quote:
To say that all that we are today is a result of a vast series of unpredicted, unobservable,impersonal, purposeless, unaccountable, incalculable events, is totally unacceptable to me.
The comments above are fundamental to the question that I raised.
You mention 'purposeless' and 'impersonal', and this implies that
at a subconscious level you object to ToE because it topples
man (sorry for the non-pc phrasing) from the pinnacle of creation.
Most of the rest of your post, as Percy pointed out, is about
your own incredulity. It's hard to accept that as a criticism
I know ... and many of us have trouble spotting when this
criticism is valid within our own views.
Biological systems have vast complexities, agreed ... but check out
the threads that talk about genetic algorithms for designing
electronic circuits. These programs (analgous to the natural world
around us) operate on admittedly existing components (analagous to
the genetic stuff of life) to create circuits that perform a
specific function (analagous to organisms).
The system is set up to operate in the way that evolution is
supposed to work, and the results are electronic circuits so novel
and efficient that the companies that run the programs have patented
some of these designs.
Complexity and function from evolutionary process. The 'environmental' constraint applied forces the 'design' toward
something that best suits that environment.
With circuits this can be done in a short time in the lab.
Consider what can be accomplished in nature over the last 3billion
years or so. You do realise how long 3 billion years is?