Right.
We know that life evolves. We know that all life forms with DNA (so, to our knowledge, all life forms) evolve.
We know that evolution produces phenomenally complex systems. Bacterial chemotaxis, the human eye, multicellularity, et cetera.
We know of no other mechanism for the production of complex biological systems.
And we do. Again, and again, and again. It's not to say that, should a vase start floating in midair, the child would be wrong to shoot his mother a pointed glance. It's just we never find that. But ID creationists insist that if we just keep dropping things, sooner or later something will float. They need to do better than that. They need to find something which they can demonstrate could not have evolved.
Ehhh... Two things. Firstly, you seem to misunderstand is what counts as evidence. You keep rejecting things like intermediate stages in nature and nested hierarchies, when in fact these are very strong evidence of evolution. Secondly, when dealing with biological systems, evolution is the paradigm. When you drop something, you don't have to spend a whole lot of time proving that the force pulling it to the ground is gravity. Because gravity is the paradigm in that domain. In the case of biology, it's even worse! At least in physics, we know of other forces that could theoretically attract matter, like magnetism. In biology, there is nothing else there. It's essentially evolution or "some completely unknown unestablished mechanism" (in this case, you want to insert "design", which is unproven and unprovable).
While I appreciate the time and effort you applied to this post, it comes down to one point and one point alone. Evolution happens and so evolution is the explanation. That simply is not in evidence. You make claims about evolution producing
phenomenally complex systems such as Bacterial chemotaxis, the human eye, multicellularity, et cetera. when in fact none of these has any evidence of being the product of evolutionary processes and pathways. There are stories of plausibility and possibilities but there is no evidence for instance for unicellular life evolving into multicellular life, the same holds true of the human eye. We have no evidence that the eye which would have had to evolve independently numerous times actually evolving from anything simpler. We have already have evidence in the Cambrian of fully complex eyes and no precursors. Accordingly we have no precursors to the neurological pathways that had to accompany the eye. Bacterial chemotaxis depends on so many systems that have to be coordinated within the whole working process that to claim it is shown by evolutionary processes again is not explained by evolution alone. Together with the human like engineering of all the systems and forms you have cited, it must be noted that all of this can not be shown to be evolution alone due to the fact that evolution did not evolve. There was a starting point from that first UCA, that first element of non-function from which all functioning systems arise which has no evidence to support it. The processes from which you claim all arise from evolution can not arise without some beginning design to fashion the laws and physics from which evolution has the ability to work at all. Clearly it does not follow from the fact, if it is one, that living organisms could (in some significant sense of "could") have come about without more or less direct intellectual intervention, that in fact they
did so. The imaginary simpler organism and tiny modifications in reproduction of yet other, simpler life forms over unimaginably long periods of time, without intervention by a rational planner who is working toward a goal, is a conclusion based on philosophy rather than actual physical evidence to support it. The conclusion better shown, based on presumption of certain processes set up but not
directly guided by rational intention at each step can, under conceivable circumstances, produce surprisingly ordered results but that in no way supports the broadened concept that it produces the complexity and deliberate design observed in all living organisms from far simpler forms. IN fact, no evidence exists to support that they did so evolve. That the human eye "could have" evolved from a simpler form and must "have" because no other explanation is worthy of consideration is not evidence. The use of imagination can surely be used to show how an eye "could" evolve but in no way shows "it did" evolve. The same holds true of most complex and design like features in all living organisms. Evolution-did-it is not explanation anymore than God-did-it in the same frame. That is not to say that they could not have evolved either, but on the flip side we know that intervention of breeders shows no "sign" of that intervention in the genome of the plant or animal, structurally the intervention is not seen or observed. To say that evolution alone is the only evidence rather begs the question.
Cumulative selection can manufacture complexity while single-step selection cannot. But cumulative selection cannot work unless there is some minimal machinery of replication and replicator power, and the only machinery of replication that we know seems too complicated to have come into existence by means of anything less than many generations of cumulative selection! The circular reasoning is apparent. What
blind processes do you propose to produce the type of self-reproducing entity and structured environment that will make natural selection possible?
You claim for biology "there is nothing else there" but that is literally impossible due to the fact that evolution did not evolve the processes from which it arises. The processes or origins of those processes all come under those same laws of physics and cosmic design which holds even a stronger analogy to intelligence and design; add to this the fact that human beings as intelligent agents who recognize design features from experience having the capability of recognition, analogy all products of intelligence presupposes intelligence at its origins. No where in any form does intelligence arise from non-intelligence. Never do we see true order from true disorder in our experience but from the mind.
Now Dawkins with his claim that the deliberate design with a purpose is an illusion from his imaginary treks through history with stories and could haves and might haves and plausibility doesn't shy away from the origin of all life on earth as so many like to do so on this forum. He does reflect upon the origin of life (he knows to make order from disorder it is necessary) and again gives us a story of how it "might have come about". So we have evolution being the originator of all complexity and design like appearances of living organisms being imagined by Dawkins and his attempt to provide a starting point for it all by his venture into the fantasy of abiogenesis and all the while nothing is given to support it at all. Evolution is all there is does not provide evidence that something other than evolution IS there and doesn't even support itself by evidence. Evolution happens and we see this by the genetic makeup of all living things but we do not see nor has it been ever produced to show that it produces the complexity and apparent design with a purpose in all living organisms on earth.
Finally, there is no reason to believe that intelligence the type we humans possess could possibly have arisen from a step-to-step progression from non-intelligence but should we grant that possibility we then have to conclude that our reasoning is not in accordance with truth or fact or even of actualization of experience but from chemical interaction in the brain and only what we can think do we think.
