Hi Iano,
A thought occurs to me: if you were to face the question that has apparently puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin then;
Does it really puzzle biologists? All of them? Most of them? Or just Raj Chakrabati and co.?
a) how would you answer this question to your own satisfaction (if a believer in the ToE)?
It's a nonsense question. Evolution
is not random, so the question, being founded on a false principle, is irrelevant.
Individual mutations are indeed random but natural selection is not. The physical and chemical processes within which evolution must occur are very definitely not random. Evolution, viewed as a whole, is very far from random.
Unguided and random are not synonyms.
b) why do you think your answer wouldn't satisfy experts in the field? Or to put it another way; what do you know that they apparently didn't up to now?
You have not demonstrated that experts in the field
are unsatisfied.
Here's what one expert, PZ Myers, had to say about the bolded section of the quote;
quote:
That first sentence is not even wrong. Darwin answered the question of how complexity can arise, so no, we haven't been puzzled by that general question; evolution is not completely random, so that part is a complete non sequitur; randomness easily generates lots of complexity, so even if we accept his premise, it invalidates his question; and how does he reconcile his assertion of "completely random" with his use of the simple metaphor of the "blind watchmaker", which implies non-randomness? That's a sentence that contradicts itself multiple times in paradoxical ways.
Sounds good to me. Does that help clarify matters?
Mutate and Survive.
"The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade