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.   
   >   
   The universe seems to be fine tuned for life, if this can be shown   
   to have any credibility then this would be strong evidence of   
   of design and it would infer designer. There are many reputable   
   scientist who do accept the fine tuning, however, not accepting   
   the existence of a designer, they search for scientific explanations for   
   the presence of fine tuning without a designer.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)