The real alternative to design (Evolution)

by whitecraw, Tuesday, March 11, 2008, 17:31 (6099 days ago) @ David Turell

'If one considers the process of chance mutation and natural selection (Darwinism) as the driving force of evolution, and presumes that advances occur in evolution to improve survivability, why did evolution bother to advance to multicellular sexually reproductive, complex organisms like us, given the success of bacteria? It doesn't make sense to me. So what drives evolution if anything?' - 1. Why should we presume that 'advances occur in evolution to improve survivability'? Evolution is a purely natural process; it proceeds to no purpose. Mutations occur (mainly as a result of something going wrong when a cell copies its DNA in preparation for cell division) which cause abnormal physical characteristics in the bearer. If this abnormality disadvantages the bearer in the competition to survive and reproduce, it will fail to thrive and tend to disappear from the population. If it advantages the bearer, the abnormality will tend to thrive and (depending on the extent to which non-bearers are relatively disadvantaged by its appearance) will come to predominate in the population. The 'survivability' of a mutation is not the 'end' or 'purpose' of that mutation; mutations occur to no end or purpose, but only as a result of chemical mishaps. 'Survivability' is rather a function of how well or badly the bearer of that mutation subsequently fares in the environment in which it must survive and reproduce. - 2. Evolution doesn't 'advance' anything. Complex multicellular sexually reproductive organisms are neither an advance nor a setback compared to unicellular organisms (since there is no 'goal' that life evolves towards; it simply evolves or changes because of its inherent instability). Such organisms are the outcomes long series of chemical accidents, the physical changes resulting from which haven't died out of the populations in which they occur. - 3. If anything drives evolution, it is the instability of the chemistry involved in replication.