What do Richard Dawkins and the Intelligent Design movement have in common?

[Heywood Jahblome]

(05-03-2013 03:00 PM)Aspchizo Wrote:  So pattern implies an external intelligence how? There are a finite amount of ways in which the external world can be detected. Each one of these benefits survival so long as they can be put to use. As previously mentioned, that specifc mole doesn't have any need for eyes, so they are being phased out. Moles with mutations that effected the functioning of the eye were not affecting their survival rate, and so passed on these mutated genes as easily as moles with functioning eyes which eventually leads to the phasing out of that aspect of the creature entirely.

Pressure (touch): It's great to know when your being crushed or not.
Vibrational Energy (touch-temperature): It's helpful to know if your freezing or burning.
Radiant energy (sight): it's helpful to see a predator chasing/stalking you.
Pressure waves (hearing): It's helpful to hear a predator chasing/stalking you when you cannot see them, or to hear flowing water.
Chemical senses (Taste, Smell): Assists in avoiding harmful/toxic plants, smell can also be used as a third way to detect predators.

Eyes cropping up is a pattern? Of course. This is taking advantage of an extra way to sense the environment, which is a survival advantage.

Does it imply a creator or underlying purpose/goal beyond survival and reproduction? No.

Organisms are typically in competition with each other, they are more likely to outlast 'opponents' and survive if they are taking advantage of each of the ways in which the environment can be detected.

Please give me an example of some other forms of sensing the environment you think should have cropped up in species instead of these.

I never said patterns imply an external intelligence. I never even said the fitness paradigm implies an external intelligence. I'm not sure where you are getting this from other that its easy for you to pretend I said something and then attack it instead of attacking something I actually said.

Getting back to the fitness paradigm. Remember its a label for the aggregate of all things that go into selection. So saying it doesn't exist is saying it is impossible to put a name on the collection of things which goes into selection. What do the things that go into selection do? Well they determine the form. I call it a fitness paradigm because A)it primarily has to do with fitness and B) if you understand it you can use it predict what evolution will do....you can model it(paradigm is another word model).

If you ever design your own evolutionary processes, it will include some sort of fitness paradigm. For instance, it might be 1 fitness function in a computer program or it might be 10 fitness functions in a computer program. It will however direct or guide evolution toward certain traits, shapes, or forms.