The Blind Watchmaker. First 3 chapters.
Ch1 The argument goes something like this: either you believe that
we/everything is created by a designer or you believe that the only
designer is nature, which is the blind forces of physics. Natural
selection, which is a blind unconscious process, which 'is' the
explanation for the existance of all kinds of life. The blind
watchmaker then has no mind, it does not plan for the future, has no
vision and no forsight.
This evolution is unlikely to have arisen by chance alone.
"Complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is
unlikely to have been aquired by chance alone.'
There is no supernatural force. The body is a complex thing made up of
many parts. To understand its behaviour you have to apply the laws of
physics to all its parts, not the whole. Behaviour is then an
interaction off all the body parts.
As the body is an interaction of parts it could not have come into
being by one single act of chance. This comming into existance can then
be explained through a series of steps. 'We can't explain a complex
thing as originating in a single step.'
Ch2 We/everything is not the ' best' that an engineer could have
thought of. Different types of systems are really producing the same
outcome, yet they may be using a different physical medium i.e. bats
hearing and humans eyesight. Evolution has therefore, many ways in
developing good designs. Thus,showing that the designr is unconscious,
natural selection i.e. blind.
Thing have evolved through natural selections natural stages. The time
of these gradual stages is not known.
Ch3 'Living things are too beautifully designed to have come into
existance by chance.'
Here would I be right in saying that because each step of evolution is
so small changes could have arisen by chance. But the whole process is
far too complex to be a chance occurance. It is therefore, the process
of cumulative selection i.e. a series of sieving.( still remembering
that there is no long term goal.)
That is just a quick summary of the first three chapters.( sorry
haven't had time to read the rest yet). Hope it all makes sense.
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