(January 24, 2015 at 7:00 am)Heywood Wrote: Suppose an earthquake happened in a chemistry lab. Lots of different chemicals accidentally mix and just by shear happenstance, they form a soup of self replicating molecules which are later shown to be evolving. That would be an observation of an evolutionary system coming into existence without an intellect.

Wouldn't the presence of the lab and all its contents require intellect?
Are you conceding that natural phenomena such as earthquakes are possible without requiring intellect, ie a god?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'