What philosophy should we really have learnt from Charles Darwin?

I distinctly remember in grade four I was taken aside by a teacher specialising in gifted children and had me study Charles Darwin's foray to the Galapagos islands and retrace his discoveries and see what conclusions one would come up with from first principles knowing what he knew. The conclusion I came up with based on the circumstances was that all the species on those islands had adapted from species common on the mainland that had reached the islands. This contradicted previously widely held views on nature that life on earth had appeared in their final forms everywhere on earth at the same time. So far so uncontroversial. However, my take on the idea is that having seen several specific examples that neither required nor had evidence for appearance of species without precedent, that Darwin just made a logical leap to *make that an axiom*. ie. complex species have a precedent of similar complex species without exception. At a different level this is the same with individuals (are similar to their parents), and at a lower level again with genes (genes are copied fairly faithfully from cell to cell down the germ line).
A secondary part to this was that random changes (mutations) in the copy are enough to account for any *truly new* features. All other complex features that might appear truly new must be assumed to be imported from an unknown source (with similar complex precedents itself). Evolutionary biology is as far as Charles Darwin took the axiom.

There is a popular anecdote amongst evangelicals about a creation (say a human) betrays the fact that it is created, by its complexity, just as a a human artefact (say a watch) betrays the fact that it is created by a human (watchmaker). I like to turn it around and demonstrate that the complexity of a watch actually betrays that it evolved, just like living complex things have. Thus, truly new things about a watch are randomly selected by the watchmaker or other interested designers and tried through iteration after iteration and tested, in the "environment" (marketplace) or a (not truly new) feature is added (eg. mobile phone) from something with extensive precedent in itself. The design process of a designer must iterate random changes to the design and test them via thought experiment so that it gives the appearance of *not* having evolved through random changes/ rejecting obvious failures. The design process itself is also subject to evolution as a watchmaker teaches the next trainee watchmaker how to "design" new watches.



4)Complex design and creation - Complex artefacts of any description or purpose always have precedents that are complex. A lineage must always be assumed to exist to a less complex precedent with either trial and error pathway for any additional complexity, or a lineage with an added component that has extensive precedent in itself. Whether the pathway to the antecedent is directed or undirected is immaterial to this principle. "Creation" of a complex artefact without precedent does not exist under Marconomic principles. "The design process" is also a complex "artefact" under this concept and thus itself necessarily has precedents and lineage that can be traced back.