On Tue, 10 May 2005 07:39:33 -0400, Dave Hall
wrote in :

snip
Your anti-God bias is showing. You would rather believe that the
complexity of our ecosystem occurred due to just the right random,
combinations of factors and events to produce all the diversified
species, which all have a key part to play in the total picture,
rather than consider the likelihood that an intelligent force was
somehow responsible for guiding it.


There's nothing "random" about it -- when you consider that the bell
curve consists of a population as great as the number of events that
occur in the Universe within any period of time, it becomes utterly
-ridiculous- to think that life requires divine intervention. And if
there -is- evidence of guidance by some intelligent force, it's far
more likely that this "force" is not God but some sort of ETI. May the
force be with you, Dave!


snip
But keeping with that, who said it was random? Natural evolution and
selection explains away any coincidental occurrences that you may
mistake for "random".

But what motivates natural evolution?


Natural variation, and adaptability to a dynamic environment.


Who decides whether a mutation
is "beneficial" or not? Natural selection, otherwise known as
survival of the fittest, assumes that gene mutations which result in a
"better" species, would survive while the "lesser' versions of the
species would die out. Yet, it is said that homo-sapiens evolved from
apes. Why then are apes still around if we are the "new and improved"
version of the ape?


Because you assume that the "'lesser' versions of the species would
die out", which is not necessarily the case. There can be many
circumstances where a variation doesn't compete for the same resources
as it's progenitor. This explains why there are so many speices of
birds that have but slight variations -- many birds are migratory. And
so are many species of primates.


Evolution only explains a small part of the puzzle.


No, you have only -learned- a small part of the puzzle.


snip
......Why
do humans have self-awareness? Why do we posses an intelligence that
allows us to contemplate the unknown, and live beyond the programming
of instinctive behavior? What about the concept of a soul?


Evolution is science. The questions you ask are philosophical. But
before you start putting the human race on a pedestal, maybe you
better think twice about what you assume are the differences between
humans and other animals.


snip
Instead of being wishy-washy about the issue, why not consider the
possibility that evolution is, very simply, one of God's creations?

It very well might be. It's all part of the bigger plan. Like I said,
I totally accept the concepts of evolution. I just believe that the
process has been "managed" by a higher order intelligence, the
definition of which, has yet to be revealed. I am not advocating any
specific religious interpretation of "God", only that one exists.


The problem is that you don't fully understand the vast multitude of
variations that can occur in the processes of evolution. Neither do
the scientists that study it. But the scientists don't insert God into
the equation whenever something doesn't add up -- they look for other
factors and they usually find them.









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