Well, there is a basis for the search. While we want to look at the question of life, we need to step back and look at that word 'probable'.
Probable can easily get us into more trouble than its worth if we don't set things stright here. Two things. When we say something is probable, we mean to say the the possibility of the condition being true is non-zero. i.e. It is something I am willing to accept as a feasable, workable solution, but that doesn't necessarily say it is so. Merely, when I encounter evidence supporting the claim, I will not immediately deny it.
On the other hand, we need to look at just how probable something is. What is the chance of the thing being true or not?
Two different mind sets here:
The former stating: I see something which may or may not be evidence, but
fits the picture very nicely.
The latter stating: I have no precidence whatsoever; what are the
chances of this coming about by randomness?
Examining life, we see that the probability of a single cell of life just popping into existance is so minimally small that it is more reasonable to assume that something caused it, rather than assume that the atoms just randomly fused that way.
It is the existance of life, putting the existance of the universe aside, which makes it worth asking the question, if not randomness, then what. And of course what leads to why.
But we are not done examining life. There are so many species that exist and supposedly have existed that the chance of each one just flying together on its own and in the same place and near the same time that we just can't accept this as another fate chance of randomness. Two solutions surface:
Scientifically we don't have the ability to measure the former, although, we must accept that there is a probability of it happening. So, let's take the reasonable approach and look at the latter.
Walks onto the stage, Charles Darwin... for the purpose of this discussion we'll credit him with the idea that creatures evolve. Unfortunately several problems arise, not to mention more questions.
First one being is that there is such a dirveristy of creatures with a huge diversity of functions, attributes, and construction, which all seem to be ecologically dependant on the other, how could such a specific system come around, because in itself evolution is more randomness.
We'll ignore the chicken and egg factor and just go with the assumption that the chicken came first and bore offspring, this simplifies things as well as being a reasonable assumption.
We're also faced with the problem of DNA. DNA mutant strands, from our observations of the facts, usually don't mature into a being. What we are looking for is a step up in an evolutionary chain, an advantage aquired by DNA.
Even with inter-species breeding, results aren't promising. A horse plus a burrow results in mule mutants. Those that survive tend to die very young and are usually are steril. And, let's be honest, mutations don't occur that much at all. When one does, it's a rarity.
Mutanted decendants, now genitically different, typically can't mate with another type of specie, even if is a predecessor specie.
A severe example of evolutionist thinking is their acceptance of a new being with a different number of chromosones. Although not steril, to reproduce this life form requires a mate with a like number -- and this means that we need two entities with virtually identical mutations, of opposite sex, surviving to maturity, and finding each other in the same place at the same time.
Furthermore, we know that the less complicated life forms tend to have short life expectancies and are often quite fragile.
When did the first single celled beings start deciding to give birth by internally carrying its offspring until development, rather than just dividing?
Again, the probability that a specy would suddenly discover that it needed wings to fly start evolving genetically that way. For genetic mutations to occur to produce a useful device it takes a considerable amount of time and generations. ...all of which are subject to the problems above.
Furthermore, if evolution wasn't the complete answer, then perhaps natural selection was. This is more like it.
Perhaps mutant animals got killed off, which again makes it more difficult for two mutants to survive. Perhaps only those that could survive were the ones that made it. Now we're back facing the unlikey improbabilities because now we're saying there had to be lots of mutations and we selected from those.
Why isn't evolution or natural selection playing a bigger part in the world today. Why haven't the monkies and apes that we're supposedly decended from developed opposable thumbs? They're certainly useful.
Why hasn't man had natural mutations which are beneficial? How is it that we seem to be the only beings that set out to alter our environment rather than adapting to it (via moving, or dying off)? Why are we the only specie that seems to have developed a complex language beyond those of primal scents and sounds?
Somehow all these things make us superior in one way or another over the different beasts. What we lack in strength, we make up for in reasoning. With thought, we can produce tools which allow us to survive in intense heat or cold, prolong or terminate life, put us in the air, on the ground, or under the water.
We can look back to the past and try to line things up on the order of complexity, but we just don't see the process going on today. We need to see some, even a few, fish with feet, apes with human-like thumbs, two dolphins holding a conversation, a dog electing to walk errect, and at least some form of life somewhere showing some signs of self awareness.
The theory of evolution breaks down when you start trying to account for plant life; there is such a diversity (fruit vs. vegtable) that it seems so difficult to follow. If there was one random spark of life, at what point did it mutate one direction to animal and the other to vegataion? If this is the case then our greatest ancestors were plant-animal beings.
If you really do your history, you'll discover that Charles Darwin ran into these questions himself and eventually came to the conclusion that it was all too improbable (he used impossible). And if you do even more research you'll discover that this rumor was started by a lady named Mary in England who was writing an article about Darwin. According to the Christian Research Institute, Darwin's final letters near the time of his death show he was grasping to his evolution theory because he just couldn't comprehend that a God could or would design such a system. Darwin's focus aimed at trying to show development from cell to being(s). No evidence or scientific proof was offered, only a suspected theory. Yet today it is accepted as fact...
Those who followed Darwin's research, and who were insistant on not believing what they couldn't immediately see, agreed with Darwin's final claims in an effort of what seems to be not to give up a good theory just because it didn't work. As for them, look how much work they'd put into it. Ironically, most evolutionists don't agree, except for the part that God doesn't play a major role in things.
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