by David N. Menton, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved. Perhaps the
reason so many people continue to reject the notion of evolution
is that it seems contrary to ordinary experience. Things left to
chance just don't get done. Random changes in anything simply do
not produce higher levels of organization and complexity.
Rather, all complex machines and devices with which we are
familiar are the result of intelligent design and manufacture.
Random changes can only destroy them. None the less, the
essential claim of evolution is that random change and natural
selection do make simple things spontaneously transform into
more complex things without recourse to intelligent purpose or
design. The famous evolutionist Julian Huxley has defined
evolution as a "directional and essentially irreversible process
occurring in time, which in its course gives rise to an increase
of variety and an increasingly high level of organization in its
products." In his book Evolution in Action, says that nowhere in
the process of evolution "is