XPost: sac.politics, can.politics, alt.atheism   
   XPost: alt.politics.homosexuality   
   From: Dean"@gmail.com   
      
    > When Richard Dawkins and Francis Crick make statements such as these:   
    > Dawkins - "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the   
    > appearance of having been designed for a purpose"   
    > Dawkins pg 1, 1996   
    >  >   
    > “We may say that a living body or organ is well designed if it has   
    > attributes that an intelligent and knowledgeable engineer might have   
    > built into it in order to achieve some sensible purpose… any engineer   
    > can recognize an object that has been designed, even poorly designed,   
    > for a purpose, and he can usually work out what that purpose is just   
    > by looking at the structure of the object.”   
    >  >   
    > Dawkins tries to explain away the observation of design this way:   
    >   “Natural selection is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does   
    > not see ahead, does not plan consequences, has no purpose in view.   
    > Yet the  living results of natural selection overwhelmingly impress   
    > us with the illusion of design and planning.”   
    > Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1996, p. 21.   
    >   
    > Crick - "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see   
    > was not designed, but rather evolved".   
    > Francis Crick What Mad Pursuit (1990), 138.   
    >   
    > If these observations are taken at face value, then a person without   
    > an predisposed mindset against actual design would follow the   
    > evidence where ever it leads. The first principle of the scientific   
    > method is observation, then offer hypothesis explaining the   
    > observation - not to offer hypothesis for the express purpose of   
    > explaining away the observation - a practice contrary to science.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)