The Ultimate 747 Gambit

I have recently finished reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and while some of his arguments are loosely backed up in my opinion, he does a much better job than his adversaries in the debate. One particular argument of his against the existence of god also refutes a common theological argument for the existence of god. This is that life in all of its complexity is so improbable, that were it to come about by chance it would be similar to a hurricane sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747. Therefore god exists, QED. Of course this is silly because if life is too complex, and therefore to improbable to not have a designer, then by definition the designer must be more complex than what is designed. This, according to Dawkins, is the ultimate 747. The end of the argument rests on what created god, if life can't appear by chance, then neither can god by that argument, and so on.

Dawkins' more important point in this section is that nobody is arguing that life came about by chance. Theologians often assume that it is chance or god. Scientists, one in particular, have come up with a way life could have come about that is neither intelligently designed, nor by chance. This of course, is evolution by natural selection. Notice how I didn't say the theory of evolution. It is as well tested as any of the theories that have given us fantastic advances in technology, and is therefore scientific fact. Evolution by natural selection does not involve any highly improbable events, only a series of slightly improbable events, namely genetic mutations. And the fact is, many of these mutations occur all the time, only some of them lead to more favorable living conditions for the host. This isn't a sharp spike, but a gradual incline in complexity that requires neither great chance, nor god. This is like a hurricane gradually moving parts in a million junkyards, over millions of years. In the end this is a very good argument for the improbability of god, and the lack of a need for god at all.