Evolution (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 15, 2009, 19:29 (5467 days ago) @ dhw

But perhaps you or someone else could explain the "official" ID line, if there is one. Do they see all this as evidence of their designer deliberately experimenting, or simply of a great evolutionary free-for-all resulting from the mechanism that was set up in the first place? Either way, there doesn't seem to be much sign of a master plan.
> 
I don't think there is an 'official line'. In personal conversation with Behe
I know he believes in some sort of evolutionary process. I've met and listened to Bill Demsbki and Jonathan Wells in their lectures at a seminar I attended. The main theme is that they don't accept Darwin. They feel DNA/RNA is a very complicated coding system with an enormous amount of information that cannot have arisin by chance. They quote Shannon informtion theory in which one can mathematically represent the amount of information in math formulas, ones that I don't know how to interpret myself. - They philosophically accept causation as possibly coming from chance, from necessity and from agency. A recent paper dismissed necessity, gave no credence to chance which left agency and that goes unnamed. Each of the individuals in the group of fellows at Discovery Institute have their own approaches to all of this. - I take what I want from their views and have my own approach. I understand that evolution occurred.There is an agent who is around and active, therefore I am not a deist. I don't think the agent experiments or intervenes, but has set DNA as a production code and RNA as the main agent for adaptation and evolutionary progress. Each development in the past 20 years in science supports my view as the knowledge of the biochemistry of life increases exponentally in complexity. I believe if Darwin were alive today he would not accept his own theory, since there is no evidence of tiny step by step evolutionary development. Fossil animals, as in the Cambrian Explosion, arrive fully developed body plans. Punctuated Equilibrium is a nice name for "Darwin's Theory doesn't work.