Evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 25, 2008, 23:32 (5869 days ago) @ Kyuuketsuki

Kyuuketsuki quotes me: "Atheists, sometimes unwittingly, place their faith in the ability of chance to generate a mechanism that we can still scarcely comprehend." K. comments: "Whilst evolution has randomness as a means of generating mutations it is not a theory of chance...that is only one part of the theory." - You are quite right. The other part of the theory of evolution is natural selection, which does not depend on chance at all. However, there are two points that some atheists overlook ... perhaps yourself included, though I don't know what your beliefs/disbeliefs are. Firstly, natural selection works on existing material. It doesn't generate anything. Secondly, the mechanism of evolution depends on the original life form containing within itself the ability to reproduce, mutate, adapt, and pass on its mutations and adaptations. Atheists believe that the original life form (which Dawkins calls "the first hereditary molecule") came about by chance, and so they have faith in the ability of chance to generate a mechanism that we can still scarcely comprehend.