I think James Bach was on the right track here, but did not take this far
enough. Eliezer’s interlocuter was not able to really articulate his argument.
Properly argued, probability is completely irrelevant.
So, let us contemplate the position of a serious, hard science creationist, and
I hate to say it, but such people exist. So, this individual can fully agree and
admit that how a given body grows and develops depends on its DNA structure, so that
indeed it is not surprising that different species that appear morphologically and
behaviorally to be somewhat similar, such as various canine species or feline species,
or for that matter chimps and humans, even if the older creationists got all in fits
about having a monkey for an uncle, and so forth, will have very similar DNA structures.
The issue then is how did this come to be. The evolutionist says that it is due to
evolution from common ancestors and so forth. The scientific creationist says, “no,”
this simply reflects that the intelligent designer set them up this way because DNA
controls the growth of individual entities, so similar appearing and behaving species
will have more similar DNA, and God (or The Intelligent Designer) made it this way
fully consciously in accord with the laws of science, which presumably the same Entity
is also fully aware of, whether or not this Entity in fact set up those laws his or herself.
I think James Bach was on the right track here, but did not take this far enough. Eliezer’s interlocuter was not able to really articulate his argument. Properly argued, probability is completely irrelevant.
So, let us contemplate the position of a serious, hard science creationist, and I hate to say it, but such people exist. So, this individual can fully agree and admit that how a given body grows and develops depends on its DNA structure, so that indeed it is not surprising that different species that appear morphologically and behaviorally to be somewhat similar, such as various canine species or feline species, or for that matter chimps and humans, even if the older creationists got all in fits about having a monkey for an uncle, and so forth, will have very similar DNA structures.
The issue then is how did this come to be. The evolutionist says that it is due to evolution from common ancestors and so forth. The scientific creationist says, “no,” this simply reflects that the intelligent designer set them up this way because DNA controls the growth of individual entities, so similar appearing and behaving species will have more similar DNA, and God (or The Intelligent Designer) made it this way fully consciously in accord with the laws of science, which presumably the same Entity is also fully aware of, whether or not this Entity in fact set up those laws his or herself.