Slashdot Mirror
Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret
Anonymous Coward writes "The BBC has an article about a dramatic discovery in the quest for understanding evolution. From the article: 'Why one species branches into two is a question that has haunted evolutionary biologists since Darwin. Given our planet's rich biodiversity, "speciation" clearly happens regularly, but scientists cannot quite pinpoint the driving forces behind it. Now, researchers studying a family of butterflies think they have witnessed a subtle process, which could be forcing a wedge between newly formed species.'"
I am sure that given enough time, scientists can plug holes in the theory of evolution and answer questions that critics throw at it like. Remember, a theory can always be changed and disproved by evidence unlike intelligent design which can't be disproved(and no one seems to have proved it either).
And before someone starts an intelligent design rant, please remember, unprovable assumptions like 'there's a naturally occuring ipod on the dark side of the moon, since you can't disprove it, it exists' have no place in science at all. Also remember, science is self criticizing and self correcting, read up on the criticism on string theory if you have any doubts.
This space for rent.
It is one thing to teach that theories aren't solid. But it is quite another to teach that every theory is equally valid. There is an extensive fossil record, etc. for evolution. Does this mean that God couldn't have just planted it there to trick us? No. But at the same time if there is a "God" that would do that, then he could also reverse all of the laws of physics tomorrow. Does this mean that we should discredit them? No. We should simply teach that based on past observation, this is how the think x works. We aren't sure, but we have a lot more backing it up than we do for every other theory about x.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Evolution isn't a "theory" in that sense of the word, any more than the theory of gravity is "just a theory". Both are fact as far as the scientific community is concerned. And what could be worse than hell? Could it be ignorance?
Read the sig, read the sig, ziggy ziggy ziggy zig!
Please make sure your kids get taught every possible theory or you will probably wind up in hell... or worse.
I refuse to worship a god that claims to be all-loving, but threatens us with eternal torture if we don't do what he says.
>"But speciation has never been observed" has been the strongest rallying cry of evolution-deniers for more than a century...
And it has been a falsehood for at least half that time. Speciation has been observed in both the field an in the lab... repeatedly. Creationists trumpet the no observed speciation line until they are called on it, and then it becomes, "But they're still [fruit flies, fish, whatever]," The moving goal posts are the hallmark of creationism.Remember, the "scientists" at the Institution for Creation Research have to sign an oath that nothing they "discover" will ever conflict with a litteral interpretation of the Bible.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
*Note the parallels with gravitation: gravitational attraction between objects is a fact. Theories of gravitation seek to explain how that attraction works, thus allowing us to make predictions about how systems under the influence of gravity will evolve over time.
What, a hundred and fifty years isn't enough?
Newton published his laws of motion in, I belive, 1679. Einstien published his special relativity paper in 1905, "disproving" Newtonian mechanics.
And we're still of course not sure Einstien has the last word. In fact, it's almost certain he doesn't.
No, 150 years isn't enough time.
Mutations occur, and when they occur in parallel for members of the same species, and those mutations survive into succeeding generations, you achieve speciation. End of story. What am I missing?
It seems to me that you are just completely glossing over the non-obvious part. The part where the members with the mutations stop reproducing with the rest of the non-mutated species for long enough that the two branches are unable to breed with each other at all after a certain point. Why should a mutation stop breeding with members who haven't mutated. Or if it is built in to the behaviour that the species will not breed with mutants then how do the mutants not have this behaviour so that they may breed with each other. It is this stage that is being observed in the article.
Your butterfly question seems cute but quaint. Really, I think if it seems obvious to you how eyes evolved then I doubt you fully understand the problem. There are just too many very bright people out there who are interested in this as a problem (I'm talking about people who believe in evolution but can't explain all the mechanics) for it to be trivial.
Are you mad? The question whether "God designed evolution" is totally out outside of science. It's a matter of faith, not knowledge. The only academic activity when you can seriously consider this is philosophy.
I'm a physicist and I believe in God. I believe that God created the world with the evolution, etc so that there would be a man in this world. I require no proof for that and neither do I expect science to provide me with any. In fact, I'd look very suspiciously at anyone pretending to have such "proof". It's my religion, not my science.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
Firstly, sexuality and racism are different subjects. These butterflies are more sexually attracted to certain markings or patterns, which indicate the partner is of the same species. They aren't hiring other butterflies for jobs, nor pulling them up for minor driving offenses.
There is no racism in finding yourself sexually attracted to certain racial characteristics such as skin colour.
You ask, "Isn't racism a social form of speciation". No. Racism is racism. There are many reasons why this racist segregration would not lead to speciation, even if it were not a morally repulsive proposition:
1) No reinforcement, i.e. segregration is not selected for. As far as evolution of humans is concerned, offspring of people of different races are not "weedy and less likely to thrive" as in the butterfly example, but quite the contrary. So from a biological point of view, we should not expect to find ourselves splitting into seperate species as there is no "reinforcement" (as mentioned in the article), but instead the opposite. Of course humans are still very much the same species, and are currently showing no signs of speciation, and comparing human races to butterfly species is stretching it.
2) Very little gene flow is needed to prevent speciation. One "mixed marriage" out of one hundred is plenty to keep genes flowing between subgroups within a species. This coupled with the above (the offspring being strong and healthy) makes it nearly inevitiable
3) Most people's concept of race is misguided. For example: Humans were originally black. So it's not surprising that there are people within all (eight?) major branches of our collective tree with black skin. Human movement and migration has lead to us all being much more related than you'd probably guess.
4) Timeframe: butterflies may have several generations each year. Even so, the researchers in the article don't appear to even witness speciation in action, but takes a snapshot and explains how it has occured. Speciation takes a long time. It's likely to take 100,000 years for humans to start showing signs of speciation, that is, if there was an evolutionary push towards it. Justifying racism on the basis that your great great great great great [25,000 "great"s removed to prevent this comment from violating the "postercomment" compression filter] great great great great great great great great great grandson or daughter may belong to a different species as the person next to you, is pretty fucking stupid.
On the other hand, for a scientist "believe" means "I think that this is true because it's a logical conclusion drawn from occurances which I or someone else have directly observed. Additionally, if presented with compelling evidence (i.e. direct observation) that refutes this conclusion, I will cease to believe it."
That's the key here: evolution is the best explanation (so far) for what we observe without relying on "because somebody said so." That's why it's a theory: It's a conjecture derived from observable facts through logic. Moreover, this also explains why creationism isn't a theory: it relys on assumptions that cannot be derived from observable facts (at least, so far).If you apply what I said about scientists' use of "believe" you should now understand why this isn't the "act of faith" you think it is. The scientists aren't saying they disregard the facts in front of them; they're saying that those facts aren't enough to disprove evolution and that they also don't have any scientific explanation that fits the facts better than evolution. Creationism is right out from the beginning because, as I've said already, it isn't a rigorous, logically-deduced argument to begin with.
If you can think of an explanation that fits all observed facts better than evolution and doesn't rely on Faith, then you can start complaining about some kind of conspiracy among scientists to reject anything that's not evolution.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Bravo. As a militant agnostic, I couldn't agree more. I do not mind what someone believes or does not believe as long as they keep that seperate from science and politics. Belief in a god or gods is based on faith alone and the same is true of believing there is no god. Until either is provable, they shouldn't be included in discussion of laws or science, especially religious ideas masquerading as science such as intelligent design.
IMO, the true scientist witholds judgement until the experiments have been done and the data is in front of them.
OK, bring on the experiments. Describe an experiment that can be used to disprove design in a given organism. If you are unable to do this, then -- at the most fundamental level -- ID is not amenable to the scientific method, and is not worth any further scientific enquiry.
So, name the experiment. Go on, I'm all ears.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
People who dismiss concepts like 'intelligent design' out of hand may often like to refer to themselves as scientific, but in fact dismissing something like that out of hand is the very reverse of scientific.
Your confusing dismissing after evaluating and dismissing out of hand. Havign 0 predictive power, 100% made up rationalization, and lacking any evidence it's very scientific to reject that theory.
Perhaps a redefinition of science is in order, something closer to the definition of religion... 'Thou shalt not challenge the orthodoxy.'
A common logical fallacy used by pro-ID people. How ever using the exact same criteria you use to evaluate all scientific theory, ID fails very very badly. The scientific community is not like the libral literary community, everybody is out to "revolutionize" the community with a new idea. It might be contriversial but if it passes the tests placed on it, it will eventually be accepted.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
2) Second law of thermodynamics. While another somewhat weak argument in the eyes of many evolution proponents, the significance of a mutation actually increasing the intellectual properties of an organism would be a major scientific find of unbelievable proportions and would indicate that our analysis of closed systems needs to be rethought. Specifically, I'm talking about DNA and the "information argument". Species don't just get smarter, yet it is clear that we are more intelligent than dogs, for instance. The hard part is determining *why*.
Numerous issues with this one. First it is wrong to think of evolution of lifeforms as increasingly getting "smarter" or "better". If an attribute provides a survival or propagation advantage it will be selected and maintained. If being dumber presents a survival advantage then this quality will be selected.
As far as the second law arguement, as is noted in various places, life on planet earth is not a closed system. Life just inserts itself within the chain of energy conversion path (Solar to Low Level Heat) and constantly generates entropy while doing so.
Consider a thought experiment. Say you have a Bingo style box with several different shaped balls being batted around by an air stream. If you cut in the top of the box a hole that conforms to one of the balls, say a triangle shape, you would constantly decrease in entropy in the state of the balls since you would be filtering out the triangle shaped balls and increasing order within the system. However if you consider the complete system including the power to drive the balls you have a total increase in the entropy by converting high quality electral energy into low quality heat. In the above, example the hole in the top of the box is akin to natural selection as it is a filter that differentially selects a quality combine replication and well you know...
Another examples exists of unclosed systems becoming increasingly ordered (lower entropy) such as different size rock on the beach with wave action.
2) Second law of thermodynamics. While another somewhat weak argument in the eyes of many evolution proponents, the significance of a mutation actually increasing the intellectual properties of of an organism would be a major scientific find of unbelievable proportions and would indicate that our analysis of closed systems needs to be rethought. Specifically, I'm talking about DNA and the "information argument". Species don't just get smarter, yet it is clear that we are more intelligent than dogs, for instance. The hard part is determining *why*.
Simple, energy is being put into the system by the sun. The total system to be considered is the whole of the local solar system. There, entropy is increasing, but because there is a flow of energy to the earth, there is a mechanism that can allow the local entropy on the earth to decrease. There is no conflict here, you just need to consider a bigger system than just the planet.
5) Spontaneous generation. It's never been proven
That's because it doesn't happen, and has never happened. Life on earth doesn't depend on SG, it depends on a very slow process that went from inorganic to organic chemistry to some form of self-replicating system (not DNA, that is a much later evolution of whatever came first). There is probably no evidence to be found for this because as a process it took place an incredibly long time ago on a very different earth - all traces wil lhave been long obliterated. And besides, the emergence of life after the formation of the earth took a mind-bogglingly long time, which indicates that whatever this process was, it was either very slow or very chancy. Odds are this will always remain a mystery - we have to accept that there are some things that can never be known, only speculated about
because we *could* be the 1 in septendecillion instance
This is the "weak anthropic principle". We could be the only life in the universe. Why us? Because we are here to observe it, so nothing else could observe it. It's a definite possibility.
Evolution of the eye. We have no indication of how or why the eye evolved
Oh, that old chestnut. The eye has evolved separately numerous times, and is actually pretty obvious! Read Dawkins. The eye is so obviously useful for a creature's survival that its evolution is more or less guaranteed. More difficult to answer would be subtler thing such as sexual reproduction, etc. Evolution of the vertebrae
Not sure why this one should be tricky. The vertebra is easy to undertand from the point of view of mechanical efficiency when propelling oneself through water. Tiny creatures experience water as a viscous medium but as they grow larger then simple propulsion methods such as cilia or flagellae become very inefficient. Hence muscle will tend to evolve from the motility cells, but muscle will work best when it has a framework to work with and so that will co-evolve - this has happened twice at least - insects evolved exoskeletons and animals evolved endoskeletons. The endo- route proved more suitable for even larger creatures and a simple way for a creature to get larger is to replicate parts of its existing structures - it's easy to imagine how a gene for building a vertebra could mutate and get expressed twice and so there were then two vertebrae, and so on. I don't see how any particular body part every "disproves" evolution. Usually their very ad-hoc-ness tends to show that a natural process is at work. If bodies had been designed there are many things that could be drastically simplified for no loss of function. Macro-evolution is not falsifiable. If something is not falsiable, like creation for instance, it's considered part of a belief system or religion.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by macro-evolution not being falsifiable. It has not been observed taking place yet - speciation at any rate. But macro-evolution is observable - it's all around us in every different living creature. The key
I think you almost hit the mark. I can only speak for myself (and perhaps throw myself to the wolves in the process) but I find I'm not particularly attracted to females that are drastically different from Anglo-Saxon. I can look at a beautiful say.....black woman and see that she is indeed beautiful. But I'm not usually attracted to her. It's like looking at a fine work of art or other thing of beauty that doesn't inspire primal urges. I can appreciate her beauty without my baser instincts firing to say "ATTEMPT TO MATE!"
Don't get me wrong, I'm not racist. In fact in moving to VA I find the higher percentage of non-white folks refreshing and believe that interracial breeding will generally make better humans.
Just like "pure bred" dogs typically have horribly high tendencies to have breed-specific problems whereas mutts whose component breeds aren't even discernible live much longer and healthier. This coming from a guy who grew up in areas with lots of "pure bred" humans. *shudder*
However, in closing I wouldn't say racism is speciation. Racism is irrational, ignorant, stupid dislike of other races. Speciation is more what I'm talking about. How some people aren't attracted to other races may cause it among humans.
Question everything
"Macro" evolution is nothing but a large number of "micro" evolution steps piled together.
Most creationist will agree that this butterfly "anomaly" when the butterfly becomes a bird
Standard rediculous creationist claim. Under evolution nothing can become anything other than a variation of what it already was. For example cats: house cats, lions, tigers, pathers, lynx, cheetah, jaguar, puma, they are all cats. Across the entire cat family they are clearly separated by nothing but a bunch of "micro" evolutions. Lions and tigers are seperated by different hair patterns and a handful of other trivial differences. In fact lions and tigers can even interbreed. A house cat is seperated from the cheetah merely by a larger number of "micro" evolutions. They are simply a diverging branching tree from some original cat. The entire existing cat tree converges on a single ancestor roughtly 10 million years ago. A cat cannot become a dog. Working backwards over a far longer time span, the cat family and dog family and bear family and raccoon family are all branches from a common carnovour ancestor around 40 or 50 million years ago. There are merely four or five times as many "micro" evolutions between cats and dogs as there are between house cats and cheetahs. Again woring backwards cats and cows and dolphins and humans are all mammals. They are simply a diverging branching tree from some original mammal roughly 220 million years ago.
A butterfly cannot become a bird any more than a dolphin can become a fish. However dolphins are a perfect examply of just how far one one thing (a mammal) can diverge into something that "completely different" and look a lot like a fish after 220 million years of "micro" evolutions. Given 220 million years worth of "micro" evolution, yes some butterfly will become something extremely "macro" different, it might even resemble a bird in the way a dolphin resembles a fish, but it will never be a bird.
Macro evolution is just a meaningless creationist term to wave away the mountain of scientific evidence that they can no longer deny. It's like attacking the theory of gravity because we have not yet seen Pluto make a full orbit. We first discovered pluto in 1930, and we will not see it complete an orbit until the year 2278. We will not see the Milky Way galaxy complete an orbit for about 228 million years. None of this weakens the theory of gravity.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
While we see plenty of beauty and elegance, we also see large numbers of botches: mistakes no intelligent designer would ever make. Examples include the human back, which is flawed enough to keep chiropractors in business because we descend from four-legged creatures and the back isn't really optimized for walking on two legs. But there are bigger ones: the nerve that connects the larynx to the brain goes through the heart, both in the human and the giraffe. We have a blind spot in our eyes because of the way the optic nerve is connected, though it isn't hard to come up with a design that lacks this flaw.
Evolution will get rid of botches that interfere with survival and reproduction, but it's neutral with respect to botches that are just annoying. And that's what we see.
I'll go ahead and say it: I'm a creationist.
That said, I think it is ridiculous to assume that evolution does not exist. Here's an example why.
The Bible never mentions bacteria, but it most definitely does exist. Why no mention? Because people had not discovered germs yet. Anyway, bacteria is the reason why undercooked pork will make you sick. Instead of confusing people by trying to describe bacteria, something they had absolutely no concept of, and how it can be bad for you, God said "Don't eat pork," and that was that.
Similarly, people in early OT time had no concept of the number one million. IIRC, the Greeks were the first civilization with a word for "million." Combine that with the fact that genetics research was just a few thousand years away, trying to describe evolution as a way of creation would have been impossible. He said "I made it all in 6 days," and that was that, because either way the important part is that God was responsible for it. Heck, people these days have a hard time conceiving millions of years, and it's a few thousand years after the Greeks.
Expecting science to conform to religion, especially one particular religion, is madness. Science by its nature is a-religious and deals only with what can be directly observed, and for the most part the supernatural cannot be directly observed. It is up to religious leaders to interpret scientific findings in the context of their religion.
I don't expect biologists to be theologians, nor theologians to be biologists. That's reasonable, right?
When somebody makes an assertion, it is not the responsibility of the person who is being skeptical to disprove anything. I don't have to prove anything with a "not" in it.
You have misunderstood my post. I was asking that proponents of ID demonstrate how ID can be falsified. As I'm sure you know, falsifiability is one of the general prerequisites of any scientific hypothesis.
I'm not claiming that supporters of evolution must falsify ID; I'm asserting that supporters of ID must show how their own claims might be falsified by evidence from the natural world. If they cannot furnish a hypothetical situation in which there claims can conclusively be falsified, then their claims cannot be evaluated within a scientific framework.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
- precisely defines what "intelligent design" is,
including a thorough description of
how "intelligent designing" works, and
- describes a set of experimental measurements
that
says "if these values are found, then
intelligent design is real, but if they are
not found, intelligent design is not real"
then ID might have something to do with science. Otherwise, it is pure theology.This is just one of those arguments that have absolutely no basis in science or common sense, yet keeps getting repeated because no one has bothered to stop and think about it. Basic light sensativity (the kind that exists in single-celled organisms) is better than none at all. Color sensativity is better than basic light sensativity. Color sensativity with a very crude lense (only partially focused) is better than no lense at all. And an entire, perfectly focused eye is better than a half-focused eye. If you doubt these things, just think about how much very basic information an eye supplies--the time of day, the movement of a predator, the color of a poisonous plant, etc. There is no mystery, only a basic origin (a light sensative cell) and a chain of cumulative improvements.
Some animals (though not bats) are blind, probably for brainpower reasons. Visual processing takes a lot of energy, energy that could be redirected into other endevors, such as sound/smell processing or greater intelligence. If little is to be gained by sight, for instance if a creature spends its entire life underground or in deep ocean, then there really isn't a strong evolutionary incentive to keep (or develop) those eyeballs.
Your other arguments are fairly moot, too, but this one is a pet peeve of mine. For all the logic it contains, you might as well say that the ocean is conclusive proof that lakes don't exist.
It gets dismissed out-of-hand nowadays mostly because it has been refuted over and over for almost two centuries (evolution is an old body of theory). For driving evolution, only natural selection is necessary. There is no randomness involved beyond that which comes from chaotic processes (and perhaps beyond that which comes from quantum fluctuations) which, as a modeling variable, is called chance but is not.
There is overwhelming evidence, however, for the fact that those insisting in intelligent design badly want and need to believe in god. They just are unable to accept any alternative explanation, as that would leave them stranded in an ocean of insecurity, guilt, and despair.
Moreover, the religious discourse of those who insist in intelligent design keeps repeating the ages old axiom that truth requires you believe, and that disbelieving certain facts is a sin that will be punished. People who hold that axiom (and that include phicisits who believe in god) will always be dubious scientists, twisting facts here and there in the name of "god".
Beyond that, I find it funny that when confronted with evolution, which is a simple and understandable mechanism which can be watched in action even in a computer, proponents of ID say "this is hard to believe". Instead, the bible with all its miracles and baroque medievalisms is for them the most plausible thing of all.
"I just know that there is a Big Mind behind it all"
Ahh, the incontrovertible "I just know" argument.
"The two different designs have different purposes for different conditions.
:)
A squids eye would perform very poorly under the conditions humans live in, and vice versa."
So, basically, they -evolved according to their circumstances and environmental needs-?
Come hear me sing!
I think this is called the Anthropocentric Principle. It is definitely not proof of a "Big Mind behind it all". Of course the existence of such a thing can hardly be disproved.
If you prove or disprove something, you stop wondering about it. Your progress is halted. The trick is to keep wondering and go further.
Suppose we prove God's existence here and now, by a simple scientific method nobody can dispute and everybody test for themselves. Then what? What has that amounted to? It won't help this world one iota. The arguing and bombings will continue as before, maybe even worse.
You can live life based on God's existence, and in the very process you will create God within yourself. Wether you believe God is a bearded man up in the sky or a universal principle, doesn't matter. Arguing is only for people who cannot tolerate other opinions. In the process, you miss the other perspective and lose respect for others. Arguing about God, you make him a Thing. That misses the point entirely!
What matters is how you live life. Is it a struggle, or is it something beautiful and simple? The human values are the same for every religion and culture. We should nurture and cultivate them, in order to solve our differences and generally be more happy. It is really very simple knowledge, which the world is in need for at this time.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Science starts from the standpoint that everything that can be observed can be explained. Religion starts from the standpoint that some things cannot be explained. The two are reconcilable only to the extent that ideas can be accepted without need of explanation -- in other words, Not Very Far At All.
:) It is of course possible that life on other planets could be wholly or predominantly left-handed.}
The problem I have with the idea of "intelligent design" is that it breaks several important rules, not the least of which is the KISS principle. The need for an Intelligent Designer rests on the notion of Irreducible Complexity. But there is no irreducible complexity in nature. On the contrary, an Intelligent Designer would introduce irreducible complexity.
The Universe embodies the principle that simplicity is beauty. {Why does the pressure in a fluid act equally in all directions? Because it was simpler than favouring a particular direction. Why does light travel in straight lines? Because it was simpler that way. Why do men have nipples? Because it was too complicated for them not to.} If we take that logic to the extreme, it is simpler for the universe to have created itself somehow {and here I am making no assumptions about the process by which this might happen}, than for a creator to have been created as an intermediate step. My assertion is: There is no process that could have created a creator, that could not instead -- and more simply -- have created a fully-formed universe.
{The predominance of D- over L- enantiomers in nature is not evidence for Intelligent Design. It can be shown by analysis of potential reaction mechanisms that right-handed would favour right-handed and vice versa. It is probable that the primordial soup was close to racemic, but somehow more D- than L- proto-organisms survived and eventually L- forms became extinct. It ought to be possible to synthesise and culture the opposite enantiomer of an existing DNA sample, resulting in a "left handed clone". Pending the perfection of the necessary equipment, this must be left as an exercise for the reader
The argument against life being created by random chance ignores the obvious fact that the improbable event has already happened. In fact, given the sheer magnitude of the universe, it was close to inevitable that life would develop somewhere. Remember that the many necessary attempts were taking place in parallel, not in series {if you throw six dice at a time, the odds favour at least one of them being a six}. And not everything in the process is truly random: certain chemical elements are predisposed to bond in certain ways.
Remember also that radioactive decay events, which we know today trigger genetic mutation, would have been more common the further back in time we travel. We cannot know for certain {though we might infer from decay products} whether or not some especially radioactive isotope existed in the past but has become completely exhausted today.
{I realise that there are quite a few dangling "somehows" in this essay. It is not my intension to offer explanations for them here. These are "closing" rather than "opening" questions, which is to say that the answers will not in and of themselves raise further questions.}
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
>> I'm a physicist and I believe in God.
> Good thing you didn't describe yourself as a "scientist"
You idiot. Lots of respected physicists and scientists of other disciplines believe in God.
"What are the chances for life to live on this earth? If it were too cool, or too warm, all species would be extinct. A little closer- or farther from the sun, *poof*. A little more of this gas, or that, or different weights in the forces."
;-)
Logical fallacy.
If conditions were even slightly different at any point in the history of the universe, all current species would be extinct. You can't say our current ecosystem contains all possible species for every possible set of environmental conditions and physical laws, so you can't say that no life would exist, merely that our current form(s) of life wouldn't.
We evolved in these conditions - it's no surprise that we're extraordinarily tightly bound to them. You're confusing cause and effect.
For another example, riffle through a pack of cards and pick one. Put it back and do it again. You pick the four of clubs, followed by the ace of hearts. So what?
So what? At this point, the four of clubs is looking around and thinking "Wow, what are the odds, eh? The chances of me and Ace here existing are 1 in two thousand and four!. Yeah, but the chance of "two cards being picked" is pretty much 1:1 (leaving aside the possibilities of spontaneous combustion or weird quantum tunneling effects half-way through
You're looking around, assuming this is the only way "life" could possibly ever evolve, and positing the fluke was down to an intelligent creator.
First off, we still don't have a complete understanding of what even constitutes "life", so you can't claim a definite conclusion of any kind. All you can do is construct theories, using rational, logical inference and falsifiable hypotheses.
Secondly, it could well be that "life" is merely an emergent property of a sufficiently complex organisation of matter left for a long enough time, in which case the chances of life appearing in the universe would be about 1:1.
Short answer: Science teaches us to adopt the leading falsifiable hypothesis only until a better one comes along. In other words, keep investigating, and don't ever assume you know the complete answer.
Religion teaches us unsubstantiated irrational heresay from thousands of years before the scientific method, and expects us to treat it as the final answer. In other words, shut up, sit down and stop asking awkward questions.
"I just know that there is a Big Mind behind it all."
No, you think there's a Big Mind behind it all. This is the central point of ID/creationism/religious zealotry of all types - a complete inability to differentiate between "know", "believe, based on the preponderance of evidence" and "believe, with no evidence whatsoever to support your conclusion".
I have no problem with someone believing whatever they like - it's when they mistake that for "knowing" and attempt to force their own irrational beliefs on others that I feel compelled to stand up.
"Then what's the point arguing about it? Like ants arguing about the demi-god roaming around the garden making large craters.."
Amen to that - it's essentially unknowable, so it's not science, but philosophy. If Creationists/ID-proponents wanted religion discussed in Philosophy I'd have no problem.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself