Pim van Meurs : Of course not, science is never 'sure' but the lack of any
evidence supporting an intelligent agent, the vaste amounts of evidence
supporting natural selection as a likely mechanism and the Occam Razor
surely seem to support natural selection. It's clear that NO evidence of an
intelligent agent exists. SO at least that one has been eliminated as far as
science is concerned. Now the question remains: Is natural selection
(one of) the processes?
You seem quite certain that it is "clear" there is "NO" evidence an
intelligent agent exists. As a theist, I could not disagree more. Thus, we
can either get into debates about the existence of God or we can simply
agree to disagree. I'll choose the latter as experience has shown me the
former is often unproductive, not to mention that this doesn't look like
a topic for this reflector (I doubt many would like to fill their e-mail
boxes with long arguments about God's existence or non-existence).
Thus, it comes down to this. If you don't see any evidence for God's
existence, then of course you're going to rule out intelligent intervention.
But if you do see this evidence (or, to defer to you, "think you see this
evidence"), my original point remains. Of course, one can turn the
whole argument into one about how we label explanations
(eliminating things "as far as science is concerned"), but I am not
talking about "answers" that can be put in a freshman biology textbook.
Mike