Did life evolve in an unguided way that mimics real design? [Under Construction]
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Clarifying the question
Life gives the appearance of design. Did all such life simply evolve in a way that mimics design in what it produces?
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What most experts say
Most all biologists say “YES,” life did evolved in an unguided way that mimics real design. Specifically, most say life evolved in a Darwinistic way (driven mostly by natural selection).
It might be debated whether most biologists can be considered experts here, however. To be considered an expert on topic x where experts converge on theory y, it seems one should at least belong to a field where, if an alternative to theory y were true, then the experts would know about it. They would be allowed to investigate any such alternative. In biology, however, biologists are not allowed (professionally) to evaluate certain y theories. That is to say, if God created life, and if the evidence favored this theory, biologists operate under methodological naturalism whereby the theory and its evidences are banned from consideration.1
- • Scott Todd (Dept. of Biology, Kansas State University): “Most important, it should be made clear in the classroom that science… has not disproved God's existence because it cannot be allowed to consider it (presumably). Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. Of course the scientist, as an individual, is free to embrace a reality that transcends naturalism.” [“A view from Kansas on that evolution debate,” Nature, Vol. 410 (30 September 1999): 423.]
• John Rennie (Editor in chief of Scientific American): “A central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism―it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms.”[Scientific American, July 2002.]
- • Scott Todd (Dept. of Biology, Kansas State University): “Most important, it should be made clear in the classroom that science… has not disproved God's existence because it cannot be allowed to consider it (presumably). Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. Of course the scientist, as an individual, is free to embrace a reality that transcends naturalism.” [“A view from Kansas on that evolution debate,” Nature, Vol. 410 (30 September 1999): 423.]
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…life evolved Darwinistically (natural selection)
Life evolved through mostly through natural selection acting on random variations (also known as Darwinism, or Neo-Darwinism, or the Modern Synthesis).
- Some critics object to the use of the term Darwinism, but the term has long been canonized in reputable academic sources and standard works. See here.