narby, I regard myself as both creationist and evolutionist: creationist, because I think the origin of the universe was a divine act; and evolutionist, because I think the created universe evolves. As a process in space and time, it either has to evolve or remain static. Clearly, it is not static. It seems to me Genesis, and the Holy Scriptures in toto, refer to an evolving universe, or creation. The point of Darwinist theory that I simply cannot accept -- because I consider it thoroughly irrational -- is that biological evolution is a "blind," random, purposeless process. It seems to me that you cannot get from a blind, random, purposeless process to an ordered universe that produces particular clearly purposive natural entities. Even plants seem to have "purpose," in the way they behave. And certainly in the results they produce for the biosphere. Were it not for photosynthesis, plant life could not exist in the first place. And if plant life did not exist, neither could any higher biological form. The entire food supply of biological entities on this planet depends on plants, directly (as in the case of herbivores) or indirectly (as in the case of carnivores).
The words "random" and "purposeless" are the absolute killers for me, when it comes to Darwinian theory. Plus the virtual impossibility of testing "truth claims" like this. What experiment can a scientist design that could show life to be random and purposeless, when everything we human beings know about our world on the basis of direct observation and knowledge of human and natural history screams the very opposite?
If someone could put together an experiment like that, I'd be very interested in taking a look at it. But I'm not holding my breath....
Of a truth, one cannot say something is random in the system when he does not know what the system "is."
And of course, the geometry of space/time is unknown - and unknowable - so "random" cannot apply to the physical realm.
As soon as a correspondent insists that evolution is a random walk, I know that he is either a metaphysical naturalist or he hasn't thought it through or what he really means to say is "unpredictable."
Evolution is no more "random" and "purposeless" than a hurricane.
Hurricanes can not form in cold oceans, so they are not strictly "random" in location. They can not form with fast high altitude winds, so again, they are not random.
Life and evolution must exist by following certian rules, like the hurricane, so I can't accept that they are "random". DNA mutations may be more or less "random", but survival is not. Like the hurricane, life must follow certian rules, or it dies. Those rules of survival provide the direction.
Your point about "purposeless" life seems to be akin to the old philosophical point about whether a tree falling in the woods makes a noise. It's an interesting question to think about, but the question itself is "purposeless". Trees fall in the woods, and whether the noise is observed or recorded is irrelevant.
Similarly live evolves, whether we observe it or not. It's only "purpose" is to survive, which is the cornerstone of evolution theory. Life that does not have the ability to survive, dies, and it's evolutionary chain is broken, so the only "purpose" one can ascribe to evolution and life, is survival, because literally every single one of it's ancestors had the ability to survive, and inheritance of traits such as the ability to survive is a fact.
That concept is cold. It is very enticing to believe that there simply *must* be a purpose to life. But despite the drive in all of us to find such purpose defined outside of ourselves, I don't see it. We all must find our own purpose, and some of us do that by following the teachings handed down from long ago, such as those in the Bible. Some of us find our purposes by our own inventiveness.
==What experiment can a scientist design that could show life to be random and purposeless, when everything we human beings know about our world on the basis of direct observation and knowledge of human and natural history screams the very opposite?
One might further ask the obvious question as to how completely random and purposeless causes produce scientists that design purposeful experiments! LOL
About this sentence: The universe can "change", but in this conversation it is utterly impossible for it to "evolve" in the manner described by Darwin.
Evolution by definition must involve imperfect replication, combined with some kind of survival filter that encourages the death of defective replications, and/or encourages the additional survival of superior replications.
The "universe" cannot replicate, so it cannot "evolve" in the manner we're discussing.