Detecting design or intent in nature

[Jenny A]

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But no, I don't see that natural selection was designed either. For one thing, it isn't a system. There is no more to natural selection than this: those organisms which are most often successful in replicating themselves will be most common in the next generation. It's a mathematical truism not a design any more than 1 + 1 = 2 is a design.

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Natural selection is not evolution. It is often, but not always, a component of an evolutionary system. Sometimes evolutionary systems use a different selection mechanism. For instance, artificial selection is responsible for the current form of the "atheist's nightmare".....the banana.

No, whether natural selection or artificial or artificial, as in the case of not only bananas, but virtually everything else you eat (wild mushrooms and a few other things might be exceptions), the rule is the same: those more successful at reproducing reproduce more.

Natural selection is not a system at all. It's just a simple rule. It applies in simulated worlds too. What is designed in simulations is not the rule of natural selection but the environment in which it takes place, the mechanism by which the simulated organisms change and in your simulation the selection of a single criteria for determining which organisms will reproduce. But evolution would take place in any environment where organisms can reproduce.

I think you are conflating natural selection with evolution. They are not the same thing. I am okay with your characterization of natural selection as a rule but remember, rules do not operate in a vacuum. Rules operate on things other than themselves. They have external references. You need much more than a selection rule to have an evolutionary system. You also need to have replicators with heritable but changeable characteristics. The rule, the replicators, the heritable characteristics are all connected things which make up a more complex whole. They are a system in the truest sense of the word.

Certainly the simulators are systems designed for evolution occur. The "organisms" in them and their environment are designed. The choice as to which to reproduce is also designed pretty much in the same way artificially selection is used to change animals.

But the universe or even the earth does not show any signs of being a system designed for evolution. It is far too big, messy, and inefficient a place for life to occur to have been designed for reproducing organisms to evolve in. Evolution does happen within it, but it does not show any signs of being designed for evolution. Simply because a thing or process happens in a part of an environment is not evidence that the environment was designed for that thing or process. Wooden houses with central heat and plumbing are ideal habitats for carpenter ants and carpenter ant building. But they are not designed for carpenter ants, though I can certainly imagine some little intelligent Heywood ant arguing that it was.

I have never observed these systems come into existence spontaneously except when intellect is the selection mechanism. I have only observed these systems come into existence via outright design by intellects or when intellects make the selections. This being the case, what good reason do I have to believe, as you would have me believe....as matter of faith....that the evolutionary system which produced me was not outright designed or there is an intellect which makes the selection?

Yes people design environments for their own purposes, but that does not mean all environments are designed for a purpose. Again, you are assuming that because a process happens in an environment, that the environment was designed for the process regardless of how much space there is undevoted to the process, how unnecessarily complicated the environment is, or how hostile to the process the environment might be. The universe is a remarkably vast space in which to contain such a small planet, and the earth is a rather vast space to contain such a small amount of evolving matter. And there is no evidence of any rule for selection beyond success at reproducing in the messy, diverse place that is the universe.

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I know this question wasn't asked of me, but I'll answer it anyway.

If you knew for sure there was a God would you continue to look down upon people who try to know and understand Him?

There's an assumption in that question that needs addressing and that is that atheists, or Rob, or me, "look down upon people who try to know and understand [god]."

If trying to understand god, means trying understand and deal with one's place in the world, including both the good bits and the bad bits, then it's a laudable thing to attempt. I'm just not sure it's the best way to go about that endeavor. I don't look down on people for trying to understand god. I do think they are misguided because they are trying to understand a thing for which there is no evidence. But I rarely judge people entirely for one endeavor.

I don't much care for televised sports and I think watching them is generally a waste of time. But I don't look down on the people who do watch sports. Like believers in god, sports watchers tend to be as intelligent as the next guy. The only difference is that the religious impact my life rather more pervasively than the sports fans and that given the spending on and talk about sports is saying something.

Would my mind change, if I knew there was a god for certain? That would depend on what you mean by a god. If you mean merely that we'd know a being created the universe and no more, no I don't think it would change much of anything, unless there was also evidence of that beings continued involvement with the universe.