Posted by Carlos on April 24, 1998 at 11:06:10:
In Reply to: EVOLUTION posted by Brian on April 23, 1998 at 20:30:25:
: Well, I will first start by saying that I do not believe in evolution if it means that all life on this planet came from the same original lifeform.
As the philosopher Daniel Dennett says in his book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", organized complexity is the thing we are trying to explain. There are basically two alternatives: one, that all life did evolve from simple, single-celled organisms that in turn arose from spontaneous arrangements of chemicals into replicators; or, two, that God did it. Since, as Dennett says, organized complexity is what we are trying to explain, what is more likely: that such complexity arose from simple organisms, or that a being of infinite complexity and power exists that put life here. If such a being exists, how do you explain Him/Her/It?
Stuart Kaufman (sp?) in his work "At Home in the Universe" has demonstrated current thinking on the synthesis of chaos/complexity theory with biology, and makes convincing arguments that self-organization is the rule, not the exception. Evolution may, in fact, be more common and simpler than previously thought, and certainly would not require the "trillions of years" you posit as necessary.