Quote from jem:
Your point number "2" above is the point teleolgist was attempting to get you to admit.
You seem to be confusing the mechanism you describe in "1" one with he point scientists and some id advocates have been making.
Lets do a quick review. Your "1" could be correct and "2" could be correct. But 2 is a big change for science.
It used to be said that we are here because of random chance. Teleogist provided you with many quotes showing that until recently evolution happend because of random undirected trial and error.
IDers and and smart scientists said that is impossible - we did not have enough for us to have come about through random trial and error.
Your point number 2 if correct would prove the IDers and the smart sceintists correct. it was not random trial and error.
Regarding coming clean.
First of all I use firefox and it conflicts with spell checker and makes it difficult to edit my posts. the lack of clean editing does make for some very bad grammer.
Secondly, I do not type accurately and do not enjoy the time I waste on many of these threads so sometimes you just get exposed to very quick typing and responses.
I would never let zzz we clash on many subjects on this board. I have called him a troll more than once.
Environment is always a factor in evolutionary change -- probably the primary factor.
The mutations are random because they are the product of quantum physical atomic interactions which are subject to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and so cannot be predicted with certainty in advance.
Whether the host organism survives and passes a beneficial mutation to a future generation is the product of the interaction between the benefit of the mutation conferred, and the environment existing at the time. This may or may not be a random effect, because the environment may be subject to modification by an intelligent influence.
If a mutation were to provide a species with webbed feet and the environment were devoid of water, then webbed feet is likely a deleterious mutation. If the environment is a lake, then webbed feet is probably beneficial.
If the lake was placed into the environment for the purpose of benefiting webbed footed species, then the environment is non-random, and so could be described as intelligently designed. So, if you have evidence of an alien or terrestrial intelligence terraforming the African savanna before the time that humans started domestic livestock breeding, then that would be proof of intelligent design.
If the changes to the environment are the product of natural chaotic turbulence, then the environment is random, and so is the mutation, so the confluence of the two is also random. However, during a time of environmental stasis, the environment may channel the direction of evolution by permitting a particular set of mutations to survive in the progeny of the host organism.
This effect is neither intelligent nor designed -- it's just an effect of the environment existing during the time that the mutations occurred. However, as Teleologist's cited article points out, such environmental conditions may contribute to a faster evolutionary process, because certain mutations may be more quickly advanced where an environmental state is far more beneficial to the mutated host than to the non-mutated host.
This effect was demonstrated as recently as this month in an article in "Science" concerning lizard populations with shortened legs, which appeared in an unusually "short" period of time, due to an environmental change. See
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/314/5802/1111
But this article doesn't suggest that an unseen intelligence has altered the environment to shorten the lizards' legs. Similarly, Teleologist's cited article does nothing to alter the current theory of evolution, and it does nothing to support intelligent design.
As for your spell checker issue, I don't believe you. You're free to try to prove otherwise. Likewise, I think that Teleologist is also Z or that you are all sharing ids in order to maintain your positions.
Call me paranoid.
