The real alternative to design (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 12, 2008, 19:55 (6098 days ago) @ whitecraw

"1. Why should we presume that 'advances occur in evolution to improve survivability'? Evolution is a purely natural process; it proceeds to no purpose. 
 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).
3. If anything drives evolution, it is the instability of the chemistry involved in replication."
Evolution is defined "as a process of change in a certain direction." using my Webster's. What we are debating is not whether evolution exists, because we can see that it happened, but the process it uses. whitecraw has made a declarative statement that the process is purposeless. That is his form of faith in the way evolution proceeds. Science is unearthing a very coding complex mechanism, layer upon layer in the DNA/RNA system: chance mutation, gene transfer, transcription defects, convergence, and the Baldwin Effect (see David Reznick and his guppies)in which organisms may be able to direct their genes to some degree, all play a role. - My philosophic point remains the same. Evolution proceeded in one direction to the very complex. It could have stopped in that direction at any point, but kept on going until it got to us sentient beings. One must read Simon Conway Morris: "Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe". All of us playing ping pong with our own prejudices will not advance a discussion which should be enlightening.