16:03 - 18:30 Lennox: D says there is the impression of design in evolution, but Darwin shows there is none. Simon Conway Morris says evolutionary pathways navigate through an informational hyperspace with phenomenal precision, so there is the impression of design at that level, too. The mechanism does not account for the origin of life at all, and the fact that evolution is so clever is evidence that there is a rational mind behind it.
Dawkins: The point of Darwinian natural selection is that there is no design, no foresight. It is a blind process, the ones that survive survive. With hindsight, we can see they have genes that make them survive. Simon Conway Morris and D share the idea that evolution homes in on particular outcomes, i.e. marsupials from Australia uncannily resemble non-marsupial animals. Natural selection is a blind, mechanical, automatic force. It works without guidance, and there is no need for it to be guided.
Dawkins: The point of Darwinian natural selection is that there is no design, no foresight. It is a blind process, the ones that survive survive. With hindsight, we can see they have genes that make them survive. Simon Conway Morris and D share the idea that evolution homes in on particular outcomes, i.e. marsupials from Australia uncannily resemble non-marsupial animals. Natural selection is a blind, mechanical, automatic force. It works without guidance, and there is no need for it to be guided.
Lennox is losing this part of the debate: every mechanism that works effectively may give the impression of design or guidance, but that doesn't necessarily make the impression true.
18:31 - 19:03 Lennox: Evolution could be guided, does D completely shut that out? For example, L's watch is blind and mechanical, but it has been designed. Evolution is so sophisticated that it suggests there is a rational mind behind it. (D disagrees.)
Lennox continues to lose ground. His watch example demonstrates the opposite of his point: just by observing the watch, it is impossible to tell whether it has or has not been designed. Pebbles rounded by a river may give the impression that the entire river mechanism has been designed to produce rounded pebbles, but in fact, if you throw in pieces of glass or bricks, they will be rounded over time in just the same blind and mechanical way - which, crucially, says nothing about the origin of water or any other component of the mechanism. Evolution can be blind and mechanical all right, but it would be a fallacy to extend the blindness hypothesis without further thought to the origin of the first organism(s). Consider the title of Darwin's book: it's On The Origin of Species, and not On The Origin of Life. Darwin precisely delimited the scope of his theory, and so should we.
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