Richard Dawkin's big blunder

[Heywood]

Are all evolutionary systems the product of an intellect? Is that a valid question or not? Obviously it is a valid question so how do you go about answering it? You start looking at evolutionary systems. Perhaps you can give an example of an evolutionary system whose origins are known but is not the product of an intellect.

Which means your position is begging the question, since the only possible way you could consider it a problem for us is by assuming that natural evolution is the product of an intellect too, something you absolutely have not demonstrated, and have no reason to think is so.

Of the assumptions I consider the following are two of them.

1)It is logically possible all evolutionary systems are the product of intellect.
2)It is logically possible that not all evolutionary systems are the product of intellect.

One of those assumptions is true and one is false. You assume, for no reason whatsoever other than it conforms with your pre-existing world view that 2 is true and 1 is false.....which is faulty thinking.

I start out from a position of indifference and ask what can I observe that will give me cause to believe one assumption over the other. Well I can observe the inception of an evolutionary system that hasn't required the involvement of an intellect. That would prove to me 2 is true. I look for such things...but can't find them. I ask you guys to give me examples of such and the results are the sound of crickets.

Principle of indifference applies here so each has a probability of .25. Now what happens if I randomly draw a marble and it is white? Now the probability that all the marbles are white increases to .33 because configuration 4 is no longer possible. What happens if I draw another marble and it is white? Well the probability that all the marbles in the bag are/were white increases to .5. Everytime a white marble is drawn while no black marbles have been drawn...it increases the likelihood all marbles are white.

This argument is breathtakingly stupid: the reason the probability increases in your example is because you have a set, known number of marbles to begin with, hence each time you remove one and know its color you're reducing the unknown number of marbles by one.

But removing one evolutionary system and determining it was made by intelligence doesn't reduce the number of potential evolutionary systems, because you don't know how many are possible. The number of unknowns is exactly the same, and hence, the probability is exactly the same, barring a dishonest and profoundly incorrect understanding of how probability works.

That's why I say you're begging the question, and are now looking for anything you can to confirm the thing you've decided is true without evidence.

Not knowing how many marbles are in the bag would prevent me from calculating an exact probability. On that point we have no argument. However not knowing how many marbles are in the bag doesn't change the fact that each time you draw a white marble without ever drawing a black one increases the probability that all the marbles are white. I could have done the example with X number of marbles and the results would always be the same. The probability of all the marbles being white increases with each draw of a white marble(while never drawing a black one).

So while I do not know how many evolutionary systems exist within the set of all evolutionary systems.....I do know this: Each time I observe an evolutionary system which requires the involvement of an intellect, it increases the probability that all evolutionary systems require the involvement of an intellect.