On Evolution ...

I am sitting here reading a book.  The book is the Bible, but it could be any book for the sake of this conversation.  The book is the result of thought.  The (white) pages, the ink, the binding ... all the notes and references.  It is the result of the thought of someone arranging all the stuff, printing, and binding it together.  And so on.  The book didn't just spontaneously happen.  And the book is (near?) perfect.

You see, evolution suggests that, though rare, I should be able to walk down a forest trail, or an alley, and ... stumble across a book, nearly perfect, that was just spontaneously arranged.  And, also, a bunch of other books, that weren't quite as perfect.

Evolution suggests that I should be able to walk down a mountain trail ... and ... spontaneously arranged (from the iron in the mountain next to me) ... a perfect bicycle.  Or maybe even a near-perfect bicycle, or maybe a half-perfect bicycle.  No, actually, as I walk along a mountain trail, even if the mountain is rich in iron ore, I will never just stumble across a bicycle, that was just naturally and spontaneously produced (evolved) ... because something like a bicycle requires thought.  I will not stumble across a naturally produced bicycle if I walk the trails for a thousand years, or a million years, or a billion years. In fact, time actually works against me ... as erosion will de-arrange and take away the mountain, and I'll have to wait for a new one.  No, for me to stumble across a bicycle ... would require thought.  Someone thought to take the ore from the mountain, make steel from ore, and a frame from the steel, rubber tires from wherever they get rubber, and so on, ... and then someone thought to bring the bicycle up the trail and leave it.

I was bighorn sheep hunting recently in the Idaho wilderness.  Many miles from the nearest anything I climbed a mountain to look for sheep.  And ... WTF! ... near the same rock outcropping was a can of gas for a backpacking stove, half used.  Spontaneously produced?  A product of evolution?  I mean, given enough time and mountains I should be able to find just about anything at the top?  No!  Someone thought to bring it there.  And either thought to leave it, or forgot (to bring it back down).

And we came across an abandoned homestead, with the bottom logs of a building, remains of a corral, and some metal pipes.  Someone, years ago, thought to bring them there.

And let's take it up a level, to things more complicated, ... plants and animals.  Things as complicated as living organisms, and with the breath of life ...

I have walked the Idaho trails and have come across a lot of bones.  But never of a giraffe, or near-giraffe, or half-giraffe, ... having evolved from something like it down the trail (dunno what), but that couldn't quite hack the Idaho cold (or wolves).  Nor have I come across a palm tree, or a parakeet.  Or their remains (since they weren't quite adapted). 

No, for me to walk along a trail and observe a wild animal requires thought.  Someone far smarter than I thought to make such a creature, perfectly (or near-perfectly) adapted to the environment it's in.  A bighorn sheep, perfectly created to jump among the rocks to escape pursuers, with eyesight to look for miles.  With stomach and metabolism to intake the surrounding vegetation, and flourish, be alive, healthy!  Someone (God) thought to make pine trees that could send out roots in any direction, and wedge into the granite, so that the tree could get nutrients, and when the mighty wind blows the same roots stabilize it from blowing over.  Someone thought of `wiring' a steelhead trout ... to swim downstream to the ocean (with the flow) ... and then some years later upstream (the same stream, against the flow) ... and to return to the same spawning gravels.  Just happen?  I don't think so.

It requires thought.