A case for Natural Design

Right. But it's not exactly surprising, is it? After all, I consider natural design to be a product of the process of evolution. The only 'extraneous' element in this discussion - extraneous with respect to the orthodox definition of evolution - is the notion of natural design itself. Not that I'm claiming the idea as my own, though. Daniel Dennett has already written about the occurrence of real design in living nature. But calling it 'natural design' might be novel, I don't know.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Yes, Robin, that's exactly what I mean. Sorry I didn't pick that up.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Well, now that you put it that way, I am forced to slightly qualify my answer to you. In agreeing that "the hawk is a great design" is exactly what I mean, I overlooked your now apparent emphasis on the word 'great'. I do not mean to introduce a value system. From a certain point of view, the hawk's design may be great in the sense of 'beautiful', 'marvelous', or some other subjective supelative, but to show you what I mean I would like to replace the word 'great' with some more objective term, like 'well adapted'. However, as you may notice - it's how it feels to me anyway - this does not convey the meaning of the word 'design' I have in mind as well as saying "The hawk is a great design".Let me put it this way: when I say to you "look at that car's design", I am asking you to see the car not as a car, but as a design, to look at what the car looks like, design-wise. I am asking you to look at the result of a design process, and calling that a design.I hope this makes it clearer what I mean. I don't think he was introducing anything as high flying as a value system, he was just expressing his admiration for how the world works. I think he was speaking as Dennett the person, not as Dennett the philosopher.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

I think it is highly contentious to say that the function of precipitation is to provide moisture to life. What about precipitation on a barren planet? What's the function of that?I think precipitation is just a physcical process that, on this planet, involves water. And water just happens to be of crucial importance to life as we know it. If there is precipitation, then life can thrive. But the precipitation is there anyway, regardless of the presence of life. If it could care, it couldn't care less, so to speak. We were talking about the patterns of snowflakes. I thought that you meant that the cristalline form of a snowflake has a function or a purpose. I could not imagine how that could be the case, hence my question. My stance with regard to function and purpose can be summarized as follows: There is function and purpose in living nature, but not anywhere else. Function and purpose in living nature is local only, meaning that above a certain level of abstraction, no function and purpose can be attributed to an entity.It is a matter of discussion what exact level of abstraction we are talking about here. For example, you could say that the lens of an eye has the function of focusing light on the retina, the eye itself has the function of enabling the organism to see, but the organism as whole has no purpose or function. On the other hand, if the organism is an ant for example, you might also say that it has a function in the colony. But then, what purpose can be attributed to the colony?

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

But is it really the bottom line? Is this what the universe is for? Or is consciousness just a local phenomenon which hardly plays any role of significance in the greater scheme of things? We may be conscious, but what difference does that really make?

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

How so? I am speaking of design. If you implement mutation and selection on any substrate - biological material, information in a computer, the body of culture in a community of people, you name it - then whatever makes up the substrate will change in such a way as to meet the requirements that the selective pressure points to. There is no escaping this, it's pure logic that demands this outcome. Mutation guarantees change, and selection provides direction.This mindless process will inevitably result in something that is designed to fit a certain purpose. The purpose is to function in the environment well enough to survive another round of selection until after mutation happens.
And as the environment becomes more demanding, the design will become more accomodating. Therefore, a design that fits the bill, however seemingly perfectly, is not amazing, or evidence of intelligence, but only the logical and inevitable outcome of a simple, repeated and, above all, mindless process.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins