Personally I do not feel life BEGINS by chance, although the
subsequent evolution is plausibly Darwinian.
Perhaps an E.T. (not necessarily God) has been
'guiding' the evolution of life on this planet.
I find this hypothesis intensely annoying! It does not solve the problem; it merely removes it from our planet to some other planet. If ET #1 guided our evolution, do we assume that some other ET (#2) was there to guide ET #1, and did #3 guide #2? It is an infinite recursion. At some point, an intelligent species must have arisen from purely natural causes without intervention by any other species. Since it had to happen at least once, why shouldn't we assume it happened again on earth?
The hypothesis is also annoying because it is not falsifiable.
Regarding the Darwin quote: Yes he said that, but it has not been demonstrated that any organ exists which could not have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications. Indeed, every organ I know of still has numerous existing successive slight modifications remaining in primitive species, including eyes, an example Darwin cited. Primitive eyes that can only sense the direction of light are way better than no eyes at all.
Plus, anyone who thinks evolution is slow (or it does not exist) should learn about the growing crisis in antibiotic resistant diseases. This illustrates why ignorance is dangerous. We are frittering away the most potent drugs ever invented, mainly using them to keep the cost of meat low in the US. If this continues for a few more generations we will be back to the world as it was before 1940, when ordinary diseases often killed people of all ages. We have already thrown way the opportunity to eliminate tuberculosis, one of the most virulent diseases.
- Jed
