Yes, its part of the adaptability and resiliency that's designed into the genetic structure of living things that allows them to adapt to their surroundings.
The adaptability and resiliency of the genetic structure is necessary since if life didn't adapt, it would've died out. That's exactly the whole point of natural selection.
Oh very clearly. The fact that you need a lab to CREATE it, then it must have a CREATOR.
My statement was in response to you saying that just because speciation is observed in the lab, then there must be intelligent design behind it.
That's like saying, "We threw a ton of of organic chemicals in a soup and we got a bunch of self-replicating amino acids" means "There must be intelligent design behind amino acids." There is a chemical order to their molecular structure, yes. Conscious, deliberate design, not necessarily.
Or, I throw a bunch of iron filings on a cardboard and some of them clumped together along magnetic lines means there must be intelligent design behind their arrangement. There is an order to their arrangement, yes. Conscious, deliberate design, not necessarily.
I think that transistors clustering into an Intel chip by chance in a billion years has about the same likelihood as amoebas clustering into a salamander over a billion years.
First, again, not by chance. By selection.
Second, yes, we went from lower life forms to higher life forms in about as much time, maybe not a billion years, but in that time frame.
Even looking at the simplest element in the universe, the hydrogen atom reveals a design so precise that if you so much as reduce by 2% or make stronger by 3/10 of 1% the nuclear forces between the neutron and the proton, there would no life at any time in the universe.
That's the anthropic principle. The counter to that, of course, is that we cannot be certain there won't be life in the universe if the fundamental constants or laws were changed.
There won't be life
as we know it, definitely. It may be barren, yes, or life may just evolve just as naturally according to the laws of that universe.
Consider underwater volcanic vents. No one could've imagined an environment more hostile. Yet, as it turns out, they're teeming with life, perfectly adapted to that environment. In fact, some scientists think that these may have been the birthplace of organic life on Earth.
Now, if, for example, the Earth had more silicon than carbon, then I wouldn't be surprised if we had turned out as sapient, silicon-based life forms instead. If our atmosphere was methane, then maybe we'd be breathing methane.
So, Intelligent Design is not necessary to explain the presence of life attuned perfectly to its environment—because that's the nature of Life, if it exists, it's bound to be shaped by its environment.
I think a better argument might be that a life form so badly adapted for its environment, but it's there, thriving. Like, if we found fish living on the Moon, with no other life forms present. I'd be hard-pressed to come up with any other explanation than somebody or something else put them there, on purpose.
Between the two, I prefer the simpler possibility of a creator designing me rather than adhering to the statistical improbability I came from a monkey by natural selection or random genetic mutation.
Actually, sir, I think it's quite easy to see complexity emerge from simple interactions and initial conditions. Coupled with evolution and natural selection, and given enough time, I think it's inevitable that sapient life will emerge.
But in that scenario God doesn't even have to consciously design or shape everything along the way. All God needs to do is set the initial conditions to make it so that eventually, humans evolve, acquire intelligence, and naturally start wondering about God. In this worldview, there is no conflict between science and Deism, or Theism (in general), or even Agnosticism.
God -> Universe -> emergence -> Life can be a coherent, rational statement, but, to turn it around and say
Life -> God doesn't necessarily follow (A -> B doesn't mean B -> A).
