Dear all,
I think that if we would ever find that there is a certain
goal toward which evolution’s design is progressing, we might suspect intelligence. (Well, 'agency' at least.) Or if it would be established beyond reasonable doubt that there is a 'meaning of life' (other than 42), or a 'higher purpose' or something. But there are no goals in evolution. And there is no meaning of life, other than that which we define for ourselves within our own limited bubble of existence.
There is a lot of
purpose in evolution though, on all scales even, but that's just
acquired or
emergent purpose, not 'higher purpose' (as in "The higher purpose of man is to worship his Maker"). After all, nobody in his right mind will deny that, for example, that overused paragon of ID-ers, the eye, is for seeing, i.e. it has the purpose 'to see things with'. But it evolved in a mindless process, without the end product (or rather: the current intermediate result) as a premeditated goal. Now that it's there, it's the best thing we have to see things with, although it has its flaws.
We are uncertain about the existence of God. If he exists, then anything is possible and nothing can be said with certainty about anything.
But we know for a fact that DNA is a replicating molecule. We know for a fact that sometimes the replication isn't flawless. We know for a fact that it encodes all kinds of hereditary traits. We know for a fact that replication mistakes lead to differences in those traits. We know for a fact that sometimes those differences give individuals an edge in the struggle for life. We know for a fact that sometimes they do the opposite. We know for a fact that beneficial mutations will tend to accumulate, and that detrimental ones will tend to disappear. That's a lot of facts we know there. And all of those facts together tell a story of how things may have come to pass. It's a compelling story that dispels the need for an intelligent creator, at least for those who are willing to set aside their preconceived notions, if even for a brief moment. Even before modern science presented us with the facts about DNA, Darwin’s story was already quite plausible. And then the knowledge about DNA started trickling in and fell into place, like the pieces of a puzzle, giving us a better idea of the whole picture. You have to be blind, or rather blind
ed, not to see this.
I'm sorry for all those ID-ers out there, but that's what science tells us nowadays, and until there are compelling reasons to think otherwise, let's keep things simple and stick to what we
do know and not to what our fantasy might lead us to believe.
Cheers.
{edited to correct a few small slips of the keyboard}
[This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 07-23-2003]