Arguments against Design (General)

by dhw, Friday, July 31, 2009, 12:22 (5406 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George: There is no such "mechanism" as you imagine. It's just a molecule or system of molecules living in a sea of molecules. - But one day a molecule self-replicates. And its self-replicating replicas undergo hereditary variations. Please find me another word to describe how this new process functions. - George: You are obsessed with this "machine" image [....] As I keep saying, but you don't pay attention, things do not make themselves, they are not "made" by any deliberative process, they occur, appear, happen (can anyone think of better words?) when the circumstances are favourable. - I can understand your frustration, and it's similar to my own in trying to find ways of conveying the complexity of replication and variation. Mechanism/machine is the best image I can think of (can anyone think of a better one?). Your own explanation is: "a chemical reaction happens when the right ingredients come together at the right temperature, pressure, concentrations, etc." No-one can argue with this, just as no-one can deny that there are self-replicating molecules and inevitable variations. The disagreement is with the enormous leap you then take in joining the two sets of facts together, and concluding that replication with the potential for variation occurred, appeared, happened naturally. "As I keep saying, but you don't pay attention", the problem is that no-one has yet come up with an explanation of how the right ingredients could have come together in the first place. The process has defied all attempts by our brilliant, conscious scientists to reproduce it. And so your conclusion that things happen, and therefore this hugely complex process came into existence naturally, has no scientific backing and is no more than speculation. - We've gone round in yet another circle, I'm afraid. That said, I can also understand your objection to the image of "mechanism" and "machine", which entails design. It's on a par with your use of occur, appear etc., which entails chance (in the first instance, before the laws of Nature took over). We're both using language that supports one or the other scenario ... in your case, to support your belief in spontaneity, and in mine to support my non-belief. I say this only to emphasize that I am fully aware of the arguments against design!