Your understanding of evolution, its mechanisms and the evidence in favor of it is very weak. Have you considered trying to find out what modern synthesis evolutionists have to say about the criticisms you raised (half an eye, "missing links" etc.)?

Do you have some links to share?

I've seen various experiments and theories described which were meant to prove random evolution, but which largely do the opposite. Like some of what Dawkins enjoys bringing up. For example, one can do computer simulations that show that if the purpose is set in advance, one can fairly quickly evolve solutions to some problem, by going through random permutations and then selecting for the solutions that lead towards what one is looking for. E.g. some method for a mechanism or organism of propelling itself. It is very interesting what kind of new and unexpected solutions are evolved. The ironic part is that that's used as a proof for evolution being completely random. I'd say that's bad science. The results would be quite different if one didn't at each iteration select for the permutation that advanced the desired solution. If one didn't cheat, in other words.

Anyway, I'm open to hearing what else is there. I'm not questioning evolution, in case that isn't clear. I'm questioning the unproven assumption that it is merely the inevitable result of any random bumbling about, and that it isn't purposeful and directed.

Flemming,
You may be interested in Thomas Ray's workings. He has worked on "genetic programming", not on "genetic algorithms". (in other words, the results are unexpected; the purpose is not "set in advance"):
http://www.his.atr.jp/~ray/tierra/index.html

If you read french, you may also read my own paper on Ray:
http://mapage.noos.fr/rsussan/tierra.html

Personally, it's my experience writing software that includes things such as genetic programming that proves that the standard evolutionary model is possible -- because it can happen in a mechanistic computer without anything being preordained. It's just the miracle of massive iterations.

I have two bugaboos about the evolution argument. The first is that evolution and creationism are not mutually exclusive. As I tell religious folks: isn't it the height of hubris to think you know what mechanisms your creator will and will not use to create things? The way religious types put it is a false dilemma.

The second is that although the mechanism of evolution is as proved as anything gets, it is not proved (and currently not testable, I think) that evolution is the _only_ such mechanism. Even Darwin said in his landmark book that his theory is not the end-all and be-all.

I don't think that an intelligence created everything, personally. I think it's rather the opposite: the sum of everything that is has an emergent intelligence to it. God didn't create the universe, the universe IS god. (I use "god" in a generic sense, not a Christian sense -- this emergent god would be no more aware of us than we are of individual cells in our bodies).

I think it is almost impossible to deny at this point, that built into the most basic rules of how this universe works, is an inexorable drive towards greater complexity. This is not how most evolutionary theorist look at it, instead opting for random mutation and/or adaptation.

So we are have at least two possibilities to explain this - either 1) the universe does have intelligent design, or 2) we just happen to see intelligent design, because out of the set of all possible universes, we of course happen to be in the one that evolved to a point of being able to ask this question.

Both seem reasonable to me. The reason option 1 seems reasonable, is that in the set of all possible universes, and even within our own universe, the chances seem very high of a sufficinetly advanced intelligence capable of masternig all of that universes laws of physics, including being able to replicate said universe... become universe engineers... perhaps using wormholes or some other more exotic technology to spin off baby universes with high fine tuned characterists, in the hopes of building better universes than the ones from which they emerged. In the infinite scheme of things, who is to say our univers isn't some 7,367,879,356,185th generation of this?

Oh, I forgot to day -- about things like "half-an-eye"... well, we do in fact find things like that. With the eye, for example, there are many sea creatures, past and present, that have photosensitive spots on them -- a crude retina without all the eyeball stuff. They can't form pictures, but can tell light from dark, which is enough to give an advantage in survival.

See, even if evolution takes place pretty much "by itself", the great mystery is how come the universe happens to be arranged in such a way that it even is possible. Where does that drive towards increasing complexity come from? Particularly when it exists in a universe that otherwise seems governed by entropy. That's part of the mystery of how come the universe is arranged in such a way that it has coherent laws that we relatively easily can discover. It didn't have to be that way at all.

So, one possibility is that the universe specifically is arranged in such a way as to make life possible and likely, and so as to make evolution work.

And, yes, another possibility, which delays the ultimate question a bit, is to assume that there's an infinite number of universes, with all sorts of different combinations of principles, and in only a few of them is life possible, and we happen to have evolved in one of those.

The question still remains how such a set of universes come about.

Random evolution might be perfectly natural within certain constraints, as it happens to correspond with the way the natural laws are laid out. But if we scale far enough up, or back, we're always left with the puzzle of how come it is laid out that way. A puzzle we can't just solve by saying it was random, or that it is "just the way it is".

Even if evolution is a machine that can run uninterupted for billions of years, then we can't avoid answering the question of where that machine came from. If it naturally grew out of the layout of physical elements and laws, then the question is how that came about. And if that was all given in the structure of that which made a big bang, then the question is why it was structured like that.

OK, you can put God back there, having mixed the elements just right. Or you can guess that maybe some previous advanced race created a new universe, designed for the inevitable emergence of their own kind of intelligence. Which is intriguing and quite possible, but it doesn't explain where those guys came from.

The only answer I personally can be reasonably comfortable with is that the whole thing is one unit, which is inherently alive and intelligent. That is still hard to wrap one's mind around, but it avoids being stranded on circular arguments.

Alan Watts explained the situation in a way the I find satisfying. His parable was of a person who walks by a tree and sees no fruit. He thinks, "just a plain old tree." Later he walks by and sees apples and thinks, "oh, I made a mistake, its an apple tree." Similarly, if some aliens flew by a few billion years ago, they'd see earth and think, "just a pile of rocks." If they came by today they'd say, "oh, my mistake, people rocks." The earth "peoples" the same way an apple tree apples.

For myself, I have given up speculating on why the universe peoples, or "eye's" or "I"s (i.e. creates perceivers). But it does. So, it would seem that from the moment of the big bang, the universe was an I-ing universe, and now thats its cooled off a litttle its I-ing all over the place. Hence, in that sense, the universe is clearly intelligent, or at least conscious.

I think the "why" question is the thrust of most "Intelligent Design" advocates (though perhaps not theoriticians). The "why" question goes not to the issue of the universe being inherently intelligent, but to the issue of the universe being essentially unintelligent but arranged in an intelligent way. This assumes far to much, as Flemming points out. For one it discounts the explanatory power of the anthropic principal. It also assumes that the arrangement and expression of the universe is intelligent because, presumably, it created us. This presupposes not just that we are worthwhile, but more to the point, that we are capable of judging the issue of what a universe ought to be like. To take a gnostic approach, we might deem this universe the product of the demiurge, and mass of confusion, obfuscation and misery, and not the least bit intelligently designed.

Sadly, the whole exercise has been coopted as a politically motivated attempt to promote theism to American public schools.

I think that Stephen Wolfram most important point is that very simple processes can create extreme, impredictable, complexity. If he is right, complexity is not a mystery,it's the norm.
Interestingly, Wolfram is skeptical about darwinism and natural selection: he thinks on the contrary that complexity arises spontaneously from the interaction between the elements of a system. In biology, the main role of natural selection would be to bring back things to simplicity, by suppressing the too complex, too baroque forms of evolution.
Although Wolfram never quotes him, it seems to me that the biologist Brian Goodwin advocates a very similar point of view, in his book "how the leopard changed its spots": the idea is, again, a spontaneous evolution toward complexity, without the need of selection. (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/goodwin.html)

Hi Flemming,

Yep, you hit all the right points. You may recall about a year or so ago, I touched on the core of this issue, and concluded with something that is the ultimate paradox. Here it is:

Everything and Nothing exist simultaneously, together, unfied, ultimately indistinguishable. They have both always existed and always will exist. Existence is a standing wave of of this something/nothing in eternity. For more lucid details on all of this visit these two threads:

Sans-Ceiling Hypothesis:

http://www.futurehi.net/archives/000121.html

There was no beginning, Everything is Possible:

http://www.futurehi.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=51

..the overall problems confronting theories of any sort would be the innate problem that many theories are created from an immediate bias of what i would terms 'subjective denial':

scientist dr. a designs his 'theory' about the universe and goes about ignoring the obvious indications that he needs to re-adjust his original theory and allow his original thought to evolve: but instead scientist dr. a allows his 'subjective denial' to factor out evidence and indications that doesn't suport his theory: an example would be that five people enter a restaurant and order the same meal - out of those five people three found the meal horrible and two found the meal delicious:

are we then to assume anything other than the apparent fact that three people found the meal shitty and two found the meal heavenly without our own direct experience of the meal - and should the cook or manager of this restaurant close shop because three people have deemed the meal shitty versus two people's thumbs up approval ---

science and theories are innately flawed by subjective denial - possessing a very rigid and anal element that won't say: '..oy vay: this theory doesn't mean anything now since i have discovered this bit of evidence... i need to re-work the theory's
original thought..'

instead science tends to fight against contrary and 'conflicting' evidence that suggests the need to expand and evolve from ignorance into knowledge and knowing as evolution in and of itself represents an action: a verb: and not a stagnate noun refusing to be nothing more than a noun:

creationism.... evolutionists.... modern synthesis evolutionists....
all of this categories and even i would imagine easily sub-categories within these three aforementioned categories but with all of the wasted hot air going on about how this all started:
are we going to be made personally better by getting the 'answer' from those elite minds who sit on high like a g0d in the pantheon of higher learning ---

or are these g0d-like minds just as blind by maya as einstein became when his mind was challenged by the full-on of quantum physics that greatly troubled this brilliant man's mind onto his dying days (....even uncle al admitted that his denial of quantum physics was the greatest blunder of his entire scientific life...)

what flemming has done for me in his well written post has been to confirm my own thoughts that not only does an intelligence exists that has create the universe and the omniuniverse but as a creation of this supra-intelligence it becomes my immediate birthright to realise and receive this inteligence that surrounds me and that becomes me in all ways: at every turn: and within all moments made possible and considered impossible:

for i am the science and i am the religion that guides my personal quest for knowledge and self-evolution. thank you flemming for your inspiration and your reminder....

There's maybe reason to doubt anything that isn't a paradox. In the sense that a paradox is something that sounds self-contradictory when one tries to split it up into words to look at the parts, but which gives an insight into a higher-level truth if one manages to grok it as it is, in one piece.

Likewise, it is suspicious when a certain model explains certain pieces very well, but leaves out the pieces that don't fit in. Or when different factions need to have a fight about who's model is the best one, despite that each of them is leaving out ... the whole picture.

Seems to me like a lot of that kind of arguments could be transcended by aiming for the WHOLE thing. Which thing might sound like a paradox when somebody tries to put it into words, but that makes it all the more likely that one is dealing with something real. And, yeah, maybe we're dealing with a verb, rather than a noun. It is a Something that's inherently a Nothing, which is being something and doing something. It is Universing or Omniversing. It is Evolving. And it is fundamentally in one piece, whatever it might seem, so one can never quite succeed in breaking it down and freezing it into a finalized once-and-for-all complete explanation. Because there isn't any. But, still, I'm afraid that the only thing that's really going to make sense is the whole thing.

the idea of evolution is over 100 years old.since then everthing has been invented.before that our houses were empy of everything but a few clothes,a fire and some pots and simple storage devices for food.most had thier plumbing outside.the evolution is in our technology.it seems to be a feedback system related to our conciousness.it`s as is if we are saying,"hmm,nice world but we need a few things."and then go about making tools to build tools to make things,etc.what are we making?an external nervous system.we are turning ourselves inside out.a giant model of ourself.
the first industrial revolution urbanised us.built the places where we could rest and think about more technology.this revolution is allowing us(well,a few of us)to be cocooned in digital technology designed to think 24 hours a day.everything has a microprocessor in it.the only thing that irrefutably evolves is our technology.it has gone from monkey to near-sentient in a very short time.when will it become god?or is it our means to divinity?

What is intelligence? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines intelligence as “1. ability to learn and understand or to deal with new or trying situations 2. mental acuteness 3. information, news 4. an agency engaged in obtaining information esp. concerning an enemy or possible enemy; also: then information so gained”. If we are to believe what the dictionary states as truth, then we sit on the threshold of information of which deems us as intelligent. The major flaw in this and in the article written is that there is such a thing as intelligence and that we know what intelligence really is. However, witness a single cell in the human body, many of us are aware of the rogue cells which choose to revolt against what we believe is their true function and we label this cancer. On the other hand there are millions of cells in our bodies who conform to what we believe their function is and perform their duty even dying off and having other conformist cells replace them and at times also being replaced by those rebels we call cancer. Now my question to you, which is more intelligent: the man who walks down the street and buys a burger from the golden arches or the rebel cell in his body telling him you’ve chosen to feed me with crap therefore I’ll turn you into crap? Is the universe more intelligent than the man who decides to make a U turn in the middle of a busy intersection and gets side-swiped by on-coming traffic, when a sun burns out or explodes causing debris to collide with moons or planets? I find the assumption that we know and understand what intelligence is to be an interesting path to incomplete theories. To assume we know anything brings us to the brink of an abyss few want to admit exists.

"See, even if evolution takes place pretty much "by itself", the great mystery is how come the universe happens to be arranged in such a way that it even is possible."

I actually find this the least mysterious of the mysteries. The anthropic principle covers it pretty well. If the universe wasn't the way it is, we wouldn't be here to observe it. There may have been, or are, many random universes that are not conducive to life such as us, so that we are here to observe the universe doesn't mean that it wasn't all a big accident.

I find this wholly satisfying, although I do understand that some people do not.

(And I don't actually think it was all a big accident, but that's beside the point.)

all ideas are self-serving.that is what ego is about.looking for an idea to be right with.we must press on to find the answers.we are hard wired for this purpose.we are driven to create.that`s why there are so many of us.intelligent or not.the pleasure in recognising the miracle of it all is sufficient,once the noise of our conjecture wanes.
interesting thing.the universe was created some time ago in a big bang.an ever expanding orgasm of matter scattering it`s self into the void.
why is it that the opposite happens on earth?
trees,animals,toasters,computers,etc all seem to asemble here amidst the chaos not a hundred miles above our heads.
peculiar.

Is the whole discussion biased by our semantics? When we don't see an order we assume chaos. We assume randomness as unintelligent. "Why would a higher power do such crazy shit?" we ask. We apply of our model of intelligence and consciousness in our understanding of it all.
I agree with the idea that an eye is an intricate device...yet it isn't at the same time. Our eyes cannot see infrared or x-rays. It'd be nice to have that ability, but the range that we currently detect is sufficient for our survival for now. In other words, while there are many miracles in relation to our experience, there are an infinite number of possibilities available.
We have a natural tendency to make God in our own image. Our sense of order out of chaos.
The map is not the territory.
I defer to RAW on this matter. The universal consciousness is in all of us but it's difficult to consider and experience the matter with the semantic circuit.
My favorite model of everything is to imagine ALL as static. Pulsing, flowing, apparently random. We superimpose templates of shape on the dots. We see a pattern in a rhythmic pulse. Like looking at clouds. "Oooo...look...a bunny." "Hey...look there...I see a big bang.""Oh! It's the Lady of Fatima!" It appears as if...but to paraphrase Korzybski, "'Is' is the worst word in the language."
Our intelligence seems to be a function more complex than that of an atom with more variables available to our relationship with the ALL. Maybe not as much as the universe as a whole. When we talk of intelligence, I think we are only applying a certain range of function as the criteria. If one wants to see an old guy with a shaggy beard, OK if that helps one's FOR. If one needs evolution, no prob. To paraphrase George Carlin "Religion (I interpret to mean dogma) is like shoe lifts. If you need them, cool. Just don't nail them to the natives' feet."

nlp,general semantics,george carlin and robert anton wilson.cool.could you imagine if our children where exposed to some of this stuff at an early age?
yes,we live in a semantic tunnel reality.each person`s is slightly different.the human eye is also a mechanism for providing optical information of a narrow and specific type.this is true of hearing and all the other senses.we are tuned to resonate with certain frequencies and not others.
are we designed to witness god`s work?
there are no clues in all of this as to our existance other than the fact that we(seem to be) here.

> [...] explain where the natural laws came from, or how human eyes assembled by accident.

Dare I say I smell a burning strawman when someone describes evolution as assembly "by accident". Randomness merely serves up incremental genetic mutations which are then selected according to the unbending laws of physics. Obviously there's nothing accidental about the relative fitness of eagles with and without keen eyes.

And it's surprisingly easy to make sense of the evolution of the eye when you consider that "half an eye" (for example, a photosensitive cavity without a lens or iris) can be actually quite useful. Go to this website and click the video link:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/educators/teachstuds/unit4.html

More info:
"Natural selection should, under many circumstances, favor the increments" of eye evolution.
longer post mainly dealing with color vision

As to how the natural laws came about and thus existence itself, several thousand years of philosophy have failed to squeeze out a cogent answer to that. Our human primate intellects seem to be profoundly unable to comprehend a kind of logic which could explain how something exists without an external cause. This doesn't mean that such an explanation is impossible, only that it's outside the current capabilities of the human mind. Now, people have different ways of responding to this mystery. Theists tend to plaster it with empty mock-explanations of God the "unmoved mover". Skeptics often just admit that they don't know and leave it at that. The best thing we can do, I believe, is to try and help more capable minds come into existence, who may ultimately solve the riddle that we are all ill-equipped to grasp.

> A whole lot harder to make the case for why a wolf would jump into the ocean and develop a blow hole on its head, you know sort of randomly, a little at a time.

Look at the pictures...
edwardtbabinski.us/whales/whale-tail.html
www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/wh.n.mkg.html
...or review the evidence for whale evolution.

> Or how lizards who jumped out of trees got an advantage, while randomly developing flappy arms, until a few hundred thousand years later they can fly.

"Half a wing can have any of several uses..."
...and...
not so missing links of reptiles that flapped crude wings

> Where does that drive towards increasing complexity come from?

I suspect that supposed natural impetus is rather apparent than inherent. The universe started off with very basic structures (subatomic particles) and the progressing combination of primitive building blocks gradually filled part of the possibility space of complexity. Since the law of causality doesn't allow extremely complex structures like the human brain to emerge before the evolution of organisms with simpler body plans, we are seeing a seemingly directed evolution toward higher complexity. I understand the temptation to anthropomorphize but the evidence doesn't in any way necessitate a universe consciously directing its own development like a transhuman self-designer.

Paul mentioned another possibility of a multiverse populated by incredibly old and powerful civilizations crafting successively better baby universes. That's a hopeful idea as it suggests humanity can evolve into universe builders, too. But honestly, the universe doesn't look THAT complexity-optimized to me. This planet is about as perfectly suited to life as the blind (?) forces of nature allow and yet it took the first technical civilization a staggering 3.8 billion years to get going (since the first microbes formed). We're damned lucky that earth's biosphere has survived that long. Furthermore, SETI has so far come up with zero evidence for ETI in our galactic vicinity. What limited data we have hints that the conditions in our space-time bubble are just barely good enough to allow for the evolution of intelligent life. If the "mother universe" was any worse, as suggested by the optimization (!) scenario, could it have given rise to superintelligent cosmic engineers at all?

we are evolving.it is moot whether we came out of the trees.my opinion is that we didn`t.why would we?the jungle canopy is a rich,safe haven for primates.the alternative is the savanna,where the big carnivores play.no place for newbies.
our evolution has been in technology and we are picking up speed.there is no reason why we shouldn`t be shaping planets one day soon.
a prior theory about evolution from primates has us grasping at threads of proof-like threads under the archeologists brush and the voices are raised with religious fervor.
certainly religion and evolutionary theories serve to quell the anxiety in some who worry about our origins.it may just be unknowable.
the prediction and control types need answers,but what`s to be afraid of?
the miracle of existance is to be enjoyed.

oh,and about eyes and other sundry parts evolving.there are no transitional species.horse is a horse,a slug with a photo-sensitive patch an it`s back is a slug.......
and where did the wheat and corn come from?grasses on the savanna waiting for the monkeys to come down out of the trees provide no nutritional value for big-brained bipeds.
we can develop geneticly modified food stock with a lab but i don`t think chimpanzees had one.
these are uncomfortable questions for pro-evo types but they need answers if a proof is to be accepted.