The Design of Life - God or Evolution?

The Design of Life - God or Evolution?

Life has indeed been designed, but by whom or what is the central controversy. Creationists believe it was an intelligent designer, namely, God; evolutionists believe it was a driving force of nature, namely, natural selection. Natural selection works when life forms with advantageous survival traits live long enough to breed, therefore passing on those traits to the next generation. Life forms with weaker traits die before breeding, and therefore disappear from the gene pool. Genetic diversity results in slight variations of these hereditary traits from generation to generation, which allows a species to adapt to the changing demands of a changing environment. This results in a suitability between life form and environment that many people mistake for intelligent design.

In the 18th century, the scientific world was neck-deep in clues of evolution, but a simple counter-argument had stopped scientists from accepting a theory on evolution. This was Bishop Paley's argument that life had obviously been designed. For example, if a person who had never seen a watch before was walking through the woods and discovered one, he would know by its interdependent features and functions that it had been designed and manufactured by another human. The same point can be made of life. The human eye, for instance, exhibits all the evidence of design: the transparency of the cornea, the adjustability of the pupils for light, the curvature of the lens for focus, all cooperate together to serve sight. This interdependency to serve a greater function could only be the product of design. Design must have a designer. And that designer, Paley argued, is God.

The 18th century Scottish philosopher David...

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... them at greater rates than their dark siblings, who survived in greater numbers to breed. By 1898, dark moths had grown to become 95 percent of the population. Evolutionists argue that if these small changes (called "microevolution") are continued long enough, the result will be an entirely new species ("macroevolution").

Notice a possible error that a believer in intelligent design might make here. In 1898 a person could observe dark English moths living on dark trees and say, "Look at how the moths evade their predators by camouflaging themselves with their background -- this is evidence of intelligent design." But only 50 years earlier the moths had been light-colored. The moth's current features are not part of intelligent design... unless evolution is part of the master plan. And, in fact, this is a compromise position that many Christians have accepted.