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Molecular Evolution, Natural Selection, and Imperfect Design
Author(s) -
Ayala Francisco J.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.4.a37
Subject(s) - darwin (adl) , natural selection , imperfect , natural (archaeology) , selection (genetic algorithm) , intelligent design , evolutionary biology , biology , epistemology , zoology , computer science , paleontology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , software engineering , linguistics
The evolutionary origin of organisms is beyond reasonable doubt. Darwin accumulated evidence derived from paleontology, comparative anatomy, embryology, and biogeography demonstrating that organisms evolve and diversify through time. The evidence emerging from these disciplines has overwhelmingly strengthened since Darwin’s time. Moreover, molecular evolution, a discipline not existing in Darwin’s time, provide at present the most convincing and explicit evidence. It is now possible to reconstruct the evolutionary history of all living organisms with as much detail as wanted, limited only by the availability of resources. Darwin discovered natural selection, the process that accounts for the adaptive configurations of organisms and their features, that is, their “design”. But the design of organisms is not intelligent, as it would be expected from an engineer, but imperfect and worse: the defects, dysfunctions, oddities, waste—and even cruelty and sadism if judged by human values—that pervade the living world are incompatible with their being the outcome of an intelligent designer, unless this designer were also intentionally deceitful and malevolent.