At 06:19 PM 09/09/2000, you wrote:
> >As to how to implement evolution, I wouldn't change a thing.
Bill
>I agree with BERTVAN. Outside of changing the balance of atmospheric
>gasses and adjusting the mean temp there isn't much that could be changed
>and still have life.
I don't think so. Some things might have to be adjusted in groups, of
course. However, my point was to get ID-ers to show us what would need to
be changed to allow evolution to occur without further intervention. Many
of them claim that their God *could* set up a planet with conditions that
would then naturally lead to the evolution of life from non-life and then
from that point to all sorts of other life. And they claim that there are
things "wrong" with the world as it is and has been, something that
prevents the naturalistic evolution of life from non-life to what we see
today or to something similar in terms of complexity, diversity, etc.
What I want to see ID-ers do is tell us what they think the minimum changes
would have to be to allow life to evolve as we evolutionists are wont to
claim it *has* evolved.
This would show us whether they even know clearly what their own theory is,
and it might show *them* that the real world, as it has been and is, is/was
sufficient for the evolution of life as it seems to us evolutionists that
it *has* evolved.
A question for naturalistic evolutionists that corresponds to this might
be: What would have had to be or have been different about the apparent way
life has evolved to make it clear that design *was* involved? We could even
ask, What would you do if you were a designer of life on Earth? Would you
make cells have the baroquely weird functional complexity that they do
indeed usually have ? Remember, if you design them this way, you are
designing them so that they will look like they evolved in an essentially
random way, gradually developing the kind of "messiness" that we would
expect from something that evolved pragmatically rather than according to
plan (this is one reason why SchŸtzenberger's position is so far off the
mark (though there are plenty of other reasons as well); the very *type* of
complexity he argues *from* is evidence of mindless evolution, not design).
What distinguishes known designed things, things that we know are designed
by examining them, is that they don't generally have this incredibly messy
structure -- and, if we do, we say that they are not *well* designed. The
type of complexity that life exhibits, if it is designed, is evidence of
*bad* design (for living organisms). Without further special evidence (is
any forthcoming?), *life's* complexity is evidence of mindless naturalistic
evolution, adding a bit here, adding a bit there, fiddling with functional
relationships, tweaking this, tweaking that, and so on, over a long period
of time. It is definitely not evidence of design, of some intelligent plan,
etc.
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