What I don't understand is how that same intelligent individual has no problem whatsoever believing everything we see in the world somehow came from the so-called primordial soup.
Life exists. That's a fact. I agree that its existence seems unlikely, but it's here, so we need to get past that.
I can only think of two sources for life - an intelligent designer (creationism) and naturalistic processes (abiogenesis and biological evolution). Unless you can come up with a third, those are our choices, and they must be considered simultaneously. To look at just one - the naturalistic processes - and say that it seems unlikely to you is an incomplete assessment. The alternative, a god, is less likely.
In fact, I can't conceive of anything less likely to exist undesigned and uncreated than a god, and it is a logical error to posit one to account for the complexity of living cells.
So pick one of the two apparently unlikely alternatives. Looking at just one and calling it unlikely is simply an inadequate assessment.
what are the odds of the flora arising in the required sequence as that of the fauna which depends on that flora?
There is no required sequence apart from every living thing requiring a supply of energy already existing for it exist later. The sun was the first such source. Later, other living things were food as well.
You're making this too difficult. The things that happened were things that were possible at the time they happened.
Who has ever seen one genus becoming another?
Who has ever seen a planet form? Nobody, yet we're certain that they do all of the time. It's a common error to think that we need to observe the past to know about it. We don't. We only need observe the present. If I see a man lying in a casket at a funeral, I can make a number of reliable statements about the past without having witnessed them then - just the evidence present now.
I can be sure that this person was once conceived, gestated in a womb, was born, drew a first breath, took a first bite, grew larger and older while living some kind of a life, then died. We don't need to witness any of those event to know that they occurred.
It's purely inference which is only slightly better than guessing.
The theory of evolution is confirmed, settled science. There is no realistic possibility that it is wrong. We have so much evidence in support of that theory that if a future finding ever falsified it, one would be forced to conclude that a super-powerful and deceptive agent went to great lengths to make man think that evolution as we understand it had occurred, including planting fossils of creatures that never lived such that older and more primitive appearing forms appear in the deepest strata, carefully setting the ratio of radioisotopes to fool man regarding dates, creating all of those nested hierarchies including inserting ERVs into genomes as part of the great deception, scattering the ring species to appear that they had evolved, and the like.
I can conceive of no other explanation for so much evidence supporting a false theory The evidence in support of the theory doesn't go away if it is overturned tomorrow.It merely needs to be reinterpreted in the light of the falsifying discovery.
If you think that the theory of evolution is wrong, this is all you're left with, not the Genesis account or any other creation myth.
If one does not believe Genesis it seems it would be better to just say, "I don't know how we all got here."
Why would one believe the Genesis account? It is already ruled out by the data supporting the theory of evolution, as is the god of that holy book. Would Jehovah, who we are told wants to be known, loved, trusted, believed, and worshiped, perpetuate such a massive fraud? No. If there is a god behind all of this, it's the trickster god described above
If the odds of one thing happening are pretty low, I can't imagine what thousands would would do to those odds.
This is another common creationist fallacy, a variation of Hoyle's fallacy. Once again, you must consider all of the relevant facts simultaneously. When you do, you realize that everything that happens is incredibly unlikely. What are the odds that you would have the the precise Social Security Number that you have, the phone number you have, your present home address, your car license plate, and precisely the bills in your wallet with those serial numbers on the bills in your billfold orientated and ordered in your wallet just as they are now.
Each is infinitesimal, and having them appear all together in the same person is mind-bogglingly unlikely. Yet nobody is surprised that it did. Everything that happens is unlikely, so pointing at something and calling it unlikely isn't really much of an argument if you intend to substitute something equally unlikely for it, which is just about everything..
What has not been observed, and what Genesis denies, is a frog evolving into a dog or whatever.
That would be a falsifying finding were it ever observed. The theory predicts that it will never be observed.
Genesis isn't relevant any more. We know that it is wrong. Believers who can face that have begun calling it a metaphor, or allegory, although I think that they're wrong as well. Those who cannot are literalists, and have an impossible task trying to deny reality to others not willing to believe by faith.
I say that Genesis is not a metaphor or allegory, since writers of those literary devices always know what their symbols stand in for. An allegory is a story in which characters or events stand in for historical characters or events. The author has something specific in mind for which fictional elements are substituted one-for-one for historical ones known to the author of the allegory, Consider Gulliver's Travels, a political allegory.
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One clear example of Swift's use of political allegory is the Rope Dancers, who are Lilliputians seeking employment in the government, All candidates are asked to dance on the rope and whoever jumps the highest without falling is offered a high office . Very often the current ministers are asked to dance to show their skills . For instance, Flimnap, the treasurer, is required to dance on a tight rope to show his superiority to others in this respect.
"This jumping game may sound innocent to the children, however, politically its significance is far from innocent. Obviously, Swift makes a satire on the way in which political offices were distributed among the candidates by George I. Flimnap stands for Sir Robert Walpole the prime minister of England. Dancing on a tight rope symbolizes Walpole's skill in parliamentary tactics and political intrigues.
The Genesis creation story is nothing like that. It's simply an wrong story. The days of creation aren't intended to stand in for what really happened over more than 13 billion years, a number unknown to the Bible writers. Creating Eve from a rib is not a allegory for evolution, which was also unknown to the Bible writers.
I'll give you your billions and more, it still doesn't prove evolution.
Evolution is a proven fact. It can be observed.
Furthermore, evolution theory is confirmed. As I noted above, if you want to replace it, it will need to be with something even less likely - the trickster superpower.
It is still a theory with no more intrinsic truth than Genesis.
The sine qua non of a correct idea is that it works - that it can be used to accurately predict outcomes. This is true even in trivial applications, such as having a correct phone number. We can accurately predict that if we call that number, a particular phone will ring and a particular person will likely answer. If the number works and allows you to speak with an intended target, it was a correct number - a correct idea.
We know that the mathematics and astronomy that predicts eclipses is correct because it can account for past eclipses and predict future ones.
Wrong ideas cannot do that. Astrology is one such wrong idea, and it predicts nothing accurately - certainly not eclipses. This is the sine qua non of a wrong idea. It fails at this level.
The theory of evolution has unified mountains of data from a multitude of sources, accurately made predictions about what can and cannot be found in nature, provides a rational mechanism for explaining the observable fact of evolution consistent with the known actions of nature, accounts for both the commonality of all life as well as biodiversity, and has had practical applications that have improved the human condition in areas like medicine and agriculture.That makes it correct.
By contrast, creationism can do none of that. It is a sterile idea that can be used for nothing except to lure people away from scholarship.
