Re: "We Believe in Design"

Iain: In a nutshell, the way I see it is that if
intelligent design is necessary to get any of these
things to work properly, then since nature contains
many
marvellous things that appear to be designed ( even
Dawkins uses the word "designoid", noting the eye's
resemblance to a camera), then likewise the sequence
space of DNA, as Glenn says, is likely to have been
intelligently designed. As Glenn says, you can't prove
it was so, but the evidence from how we get
biologically inspired computer algorithms to work
suggests strongly that it was.

Why? I fail to see how us using biologically inspired
algorithms shows that intelligent design was needed.
For instance, science has been studying evolvability
and shown how evolvability can be under control of
selection. In fact, Toussaint and others have shown
how neutrality becomes an essential component in
evolvability and that neutrality becomes subject to
selection.
So if natural selection can influence evolvability,
why is intelligent design **required**?

Not that ID can ever be ruled out. But I fail to see
why the appearance of design should be strong
evidence of such especially when scientific
explanations exist. In other words, if as the evidence
shows, natural selection can 'program itself', would
that not explain the necessary 'pre-programming'? And
what would ID's scientific explanation be for this pre-programming?
Received on Fri May 27 14:00:57 2005