Contingent evolution (Introduction)

by GateKeeper , Wednesday, June 25, 2014, 19:03 (3804 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: I simply want to know what the evidence is for the assumption that the process is founded in random chance.
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> > DHW: Firstly, I make no such assumption. I'm pointing out that the researchers' findings are open to both interpretations. From my position on the fence, I'm not prepared to make a judgement either way. However, I'm happy to put the case for random chance, though not in the sense of random mutations, which I do not believe in. The cellular mechanisms (origin unknown) which allow organisms to adapt and innovate operate according to the demands or opportunities presented by random changes in the environment. Individual organisms may have the purpose of survival, but there is no apparent overall purpose to link the vast variety of plants and animals that have come and gone throughout the history of the evolutionary bush. In that sense, evolution is founded on the randomness with which a changing environment determines which organisms will and will not survive, depending on whether they are able to adapt and/or innovate appropriately. May I in turn ask you what the evidence is for the assumption that this process has a purpose?
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> I didn't think YOU made the assumption of random chance, but that is the underlying assumption of evolution. If it fails, the theory fails. 
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> In my personal view, I don't have to make assumptions about the bushiness of the "evolutionary" shrubbery. Instead, I can look at creatures and understand both form and function, and discern purpose. A bird helps spread seeds, maintains insect populations, spreads fertilizer, and yet is beautiful with a sweet song. Worms aerate and fertilize the soil. The 'evolutionary bush' of plant life server to maintain the balance in both the soil and atmosphere, each taking and giving different things, they help provide essential weather patterns, provide food, housing, and nourishment to man and animal alike. I could go on all day. 
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> The evidence for purpose is the signal in the noise. It is seen when a multitude of things that could happen no other way have happened to produce a result that was 'just so'. Designs that are functionally perfect such as electrical sensors in sharks, photon receptors in the human eyes. Complex codes with extremely complex functionality that have built in fail safes, are environmentally sensitive, and even sensitive to shape. Hundreds of universal constants that could not vary more than the tiniest, minuscule amount, generally less than 1%.
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> The evidence, my dear friend, is absolutely everywhere you look. The incontrovertible proof is everywhere you look. Everything is 'just so'. From laws to the stars to our genetic code to the tiniest building blocks of physics, everything exists in the ONLY POSSIBLE COMBINATION that would allow life to exist.
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> (http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/Table/allascii.txt)-The only possible constants in this universe. I would point out though that we know less than 10% of what is going on. So I am not sure "just so" carries enough weight. If you look at derivations; they are making assumptions. I mean look at Einstein's approximate ion of rocket ship and standing on earth. They are not the same.
 
The difference is small, but it is there. and on a cosmic scale it would/could be way off. Think of an error of one arch second over 10,ooo,ooo light years.