> [A]nd the clean, smooth unidirectional nature of it would be more
>indicative of a designer than evolution. Evolution is messy and
opportunistic.
Chris replied:
>Very good point. If we imagine Aristotle, or Aristotle's God, designing a
>progression of life on Earth, wouldn't it be nice and orderly? Disorder, of
>course, does not prove that there *is* no designer, since a designer could
>presumably make a mess as well as anyone. But, why *would* he/it/she/them
>make such a mess? It's not a positive disproof of a designer, but it
>certainly makes the idea questionable.
Why do I get the feeling Chris plays with a stacked deck. If nature is
messy, it makes the idea of a designer questionable. But what if it
wasn't messy? We'd still have to reject a designer according to his
views on naturalism and non-naturalism. It's a classic example of "heads
I win, tails you lose." Nature can question to designer, but never
support it, right?
In my opinion, Chris' view on nature's mess makes the mistake of
assuming the design/evolution issue is an either/or issue. He excludes
the middle ground where both may be involved, thus finding any evidence of
mess is sufficient for eliminating design. But, for example, if life was
designed,
and was then followed by a history evolution, we'd still see the "mess", but
it
wouldn't work against design.
Now I tend to agree with Chris that Susan's point is good. But let's take
it more seriously. If mess works against design, it stands to reason
that clean and smooth processes ought to work for a design. If one
disagrees, we simply again see the double standard being invoked,
where non-design explanations don't seem to imply anything about
what we can find in the world.
And guess what? It has become increasingly clear that cells are anything
but messy. This view may have been held in the 60s, but we now know
that cellular life exists in such a way that precise timing, precise
positioning,
and precise arrangement is crucial. Or consider my posts on proofreading.
Every step along the pathway of information flow is proofread (DNA replication
transcription, the charging of tRNA, the binding of tRNA to mRNA). This
is the very opposite of messy and opportunistic.
So why think such a clean and sophisticated reality is the product of
such a messy and opportunistic mechanism?
Mike