INTELLIGENT DESIGN: An Engineer’s Approach

Uh, were you going to let anyone know that your quotes are from the Amazon page for Finding Darwin's God, and that the reviews you quote are from readers, not from scientists from either side of the debate? You're not only using the fallacy of argument from authority, you're doing it with non-authorities! --Percy

Selection and the trial and error approach of evolution can be observed in any petri dish using bacteria. Over time, trial and error approaches have demonstrated great power in producing novel solutions to complex problems, as genetic algorithms that mimic the process of evolution demonstrate in real time. I hope you don't think I'm "jumping all over you" when I say that, yes, evolution is not guided and has no preconceived goals. Evolution is the response of life to environmental pressures. To answer this question we return to the bacteria in the petri dish. When a scientist creates adverse conditions in the petri dish and the bacteria evolves to counter them, where does the inspiration come from? The answer is that there is none. The same trial and error process of random mutation combined with selection produces some bacteria that flourish, produce more offspring (divide more often, actually), outcompete their brethren that do not possess the mutation, and thereby ultimately replace them.No inspiration required.--Percy