“If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? And what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic who imitated others, and copied an art which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving?“
From THE MEMORABILIA by By Xenophon, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1177/1177-h/1177-h.htm
“Socrates. But now if you had two sorts of things, the one of which presents no clue as to what it is for, and the other is obviously for some useful purpose—which would you judge to be the result of chance, which of design? Ar. Clearly that which is produced for some useful end is the work of design. Soc. Does it not strike you then that he who made man from the beginning (5) did for some useful end furnish him with his several senses—giving him eyes to behold the visible word, and ears to catch the intonations of sound? Or again, what good would there be in odours if nostrils had not been bestowed upon us? what perception of sweet things and pungent, and of all the pleasures of the palate, had not a tongue been fashioned in us as an interpreter of the same? And besides all this, do you not think this looks like a matter of foresight, this closing of the delicate orbs of sight with eyelids as with folding doors, which, when there is need to use them for any purpose, can be thrown wide open and firmly closed again in sleep? and, that even the winds of heaven may not visit them too roughly, this planting of the eyelashes as a protecting screen? (6) this coping of the region above the eyes with cornice-work of eyebrow so that no drop of sweat fall from the head and injure them? again this readiness of the ear to catch all sounds and yet not to be surcharged? this capacity of the front teeth of all animals to cut and of the "grinders" to receive the food and reduce it to pulp? the position of the mouth again, close to the eyes and nostrils as a portal of ingress for all the creature's supplies? and lastly, seeing that matter passing out (7) of the body is unpleasant, this hindward direction of the passages, and their removal to a distance from the avenues of sense? I ask you, when you see all these things constructed with such show of foresight can you doubt whether they are products of chance or intelligence?”
Then in «Against Physicists” by Sextus Empiricus this was cited as:
“Tell me, Aristodemus, are there some people you have admired for their wisdom? Yes, there are, he said. Who are they, then? Well, I have admired Homer for his poetry, Polyclitus for his sculpture, and Zeuxis of course for his painting. [93] And is it not because of the exceptional craftsmanship of their works that you approve of them? Yes, it is, he said. If Polyclitus’ statue, then, also took on life, would you not approve of the artist much more? Definitely. Well, given that when you saw a statue you said that it had been crafted by some skilled person, when you see a human being whose soul’s activity and whose body’s design are good, do you not think that he was crafted by some exceptional mind?”
Hello, fellow old!
I was hinting a bit to the lyrics of the song 'In the year 2525'.
it's almost as if nature evolved nano-machines that are far more complex than any we humans can envision today, even with our technology!