It wasn’t me, it was the “autonomous evolution of the life process.”

Very intelligently stated. Or was that just an illusion?

We like to kid ourselves that we design things with our much-vaunted “intelligence”. We don’t, we are merely the vehicle for the continuation of the directed autonomous evolution of the life process.

Let me get this straight. You are saying that your statement is not designed and that you are kidding yourself, that the letters you assembled into english words to form this sentence convey no amount of intelligence whatsoever, that your sentence is just a by-product of evolution. That we are just having illusions. Perhaps you also kid yourself into thinking that “we are merely the vehicle for the continuation of the directed autonomous evolution of the life process.”

While illusions are real, it takes intelligence to discern what is and what isn’t an illusion. Indeed, you claim to have figured out that intelligence is an illusion and that we are kidding ourselves, but you yourself are not fooled? Perhaps you are more intelligent than we are.

If it isn’t self-refuting nonsense, it’s very close.

With this review, as with some of your others for UD, it is hard to tell where the position of the text ends and your additional comments begin. Perhaps you could be clearer in the future.

With matter and information representing two distinct “domains of existence”, biologists are at a loss to explain the origin of the digital code contained in genetic material.

Yes, they were at a loss in 1995 when Direct interaction between amino acids and nucleotides as a possible physicochemical basis for the origin of the genetic code was published. I think the use of the word ‘possible’ in that title is one that Dr Johnson would approve of.

Well now, there’s a well-designed structure for an argument:

Step 1: Define own terms to suit 2

Step 2: Knock down 1

Is this argument an intelligent one, or not? It could only be improved if it made a value judgement or two.

…snore

Their primary argument is essentially:

1. Our researches indicate that life is enormously complex.
2. We cannot comprehend or figure out the all the details of such complexity.
3. Therefore there must be a “higher intelligence that DOES understand it.

While 1. and 2. are indubitably very true, they in no way justify to the conclusion expressed in 3.

The other argument is:

1. Such complexity smacks of what our human minds call “design”
2. We “design” things (the watch, to use Palin’s example) with the facility we rather arrogantly call “intelligence”
3. Therefore complicated structures of nature (the eye,say) must be “designed” by something akin to this facility which we call “intelligence”

1. Here I would agree that in the very limited sense of purpose or direction can the development of life can be attributed a property corresponding in some ways to “design”
2. In this statement lies the anthropocentric into which proponents of ID as such people as Richard Dawkins both fall. The watch is as much a product of the observed general evolutionary processes as is the eye. In the limited sense of having direction we are also justified in saying they both have design. But this undoubted directionality of the life process does not require invoking a designer.
3. We like to kid ourselves that we design things with our much-vaunted “intelligence”. We don’t, we are merely the vehicle for the continuation of the directed autonomous evolution of the life process.

Such matters are discussed further within a very broad context in my recent book “Unusual Perspectives”, which is available in electronic format for free download from the eponymous website.

The Cell – A World Of Complexity Darwin Never Dreamed Of – Donald E. Johnson
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4139390

The Digital Code Of DNA – Solid Proof Of Intelligent Design – Dr. Donald E. Johnson
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4138621