non theisistic skepticism of common ancestry
Bertvan@aol.com
Wed, 10 Nov 1999 08:55:22 ESTIf life is an anomaly which arose only once-on Earth-by accident, one common
ancestor is obvious. If on the other hand, life is the inevitable result of
complexity, as Stuart Kauffman suggests, how could it have occurred only
once? Anyone who believes, as Michael Denton appears to believe, that life
is a natural phenomenon in the universe has to also believe life arose many
times. DNA plays an important role in morphology, and similar DNA might
result in similar morphology whether that DNA was inherited from a common
ancestor or whether it evolved by other mechanisms--such as a possible
unexplained ability of Hox genes (or some other mechanism within the
genome) to organize DNA. So while I concede the probability of some common
ancestors, until we know how many, we can't say how often "special creation"
occurred, can we?
If Hox genes turned out to be the power behind novel changes in organisms,
theists would be entitled to believe God played a part in the process, and I
could believe the process was influenced by the will and use of the organism.
I suppose people philosophically committed to chance could claim the
mechanism, whatever it turned out to be, achieved its complex results by
accident.
bertvan