This is just a brief addendum to my previous post in the same thread, with
two additional points, one about chance and one about the
Monkey-working-on-the-PC analogy.
First, the idea that chance can *never* (as Bertvan puts it) result in an
improvement in the genes of an organism is like the idea that one can
*never* get the right answer on a multiple-choice test question by randomly
selecting an answer (based on rolling a die, for example).
Secondly, in the case of the monkey and the PC, if the monkey were to be
allowed to modify the PC in the way that Nature modifies genes, the
modifications would never be to the whole PC, but only to parts of it.
Bertvan treats the example as if the monkey were to have complete freedom
to modify the PC in any way whatever, but, since this is not how Nature
does things, the monkey should not be allowed to do things that way,
either, if the analogy is to hold up. Thus, to make the analogy work, the
"design" changes introduced by the monkey would have to be restricted in
the ways that real-world genetics and biology restricts changes.
And, of course, Ralph's point that PC's are very rigidly inflexible in
continuing to function in the face of changes made to them is still
relevant. DNA-based life continues to exist precisely because it has a
*lot* of "slop" in it, and can thus tolerate (in many cases) changes that
would reduce a PC to parts. This difference is largely *because* PCs are
designed and organisms are not (or at least not so we can presently discern
it). Organisms have to tolerate the *lack* of design in the changes that
occur, or they become extinct very quickly. We *could* design PC's this
way, but we don't because we *do* design them and can thus determine fairly
precisely how all the parts will work together.
Thus, Bertvan's argument ends up undercutting her own position, because, if
organisms *were* designed, there'd be no need whatever for such a degree of
adaptability to changes in genes; each set of genes could be *precisely*
tuned from the start so that every part would work *perfectly* with all the
others, and thus never need to adjust to errant genetic changes. The fact
that there is such flexibility does not, of course *prove* that there is no
designer, but it certainly argues against the need for one, and makes the
designer (in yet another way) superfluous.
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