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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (23665)	5/23/2006 3:40:02 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

why should we imagine it doesn't? The main reason is that evolution does not need a purpose. ... that is to say the process happens without the need for a goal.

To: LLCF who wrote (23665)	5/25/2006 2:16:00 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

"Or, why should we imagine it doesn't?" The fact that evolution is so obviously ad hoc (for example the Panda's "thumb"), and the fact that most species have gone extinct (in mass extinctions) every 26 million years or so, and the fact that only 1/10th of 1% of species are still in existence, and the fact that if the age of the earth is scaled to one year then homo sapiens has only existed for a few minutes,--all of these would argue, if not necessarily against purpose--then certainly against intelligent purpose or competence. There is also the small matter of finding where the neurons are or would be in "evolutionary intelligence". So far as I am aware, there has been no evidence of awareness or intelligence in the absence of a nervous system and neurons. Perhaps someone has heard of evidence that intelligence can exist in the absence of some form of transmission of information between cells but I have not heard of such. There are many many reasons to imagine that evolution does not flow from intelligence and thus can have no purpose.