Chance v. Design (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 05, 2009, 08:29 (5479 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George: I thought you had accepted evolution by natural selection? What we are talking about here are the earliest stages of emergence of life. What is required is to show how a transition from simple self-replicating molecules to the earliest known form of life, namely prokaryotes, could occur. Such bacteria do not to my knowledge have organs of hearing, vision, taste or smell. - Round and round we go! I do accept evolution by natural selection, but let me repeat that natural selection is Chapter 2 in the history of life, and only explains survival and improvement, not origins. Chapter 1 is replication and variation, without which there is nothing to select from. We agree that the process must have begun with self-replicating molecules. On that premise there has to be a line leading from those first molecules to prokaryotes and eukaryotes, trilobites and triceratops, jaguars and Jellisses. The changes may have been triggered by chance mutations, collisions or environmental influences (agreed), but they could not have happened if the first self-replicating molecules did not already have the code/information/programming/potential capability ... call it what you will ... for variation. And THIS is where you and I part company. No matter how often you use the word simple, I cannot envisage chance putting together the chemicals that enabled inanimate matter both to replicate itself and to allow for subsequent variations that would survive, let alone be so innovative and beneficial. I accept in principle the process of variations surviving and improving through natural selection, because it seems to me by far the most convincing theory we have, but the original mechanism which sparked off the process must have been so complex in itself that I am unable to believe it could have been the result of an accident. - You go on to say: "The reason chance is a satisfactory explanation is that it is economical." My post of 2 May should have made it clear that I too am unconvinced by all the complications of a theistic explanation, but I do not see any equation between 'satisfactory' and 'economical'. Ockham's razor may apply to many fields, but if a simple explanation leaves a huge gap, and that huge gap requires a leap of faith (not in the theory of evolution but in the theory of abiogenesis), I would not call it 'satisfactory'. That, as I see it, is the major difference between us.