Chance v. Design (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 03, 2009, 12:40 (5450 days ago) @ Matt S.

Matt S. has responded to posts by David Turell, George Jelliss and myself. The basic point in dispute seems to be the odds against chemical elements combining by chance to create self-replication plus potential for variation and adaptability. - I'm having great difficulty keeping up with the speed of these posts. I had drafted a reply to yours of 1 June, but logged on to find a string of new ones. This is all extremely stimulating, however, and you will simply have to forgive my tardiness. The little things will keep interfering with the bigger things! - You have asked me to define "chance" and "complex". By chance in the context of the origin of life I mean that the required components randomly linked up without any guiding intelligence, plan, purpose, to form the first replicating molecules. By complex I mean made of interrelated parts that are difficult to unravel, that form a combination difficult to analyse, and in this case that defy all attempts to work out how they could produce what they produced. - In your post to David, you say that "the only faith you can pin on a bona-fide atheist is in a statement that 'god does not exist'." I think this ignores the implications of atheism. One of the major reasons for my not being an atheist is that it excludes the possibility of a guiding intelligence, which in turn entails belief in the power of inanimate matter to make itself animate. I see no way round this. You ask "what do you think you would lose in an explanation that excluded a designer?" I would lose nothing. It is not a matter of gain or loss but of conviction (see below). You also ask what I find special about life. If you were told to design a machine that could reproduce itself, change itself according to different circumstances, reproduce its changes, eventually develop new faculties no-one had ever heard of ... all of this potential enclosed within a grain of matter ... would you know where to begin? All those engaged in this discussion accept to a greater or lesser extent the principles of evolution. The difference between us lies in our attitude towards the origin of the mechanism that led to it. You say it's all "incredibly simple". Other scientists say it's mind-blowingly complicated. The fact is that no-one has yet worked out how it happened. It is certainly not to be compared to ten heads in a row. We are talking, though, of conviction, and I'm simply not convinced that a billion people with no knowledge of science (perhaps it would be better to talk of monkeys rather than people, following the old typewriter analogy) could in a billion years of conscious experimentation produce such a machine. How then can I be convinced that unconscious, drifting globules of matter could produce it over no matter how many billions of years and on no matter how many planets? The fact that "improbable events happen all the time" for me simply ignores the magnitude and the uniqueness of the event we are discussing. - However, like yourself I struggle with the concept of a designer. As you will have gathered from the "brief guide", religious concepts seem to me to defy the evidence we see in the world around us. And although it is absolutely not an argument against design, I acknowledge that design only replaces one mystery with another ... namely, the origin of a designer. And so even the concept of a universal intelligence leaves me unconvinced. In a nutshell, I do not know what to believe. I can only find reasons for not believing. That is why I opened up the forum, to exchange views with people like yourself, David, George and BBella. As you rightly surmised, I am not a scientist. I depend on scientists for my scientific information, but since there is no consensus among them, and since one must always face the possibility that there may be dimensions of existence beyond the reach of science, I do not expect anything definitive from anyone. But, as we agnostics say, you never know... - In your post to George you say that "most people rail against the idea of chance from a position of naivete". I'm delighted that you've joined our forum, and hope that my naivete will not deter you from further discussion!