Evolution and designers

[undergroundpanther]

I am weird I guess..

I don't believe in gods.I do not think gods "made" us.Why? Because if this mess is the best it can do,how come I can imagine better? Besides the idea of being owned by the so called"creator"like a piece of pottery or a designer shoe is something I would expect a human creator to insist upon.
and lastly if I am unhappy with this"creation" I am forced to participate in upon my birth where do I get a refund?


Because everything this god creates dies. WHY?

Secondly Evolution is bloody,brutal,it's impersonal,The trials by killing, destroying,rape,a cold survival based struggle. it's not personal yet it feels so personal when"you are targeted for deselection." WHY?.
Yet here we are self conscious beings,in a half consious world who when we lose loved ones or face trauma, get injured , our capacity for survival is diminished. Not only do we feel compassion which can interfere with survival of self,we are conscious of our own eventual deaths.Why in the hell would we evolve to be conscious of the pain of evolution and death for? Evolution has no sense it is dumb chance and it hurts.It might NOT be a good thing.

Also evolution like creationism pre supposes that complexity is good that we are evolving into something else. And by all appearances on Earth things change yes.

But I do not think humanity can see all of the forces shaping us.Forces in space,dimensional issues, etc.We just don't know everything about how this reality works.And because we do not know I am unwilling to say it is the handiwork of a god OR evolution is a good thing.It might NOT be a good thing. Evolution wipes out losers and the over successful.Survival demands success yet our success as a species will lead to our extinction. We do not know why evolution does what it does.Yes adaptation,but adaptation is not sufficient to explain why success spells failure so much.Evolution makers no sense it is random adaptation to random events and we are conscious through the pain of it for WHAT?

I don't trust the "forces of evolution" to have enough insight to heal the traumas it creates.
I don't trust any Gods know what compassion is either they are just bully owners. Life here sucks.
Either way the idea because I am born being here means I am somehow owned by some creator God sucks and My evolving and feeling the pain of it all,struggling,fighting, and dying anyway sucks too.
The two options,Creationism or this Chance evolution ,as an explanation of why life is this way sucks .For neither scenario satisfies my questions fully enough.

As far as I am concerned I don't know.Evolution has more evidence by far than creationism does.Maybe it always boils down to ones CHOSEN perception of how they see the world and interpret the data.Their motives as to why they see things a particular way..

[wickerwoman]

1. Evolution doesn't presuppose complexity=good.

Where do you get that? From an evolutionary perspective, the most successful organisms on the planet are bacteria. They can survive almost anywhere, there are trillions upon trillions of them and they've been around forever through changes that have wiped out 95% of the life on earth. Evolution presupposes that adaptability is good, not complexity. In fact, the more complex and specialized the organism, the more difficult it is for it to survive changes in it's environment.

And evolution isn't good or bad- it just is. Would you say gravity was good or bad? Does life suck because things fall to the ground? Maybe if you're in a plane at the time... but it doesn't seem to spark an existential crisis in most people.

[varkam]

2. I don't believe in a god either.

Nor would I say I "believe" in evolution, but only because I don't have to. Belief is what is substituted for logic and reason in the complete absence of any observable evidence. I think evolution is the most probably mechanism by which we arose, but only in virtue of the data that is available to us at present.

I don't quite see how evolution creates trauma. Sure, natural selection invariably favors more adaptive organisms - but is that bad? If it didn't, then one could reasonably say that - if it were left completely to chance - we might not even be here. Evolution in itself is neither good nor bad, it's just the most plausible explanation of how organisms actually develop, IMHO.

[HereSince1628]

3. The brutality of evolution might be viewed as merely the brutality of Life

written as consequence. As part of our culture we find it hard to accept outcomes that have overwhelming impacts on individuals as absolutely and completely un-witted, devoid of intention, and free from judgment of what "ought to be."

There is nothing particularly brutal about the substitution, insertion, deletion, reversal, or repositioning of nucleotides in DNA. Nor is there anything particularly brutal about the substitution of a single amino acid within a strand of DNA. And yet you and I know these results have been known to devastate the lives of their carriers. "Why me? Why my child?" Are questions that assuage consciences. (Obviously, notwithstanding that some of this sort of genetic damage might be caused by environmental hazards present because of human activity.)

The earthworm, pulled from the ground writhing in resistance to being pinched in the beak of a thrush is a life granting meal to the nestling, but it is death by being eaten alive for the worm. Good for the bird, bad for the worm? Survival of the offspring is a necessary part of the definition of a fitness contribution, death is the end of opportunities to reproduce and further express one's fitness. Questions such as "What did the worm do to deserve that?" or accusations of avian prejudice and brutality toward peaceful surface-loving sunbathing lumbricoides yield some sense of being not appropriate to understanding the place of predator and prey in nature.

We must remember that the nature of the society we live in is one of assigning causes and blames to events and those involved in them. Our perspective is largely based on our intellectual/emotional position relative to the outcome of events. From that place our desire for meaning imposes itself not only personal viewpoints but on society and thereby back onto ourselves. It directs our construction and maintenance of the institutions (schools, courts, religions) we use to establish and maintain meanings and interpretations.

That having been said, consider that evolution _is not an actor_ to which intention, purpose, or justice can be assigned. Evolution per se is a status report, a play summary of biological history if you will. Evolutionary _theory_, or more generally evolutionary science is the body of our understanding and collection of human activities that summarize, explain, check and make predictions about what we might learn about the circumstances and acts that happened. The actors and the roles they play out in the history of Life are nothing more, and nothing less, no more and no less brutal and intentional than the events of nature in everyday Life.