"Evolution vs. Design" ~Voltaire

In response to the EveryStudent essay,

The theory of evolution has been developed over the centuries and is currently supported by millions of examples both from artificial experiments and in the natural world. Analogizing the human eye to a bag of screws is ridiculous. You write that evolution proposes that "the human eye just came about from elements in the atmosphere". Evolution is not a random process that just takes a really long time. It is not at all like shaking a bag of screws in the hope of getting a watch. Evolution selects the best adaptations for an environment, gradually producing greater and greater complexity. The eye, for instance, did not just appear in a puff of smoke; rather, it originated as a small patch of photoreceptors in a primitive invertebrate, eventually developing an optic nerve, rods and cones, and so on. This process took billions of years and was completely non-random.

However, the larger argument--how the universe itself originated without the help of an intelligent designer--has not yet been resolved as intuitively as Darwin's. Scientists have come up with a number of possible solutions, from string theory to multiverse, but all are supported more by discrete mathematics than by intuition. The deepest questions, I find, rarely have easy answers. The problem with your deceptively easy solution is this: The universe may be miraculous and improbable--but whoever designed it must be even more miraculous and thus more improbable! Who designed the Designer? Religion is no solution to the paradox of infinite regress.

The theory of evolution is often oversimplified, but true or not it fails to replace theism as an explanation for the origin of life:

a. I agree that there are plenty of examples of MICRO-evolution (adaptation), but I am completely unconvinced by any evidence of MACRO or cross-species evolution that I've seen so far. If you have any such evidence, please direct me to it.

b. If natural selection breeds out the less helpful qualities, why do species that are many levels “less evolved” still exist?

c. Evolution cannot handle systems that irreducibly complex (“a single system… wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning”). The eye may be a poor example of this, but there have been plenty of better ones (ex. Bacterial flagellum). In order for evolution to work, it must make tiny steps that can be common mutations, but even the eye requires huge leaps to get from a patch of photoreceptors to an optic nerve.

d. Even if macro-evolution could be proven, it fails to explain how life began or how circumstances could be lined up to allow life to begin. You do talk about solutions that they are developing (string theory to a multiverse) and I’d be very interested in hearing more about these along with the “discrete mathematics” that support them.

e. You state that “the deepest questions rarely have easy answers”, but the commonly accepted theory of Ockham’s Razor (“All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one”) leans against you there. I did not accept Christianity as true simply based on proof, but I have been continually convinced that the ad hoc responses from Atheists require more faith than an intelligent designer. I also disagree about the increased complexity of a designer. An infinite regress is unarguably more complicated and unimaginable than an unmoved mover. In these days of Quantum physics, we’re seeing how thought and immaterial truth has more grounding in reality than the physical world itself. These ideas reach popular expression in films like “The Matrix” that illustrate how our senses can no longer be trusted completely, sending us down the path of Descartes which lead to certainty of God’s existence as well.