<<>"The intuitive feeling that pure chance could never have achieved the
degree of complexity and ingenuity so ubiquitous in nature has been a
continuing source of scepticism ever since the publication of the Origin
of the Species; and throughout the past century there has always existed a
significant minority of first-rate biologists who have never been able to
bring themselves to accept the validity of Darwinian claims...>>
Brian D. Harper responded:
<<This is very nice, Randy, but its a strawman since Darwinians do
not claim that pure chance "achieved the degree of complexity and
ingenuity so ubiquitous in nature".>>
Actually, Darwin himself expressed a similar sentiment to Denton's:
"Although the belief that an organ so perfect as the eye could have been
formed by natural selection, is enough to stagger anyone...I have felt the
difficulty far too keenly to be surprised at others hesitating to extend the
principle of natural selection to so startling a length." [From Origin of
Species, quoted in Denton @ 61]
That's the crux of the matter. Whether you use "random" or "chance" or some
other form of expression, the idea behind evolution is that UN-guided
processes can produce overwhelming complexity. Mutations ARE random--no one
denies that. The selection by nature is based upon utility and advantage,
true, but it is still a random search among the the "raw mistakes." It does
not anticipate, plan or pursue...it merely wanders, and eventually strikes.
Denton, echoing Darwn and pre-echoing Behe, states:
"[I]t is one thing to show tha an evolutionary route is POSSIBLE in the time
availabe, quite another to show that it is also PROBABLE. Take the case of the
eye, for example. Even if Darwin had been able to demonstrate the existence of
a continuous sequence of increasingly complex organs of sight, leading in tiny
evolutionary steps from the simplest imagniable photosensitive spot to the
perfection of the vertebrate camera eye in a single phylogenetic line (in
fact, no such series exists in any known lineage) and even if he had been able
to show by quantitative estimates that the immense number of mutational steps
could have occurred and been substituted by natural selection in the time
available, this would only have meant that evolution by natural selection was
POSSIBLE. It would not have meant that it was PROBABLE....
"While it is easy to accept that a random search might hit on mutational
routes leading to relatively trivial sorts of adaptive ends, such as the best
coloration for a stoat or ptarmigan or the most efficient beak forms for each
of the different species of Galapagos finch. But as to whether the same blind
undirected search mechanism could have discovered the mutational routes to
very complex and ingenious adaptations such as the vertebrate camera eye, the
feather, the organ of corti or the mammalian kidney is altogether another
matter. To common sense it seems incredible to attribute such ends to random
search mechanisms, known by experience to be incapable, at least in finite
time, of achieving even the simplest of ends." (Denton @ 60 - 61)
And what Behe has done is push the complexity envelope beyond anything known
to Darwin, or even Denton. The PROBABILITY of evolution drops precipitously.
At some point, we've just got to recognize the obvious and look elsewhere for
answers.
That is what the whole argument is about. Intuitively--to Darwin, to Denton,
to Behe and to the great majority of the population of the world--unguided
evolution is too improbable to believe. Sure, you can imagine the possibility
of ANYTHING...but science must be made of sterner stuff.
Jim