ID is really just an extension of the good old what use is half an eye ball? Surely nothing as complex as the human eye could have evolved through random chance? argument.
Same with these swimming ‘machines’. Just because you cant see how something like that could have possibly have evolved through a process of many many small random changes, doesn’t mean it cant or didn’t. Invoking the universal ‘catch all’ explanation [God did it] simply because you can’t see how it could have been done another way is one of the greatest failings of religion. Now science doesn’t claim to have all the answers and is quite ready accept that it may have got a few things wrong on the way (so long as you can prove that they are wrong) and once science completes it journey of discovery in a few hundred, thousand, however many years, it could quite well find god sitting there at the end saying what kept you?
Even modern man-made technology which we take for granted and accept as being designed has a long, long history of innovation and improvement that is analogous to the way evolution works.
By that I mean it would indeed be impossible to go from the first time one of our ancestors picked up something out of the natural world and used it as a tool, direct to (for example) a Sony Eriksson T610 mobile phone, without passing through the stages of technological improvement that has made the T610 possible. It would be impossible for that early ancestor to even conceive of the T610 much less design it or conceive of a plan that would eventually lead to the design of the T610. The T610 only comes about because over a very long time we have found ways of doing things a little better than before, ways that allowed technology to move forward or in a new direction.
Now evolution works in exactly the same way save that the changes are due to small random mutations of DNA that may or may not over many, many generations prove to be beneficial, and not through direct thought as to how a tool or process could be improved. The result is however the same a gradual increase in complexity and diversity. It’s a common misconception that evolution provides solutions to current problems. A common and really rather annoying argument voiced by some is: If I jumped off a tall building I wouldn’t evolve wings. No matter how many times I jumped off a building I would never evolve wings. This argument how ever dumb it may be in ignoring that evolution takes place over generations and not directly to individuals, it is really trying to argue the concept that evolution develops solutions to problems and thus indicating intent and design rather than what evolution really does and that is offers new opportunities for organisms to exploit recourses in different or slightly improves ways.
So What use is half an eye ball?
There never was half an eye ball. There was a bunch of light sensitive cells that had, due to their increasing density, started to dish. But this was never half an eye ball, it may have been on it’s way to becoming an eyeball but that is totally different. To understand what use this proto-eye could have been close your eyes and look towards a light. Wave your hand in front of your face. You see the shadow? Of course you do ( unless you are blind, but even if you are I’m sure you will recognise the benefit in being able to see anything over nothing ). Now imagine you are an early creature in the sea and that is the level of vision you have, that flicker of shadow you see could make all the difference in you finding food or avoiding becoming food for something else. Over time random mutation might lead to more light sensitive cells being clustered together (increasing resolution) or the cluster becoming more dished, (increasing focus) each leading an increased ability of the organism to differentiate its surroundings. Over time random mutations might lead some of the cells to react only to light of specific wavelengths and not others this will lead to the perception of colour and in the case of some animals even to allow the perception of inferred and ultraviolet. We missed out on those mutations and thus didn’t gain the ability to perceive these wavelengths.
This neatly brings me round to another point that is linked to the misconception that evolution is striving towards a specific goal. Evolution doesn’t care where it’s going it just keeps on going. It never was trying to create an eye ball, that just kind of happened on the way. There are many different types of eye out there from simple clusters of light receptive cells to the human eye to compound eyes and so on. There are many ways of doing the same thing each as valid as the next borne out by the fact that there are many types of eye in the world today. These types all evolved in parallel with each other either as totally separate entities or as branches of the same concept. They may even end up as remarkably similar to each other but coming in from totally different directions.
At no time during evolution is there any justification to invoke intelligent design, and believing there is, is simply to prove lack of understanding of how evolution works.
Now the argument over how life got started in the first place it a totally different kettle of fish but has no bearing on evolution once life had started. Scientists, though they have many theories don’t claim to have satisfactorily answered this yet and if they did then the level of peer review the claim would under go would be overwhelming. However their lack of a definitive answer is no reason to go ahead and invoke God as the creator of life. As here is no proof either way there is no justification in calling it either way and excluding any other explanation. I personally do not believe in God the creator but I do not exclude the possibility I could be wrong. Unlikely, but there is a possibility.
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