean that the taste in tails of peahens who go for big tails is selected for as they breed with males who pass on good 'not getting eaten genes', and thus in combination produce peacocks with 'big tail + not getting eaten' genes and peahens with 'like big tails + not getting eaten'.
Sorry, I got off onto runaway sexual selection there, but I hope it illustrates that evolution is very NOT random and very, very logical.
By all means ask how certain animals came to be the way they are, and I'll have a go at explaining why that animals characteristics would be successful compared to others.
greendawn
Randomness is like the imperfections in a rock surface that allow someone to climb a seemingly sheer rock wall. It gives the climber (natral selection) something to work with. Of course, the climber in this example cannot be anthropomorhasized, but I'm trying to find a simile that helps you understand. Selection is the driver. Randomness is the petrol. Without variation theres no direction to drive in as there is no movement. Without selection there is no 'direction' to movement.
Now, let's have some good questions that really challange evolutionary theory, like "if intelligence is such a good survival trait how come other animals haven't evolved it like humans"?
