richard_dawkins_-_the_god_delusion

W H Y r 11 r u r -\ i. \i o s r c r. R r A I \ i v is N O {,;>n 139
Even accepting the most pessimistic estimate of the probability
that life might spontaneously originate, this statistical argument
completely demolishes any suggestion that we should postulate
design to fill the gap. Of all the apparent gaps in the evolutionary
story, the origin of life gap can seem unbridgeable to brains
calibrated to assess likelihood and risk on an everyday scale: the
scale on which grant-giving bodies assess research proposals
submitted by chemists. Yet even so big a gap as this is easily filled
by statistically informed science, while the very same statistical
science rules out a divine creator on the 'Ultimate 747' grounds we
met earlier.
But now, to return to the interesting point that launched this
section. Suppose somebody tried to explain the general
phenomenon of biological adaptation along the same lines as we
have just applied to the origin of life: appealing to an immense
number of available planets. The observed fact is that every species,
and every organ that has ever been looked at within every species,
is good at what it does. The wings of birds, bees and bats are good
at flying. Eyes are good at seeing. Leaves are good at photosynthesizing.
We live on a planet where we are surrounded by
perhaps ten million species, each one of which independently displays
a powerful illusion of apparent design. Each species is well
fitted to its particular way of life. Could we get away with the 'huge
numbers of planets' argument to explain all these separate illusions
of design? No, we could not, repeat not. Don't even think about it.
This is important, for it goes to the heart of the most serious misunderstanding
of Darwinism.
It doesn't matter how many planets we have to play with, lucky
chance could never be enough to explain the lush diversity of
living complexity on Earth in the same way as we used it to explain
the existence of life here in the first place. The evolution of life
is a completely different case from the origin of life because,
to repeat, the origin of life was (or could have been) a unique
event which had to happen only once. The adaptive fit of species to
their separate environments, on the other hand, is millionfold, and
ongoing.
It is clear that here on Earth we are dealing with a generalized
process for optimizing biological species, a process that works all