Evolution (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, October 08, 2010, 15:21 (5159 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

RICHARD DAWKINS (on being asked which piece of science everyone should know):
The unity of life that comes about through evolution, since we're all descended from a single common ancestor. It's almost too good to be true, that on one planet this extraordinary complexity of life should have come about by what is pretty much an intelligible process.-I'm a little surprised that no-one has taken this up, so I'll do so myself in the hope of a few enlightening comments. I love the "unity of life", which coincides with various gentle philosophies and by extension demands compassion for our fellow creatures. That is my only tick for Dawkins.-"[...] we're all descended from a single common ancestor". This is stated as a fact, whereas even Darwin talked of life "having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or one" (the Creator was not mentioned in the first edition). Most theists and atheists do believe, however, that at some point life began, just as at some point the planet Earth began. This leaves us with the following alternatives:-1)	All the forms we now know developed spontaneously from a single original self-assembled mechanism with the potential for constant adaptation (changing environments) and innovation (new organs). (The Dawkins brand of faith.)
2)	Different mechanisms spontaneously put themselves together at the same time or at different times (multiple forms of abiogenesis), with different potentials for adaptation and innovation.
3)	A universal intelligence created all forms of life separately (orthodox Creationism).
4)	A UI created certain general categories of life separately, with the potential for further development and variation (Creationism incorporating evolution).
5)	A UI created a single mechanism which allowed potentially for constant adaptation and innovation. 
6)	A UI keeps making things up as it goes along.-Any hot favourites here? Any other options? I do believe that evolution happened, i.e. that different forms of life are descended from other forms. But like Tony, I'm not sure how one species can turn into another. Nor do I understand how and why innovations come about, bearing in mind the enormous complexity involved if, even in their most rudimentary form, they are to work (if they don't, they won't survive). My list of alternative and, to my sceptical eyes, equally unlikely origins, and these gaps in my understanding, suggest to me that all this is not even remotely what Dawkins calls "pretty much an intelligible process".