Imagine a pair of Brontosaurus on board.
“I do think its true that cosmologists are slightly more likely to be theists than biologists. In earlier times biology was the thing that provided the most powerful apparent evidence for the existence of a Creator – Darwin solved all that. I think, in a way, cosmology is waiting for its Darwin. However, I would add this, that biology is supremely complicated. Complexity is the really difficult thing that you might think you need a designer for – Darwin solved that. The universe actually, is not very complicated.”
-Dawkins
--->Placemarker<---
Actually Noah and his family must have been scared sh*tless with a bunch of T Rex running around the boat for 40 days. They must have kept those guys well fed.
DAWKINS: (snip)"…But yet we have this gathering together of genes into individual organisms. And that reminds me of the illusion of one mind, when actually there are lots of little mindlets in there, and the illusion of the soul of the white ant in the termite mound, where you have lots of little entities all pulling together to create an illusion of one. Am I right to think that the feeling that I have that I'm a single entity, who makes decisions, and loves and hates and has political views and things, that this is a kind of illusion that has come about because Darwinian selection found it expedient to create that illusion of unitariness rather than let us be a kind of society of mind?"PINKER: "It's a very interesting question. Yes, there is a sense in which the whole brain has interests in common in the way that say a whole body composed of genes with their own selfish motives has a single agenda. In the case of the genes the fact that their fates all depend on the survival of the body forces them to cooperate. In the case of the different parts of the brain, the fact that the brain ultimately controls a body that has to be in one place at one time may impose the need for some kind of circuit, presumably in the frontal lobes, that coordinates the different agendas of the different parts of the brain to ensure that the whole body goes in one direction. In How the Mind Works I alluded to a scene in the comedy movie All of Me in which Lily Tomlin's soul inhabits the left half of Steve Martin's body and he takes a few steps in one direction under his own control and then lurches in another direction with his pinkie extended while under the control of Lily Tomlin's spirit. That is what would happen if you had nothing but completely autonomous modules of the brain, each with its own goal. Since the body has to be in one place at one time, there might be a circuit that suppresses the conflicting motives…"(end snip)
Materialist Evolutionist-a non-teleological position that affirms that only apparent, not real design, exists in the abiotic and biotic realms. Causes for the creation and subsequent development of these realms are attributed only to natural processes."Weak" Deistic Evolution-a teleological position that affirms recognition, but not empirical detectability of real design in the abiotic realm by a transcendent, Deistic Being who has causally acted only during its initial formation. Natural processes are the only factors that have brought about and shaped biological complexity during the past 4.5 billion years.
"Weak" Theistic Evolution-a teleological position that affirms the recognition, but not empirical detectability of real design in the abiotic and biotic realms by a transcendent, Theistic Being who has causally acted both during and after its initial formation, having designed biological complexity via universal common ancestry during the past 4.5 billion years.
Corporeal Design-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the biotic realm by a being(s) with physical bodies, having designed biological complexity at some point during the past 4.5 billion years, with or without using universal common ancestry (e.g., panspermia and Raelianism, respectively).
Intrinsic Design-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic and/or biotic realm by a Being who is wedded to/one with the universe, and who has causally acted since its initial formation, having designed biological complexity via universal common ancestry during the past 4.5 billion years.
"Strong" Deistic Evolution-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic realm by a transcendent, Deistic Being who has causally acted only during its initial formation. Natural processes are the only factors that have brought about and shaped biological complexity during the past 4.5 billion years.
"Strong" Theistic Evolution-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic and biotic realms by a transcendent, Theistic Being who has causally acted both during and after its initial formation, having designed biological complexity via universal common ancestry during the past 4.5 billion years.
Old-Earth Creationism-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic and biotic realms by a transcendent, Theistic Being who has causally acted both during and after its initial formation, having designed discontinuous biological complexity during the past 4.5 billion years.
Young-Earth Creationism-a teleological position that affirms recognition and detectability of real design in the abiotic and biotic realms by a transcendent, Theistic Being who has causally acted both during and after its initial formation, having designed discontinuous biological complexity approximately 6,000 years ago. As mentioned above, ID is not included among the teleological positions in Table 1 or Figure 2. Its definition is given here, followed by a rationale for its location on the Nested Hierarchy of Design
Intelligent Design-a teleological position that affirms recognition and empirical detectability of real design in the abiotic and/or biotic realms.