> There was once a fellow named Zeno who made a similar argument.
> Aristotle was not convinced.
>

Dr. Merritt,

are you bringing a proof from Aristotle? But he believed in intelligent 
design (see below for his argument), and therefore would be shunned and 
blacklisted these days from any scientific circle...

JPK

Aristotle, Physics, Bk II, chap 8:

...[Here is his statement of Darwin's theory, which is quoted by Darwin in 
his preface to The Origin of the Species without qualification (as if this 
were Aristotle's real opinion!)]...
A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the sake 
of something, nor because it is better so, but just as the sky rains, not in 
order to make the corn grow, but of necessity? What is drawn up must cool, 
and what has been cooled must become water and descend, the result of this 
being that the corn grows. Similarly if a man's crop is spoiled on the 
threshing-floor, the rain did not fall for the sake of this-in order that 
the crop might be spoiled-but that result just followed. Why then should it 
not be the same with the parts in nature, e.g. that our teeth should come up 
of necessity-the front teeth sharp, fitted for tearing, the molars broad and 
useful for grinding down the food-since they did not arise for this end, but 
it was merely a coincident result; and so with all other parts in which we 
suppose that there is purpose? Wherever then all the parts came about just 
what they would have been if they had come be for an end, such things 
survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those 
which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish, as Empedocles says his 
'man-faced ox-progeny' did.

[Here he proceeds to refute it]
Such are the arguments (and others of the kind) which may cause difficulty 
on this point. [*****]Yet it is impossible that this should be the true 
view.[!!!!!!] For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or 
normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance 
or spontaneity is this true. We do not ascribe to chance or mere coincidence 
the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer we do; nor heat 
in the dog-days, but only if we have it in winter. If then, it is agreed 
that things are either the result of coincidence or for an end, and these 
cannot be the result of coincidence or spontaneity, it follows that they 
must be for an end; and that such things are all due to nature even the 
champions of the theory which is before us would agree. Therefore action for 
an end is present in things which come to be and are by nature.

Further, where a series has a completion, all the preceding steps are for 
the sake of that. Now surely as in intelligent action, so in nature; and as 
in nature, so it is in each action, if nothing interferes. Now intelligent 
action is for the sake of an end; therefore the nature of things also is so. 
Thus if a house, e.g. had been a thing made by nature, it would have been 
made in the same way as it is now by art; and if things made by nature were 
made also by art, they would come to be in the same way as by nature. Each 
step then in the series is for the sake of the next; and generally art 
partly completes what nature cannot bring to a finish, and partly imitates 
her. If, therefore, artificial products are for the sake of an end, so 
clearly also are natural products. The relation of the later to the earlier 
terms of the series is the same in both. This is most obvious in the animals 
other than man: they make things neither by art nor after inquiry or 
deliberation. Wherefore people discuss whether it is by intelligence or by 
some other faculty that these creatures work,spiders, ants, and the like. By 
gradual advance in this direction we come to see clearly that in plants too 
that is produced which is conducive to the end-leaves, e.g. grow to provide 
shade for the fruit. If then it is both by nature and for an end that the 
swallow makes its nest and the spider its web, and plants grow leaves for 
the sake of the fruit and send their roots down (not up) for the sake of 
nourishment, it is plain that this kind of cause is operative in things 
which come to be and are by nature. And since 'nature' means two things, the 
matter and the form, of which the latter is the end, and since all the rest 
is for the sake of the end, the form must be the cause in the sense of 'that 
for the sake of which'.

Now mistakes come to pass even in the operations of art: the grammarian 
makes a mistake in writing and the doctor pours out the wrong dose. Hence 
clearly mistakes are possible in the operations of nature also. If then in 
art there are cases in which what is rightly produced serves a purpose, and 
if where mistakes occur there was a purpose in what was attempted, only it 
was not attained, so must it be also in natural products, and monstrosities 
will be failures in the purposive effort. Thus in the original combinations 
the 'ox-progeny' if they failed to reach a determinate end must have arisen 
through the corruption of some principle corresponding to what is now the 
seed.
...


NB Aristotle also railed against the atomic theory...