Gravity built on small fluctuations in the original smooth universe, and clumped matter into discrete blocks, from solar systems to galaxies and superclusters. Once gathered into sizeable stars, hydrogen began to burn, producing energy and building the heavier elements including carbon, oxygen and nitrogen. When the elements are present for a long enough time in a suitable environment, life, a self-replicating system of order, emerges. Through evolution, life generates creatures that seem remarkably well fitted to their environment. Yet evolution is not planned.
Variation is created by random mutations.
Most of these are harmful, so their carriers die out. A few are beneficial, and enable their carriers to thrive and breed better in their environment The direction of evolution is determined by natural selection and the pre- existing environment. Thus, by automatic processes, organisms develop which look like equipment designed for their environments. Equally, environments are collections of organisms adapted to live together, in complex webs of feeding, pollination and seed dispersal, parasitism and symbiosis. These look for all the world as if some benign hand has designed them as a harmonious whole.