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Human beings, at some point in history, likely discovered how animals that burned to death in fires were good to eat - most likely an accidental discovery. Humans discovered that the natural gas coming from the earth was flammable, also probably by accident. Would that mean that intelligent design is absent from the gas range?
You'd have to equate human design with divine intelligent design for this chain of reasoning to lead to any conclusions about the natural world being designed. How can that be done?
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Is the designing intelligence behind the evolution of the gas stove a product of the evolution of life?
Why not? What is intelligence? For us, it seems to be a survival adaptation that serves us well. Assuming more is just a pat on the back for humanity without much factual basis.
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Is it likely that the emergence of a designing intelligence in life happened accidently? Is the gas range it's final and ultimate creative act in response to the accidental discovery that cooked food is good?
I'm not sure I follow. In what context are you setting up the gas range as a "final and ultimate creative act?" We've been making fires for thousands of years. Lately we've found a more convenient way to do so. All species do things like that, but we do it more often through the changing of habits and ideas instead of physical traits.
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How could any thinking human being come to the absolute conclussion that design is absent from evolution as many scientists seem to do?
Not all scientists do, and not all feel the need to. The problem is those who assume design, who do research with the end goal of finding evidence thereof, simply to justify their emotional need for a creator god. I don't assume absence of design. I assume that I can understand the world by observing and inferring, and by learning from others who do the same. If there were
anyone who presented arguments for design, without having a pre-existing emotional requirement for their work to lead them to that point of view, I would find that compelling, and would take their work seriously. I just haven't ever heard of such a person.