Sober describes in the book and Professor Holsinger described in class how
William Paley used the likelihood principle to infer the existence of an
intelligent creator from the existence of complex adaptatons exhibited by
plants and animals. Sober concluded that "it does not surprise me at all
that intelligent people strongly favored the design hypothesis when the only
alternative available to them was random physical processes" (p. 36).
Darwin's theory of evolution was intended to supply an alternative to
"random physical processes" as an explanation for the incredible
diversity of living things. Using material from the book and lectures write an
essay between half a page and one page long in which you use the likelihood
principle to assess the relative merits of scientific creationism and evolution
as alternative explanations for the diversity of living things.