Complexity of gene codes (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, August 20, 2010, 13:13 (5018 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: [...] if there is only some complexity in the genome in Archaia and massive complexity in humans, George is correct.-George believes we are the product of chance and not design. Sitting as always on my fence, and therefore looking in all directions at the same time, I see no reason why a designer shouldn't leave things simple for a billion years or so, and then decide to try something a bit more ambitious.-DAVID: I cannot conceive of a God who keeps fiddling with his creation. It is either designed from the beginning or we will agree George is correct with those interesting paroxysms of punctuated equilibrium thrown in to confuse us. IT IS TOO COMPLEX for evolution to do it by chance.-Please forgive me my obtuseness, but the point you are making is so fundamental both to your faith and to my own indecision that I need to have it clarified on two counts. Firstly, I have no trouble following the argument that the genome is too complex to have evolved by chance. What I don't understand is why it had to be present in all its complexity right from the start, and if it wasn't, then ALL its complexities have come about by chance. Surely it is or it isn't too complex for chance, regardless of the time factor. -Secondly, if in fact the choice is between chance and a God who occasionally fiddles around, I'm surprised that you would go for chance, especially as you have always insisted that we should not make any assumptions about the UI. Given your belief in his deliberate creation of life, is there any reason why he should not deliberately have intervened if he felt like it? Isn't it just as much an imposition of attributes to argue that he doesn't intervene as to argue that he does?