Part Two: Darwinism and the Anthropic Principle

 

The Evolution of Conscious Observers, An Overview of Alternative Theories

 

The Universe has an obliging nature and is reflexive. It can provide proof for any cosmological scheme, scientific or mystical, foisted upon it.

- Mann & Sutton,

Giants of Gaia
 

The match between our intelligence and the intelligibility of the world is no accident. Nor can it properly be attributed to natural selection, which places a premium on survival and reproduction and has no stake in truth or conscious thought. Indeed, meat-puppet robots are just fine as the output of a Darwinian evolutionary process.

- William A. Dembski,

The Design Revolution


If evolution is the gradual linear and cumulative change of one kind of organism into another kind, the fossil record itself illustrates that evolution has not occurred. It is not difficult to see that evolution has achieved the status of a religion in western society.

 

As Mary Midgely notes in Evolution as a Religion, evolution is a powerful creation myth that shapes our view of who we are, and influences us in ways far beyond its official function as a biological theory. Midgely asserts that "the theory of evolution is not just an inert piece of theoretical science," but is also "a powerful folk tale about human origins."

 

She warns against applying the confidence due to well-established scientific findings to a "vast area which has only an imaginative affinity with them," and where only "the trappings of a detached and highly venerated science are present."
 


Sociobiology: The Escalator Myth


It is most important to learn to recognize sociobiological motifs hidden within evolutionary philosophies. For instance, Sir Julian Huxley has written:

"As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the Universe is becoming conscious of itself, able to understand something of its past history and its possible future. This cosmic self-awareness is being realized in one tiny fragment of the Universe - in a few of us human beings... The first thing that the human species has to do to prepare itself for the cosmic office to which it finds itself appointed is to explore human nature, to find out what are the possibilities open to it (including of course its limitations)."

In Beyond the Outsider, Colin Wilson adds: "Man has a choice; he can devote himself to evolutionary purposes, or confine himself to his everyday animal purposes."

Evolutionary philosophy is replete with sociobiological allusions to such things as "evolutionary purposes" and "cosmic offices." Yet, Darwin was specific in his denunciation of any such overarching direction or purpose to evolution. It would appear that the human species has simply ordained itself to this priesthood, since none of the other animals are able to profess such a purpose. In order to turn a perceptibly static process of change into a form of scientific entertainment, Darwin’s propagandists (most of whom are philosophers, not scientists) use tricks of time travel, panoramic views, and even allusions to God and/or to humans as Overlords. With such cheap tricks up their sleeves, it’s remarkable that some Darwinists refer to Intelligent Design Theory as "Creationism dressed up in a cheap tuxedo."

With the publication of various popular science books attempting to simplify the new quantum physics paradigms for us little people, this indulgence in evolution as a creation drama is most obvious. A viewing of the science section of any large book store will display countless titles that seemingly portray the idea that science is making room for the existence of God. It is doing no such thing. It is pulling a bait and switch. It is calling itself God.

As an example, in his book The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World, Paul Davies makes an attempt to redefine God-hood as a process of rational thought that is pervasive in the Universe, having a mathematically recognizable pattern that reflects human-hood. There is no indication anywhere in the pages of this book that the author is talking about God as the omniscient, omnipotent and determinant cause or creator of the "rational" Universe inside and outside the human mind. It is, rather, a book about human rational superstructures in the act of recognizing that the way it thinks might reflect the way the Universe was built. Davies’ anthropomorphism is unmistakable.

This modern conversion of God goes one step beyond merely creating God in man’s image, to creating God in the image of Scientific Prowess, as the Buddha of Reason and the Rational Mind. Davies writes:

"Human beings have all sorts of beliefs. The way in which they arrive at them varies from reasoned argument to blind faith. Some beliefs are based on personal experience, others on education, and others on indoctrination. Many beliefs are no doubt innate: we are born with them as a result of evolutionary factors."

Buried in this obtuse Lamarckian epistemology lies the suggestion that a certain belief system, an acquired characteristic by any standard, can be the result of an "evolutionary factor." Wouldn’t it be handy if we discovered that Davies was setting the stage to present the thesis that scientific rationalism is the correct belief system of the fittest individuals? Stay tuned - he is! Davies writes:

"Four hundred years ago science came into conflict with religion because it seemed to threaten Mankind’s cozy place in the Universe ...  The revolution begun by Copernicus and finished by Darwin had the effect of marginalizing, even trivializing, human beings."

It’s nice to know mankind is cozy in the arms of science.

Davies wonders why "science works," and asserts it works so well that it points to something profoundly significant about the organization of the Cosmos. The concept of human reasoning, he explains, is itself a curious one. He writes:

"The processes of human thought are not God-given. They have their origin in the structure of the human brain, and the tasks it has evolved to perform. The operation of the brain, in turn, depends on the laws of physics and the nature of the physical world we inhabit."

Davies’ philosophy is a prime example of the a priori reasoning of a devout naturalist. As William Dembski has charged, "For the naturalist, the world is intelligible only if it starts off without intelligence and then evolves intelligence." As he has so cogently explained, naturalism sees intelligence as an evolutionary byproduct and humans as an accident of natural history. But this view of the world is changing fast in the Age of Aquarius, and all hands must be on deck to understand what is at stake here.

While Dembski would agree that human intelligence seems uncannily matched to the intelligence of the universe, in I.D. Theory this awesome fact is itself a discoverable aspect of intelligent design methodology, rather than the fortuitous finale of the quantum parallel evolution of the universe and human beings. In reading Davies’ scientific rationalist manifesto, and scores of others like it, we can see why Intelligent Design Theory’s chalk screeches so shrilly on the dogmatic blackboard of Darwin’s last stand.

This peculiar evolutionary psychology (i.e. sociobiological) model sets its definition of God as the mechanistic processes in nature which seemingly mirror the belief system of scientific rationalism. This merely exemplifies the humbling motto, written by the authors of Giants of Gaia, that "the Universe has an obliging nature and is reflexive. It can provide proof for any cosmological scheme, scientific or mystical, foisted upon it." The author’s definition of the conscious awareness of the connectedness of inner/outer worlds is the now pseudo-scientific term: "God." The processes which mirror scientific rationalism are now called God; not the giver, mind you, but the gift itself. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, science is God. As Charles Fort asserts,

"science is a Turtle that says that its own shell encloses all things."

The idea being promulgated by Davies, that evolution progresses "upward" toward more complex forms, is definitively contrary to Darwinian theory, and he should know it. But these philosophers apparently have no conscience about propagating such disinformation to the public. It is entertainment and leisure time distraction parading as science. Contrary to Davies’ brazen embellishment of Darwin’s theory, in actuality Darwin posited no guarantee of the continuation of particular changes, and saw no particular change, such as increased intelligence, which stood at the apex of this metamorphosis.

In fact, Peter Bowler, author of The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth, finds no fault with Darwin’s theory; he only finds fault with "the mistaken notion of its revolutionary effect on 19th Century thought." Examining the work of such figures as Owen, Spencer, Kelvin, Huxley, Haeckel, and Freud, Bowler finds "a near-universal tendency to accept evolutionism while rejecting Darwin’s central premise [regarding natural selection]." Bowler argues, it isn’t Darwin at all who has affected modern philosophy, since most philosophers have misunderstood and misapplied the essence of Darwin’s theory, taking it to fantastic sociobiological extremes.

The idea of the upward movement of life forms from lifeless matter through plants, animals and man (and now to God) was suggested by Lamarck, and initially given the term "evolution" by Herbert Spencer. Darwin argued against the idea that there existed any innate tendency toward progressive development. Darwinian theory, instead, was shaped more like a bush than a tree, and accounted for all types of development, including unchangingness and regression, as responses to environment.

Molecular biologist, W. Ford Doolittle, asserts that the history of life cannot properly be represented as a tree, but rather as "an unresolved bush." Yet, evolution predicts that molecular data should allow a phylogenetic "tree of life" to be constructed. In fact, all predictions of descent in molecular data have failed. (see "Design vs. Descent: A War of Predictions")

Thus, Mary Midgely deduces, in Evolution as a Religion, Herbert Spencer’s "ladder" theory has prevailed over Darwin’s "bush" theory in popular scientific writing, and thus in the public mind, as well as in the minds of scientists who have had a difficult time fitting Darwinian theory to the actual fossil record. Midgely contends that an "over-ambitious reliance on the escalator model and the inflated creeds which express it" are the source of many superstitious beliefs that follow the theory of evolution.
 


Darwinism and the Anthropic Principle


Where does the theory of Darwinian evolution go wrong? In my estimation it takes a wrong turn at the idea of the evolution of intelligence: at a particularly treacherous bend in the road known as the Anthropic Principle. In my book, Space Travelers and the Genesis of the Human Form, I explored the anthropic principle, focusing on Frank Tippler’s denial of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) based on the anthropic principle:

The anthropic principle is based on a biological argument: the minimum time required for the evolution of "intelligent observers." In this scheme, a billion years is required for the evolution of intelligence; therefore, a star must have been stable for at least that long. The anthropic timescale argument allows that the types of processes allowed in the Universe must be of such an age that "slow evolutionary processes will have had time to produce intelligent beings from non-living matter."

(Barrow & Tipler 159)

Interestingly, Tipler’s Space Travel Argument (based on the anthropic principle) states specifically that "the contemporary advocates for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life seem to be primarily astronomers and physicists, such as Sagan, Drake, and Morrison, while most leading experts in evolutionary biology, for instance Dobzhansky, Simpson, Francois, Ayala et al. and Mayr, contend that the Earth is probably unique in harboring intelligence." (Barrow & Tipler) So we see then why we are told that us human beings are alone in the Universe. Because Darwinian evolution has told us so. But does not this assumption place the cart before the horse, since we really don’t have an answer to this conundrum?

In a nutshell, the anthropic principle assumes intelligence to be a product of evolution: i.e. it could not have been there before, and it is a development only exhibited by human beings. Thus, the term "intelligence" is implied to mean only "human intelligence." The tautology here is obvious. If you claim that intelligence was never there beforehand and can only be gotten through an incremental succession of steps involving pure random luck (i.e. as an earth-based anomaly), then you must call that process evolution. This is the heart of the paradigm of scientific naturalism. Intelligence has got to be a product of evolution.

As I argued in Space Travelers, Darwinian evolution cannot be used as a framework from which to correctly argue against the Cosmic co-existence of the humanoid form, or human-like intelligence, since it likely places the cart before the horse. The most common argument against the existence of "intelligent" life in the Universe is based on the consensus reality of Darwinian evolution. To state it more specifically, the fundamental premise underlying the argument against the existence of intelligent life in the Cosmos, and specifically the humanoid form, is the assumed impossibility of the separate evolution of upright, bipedal, large brained, tool-making hominids on planets which are worlds apart.

Yet, a confounded dilemma trips up the popular use of the evolution argument against the co-existence of the humanoid form in the Cosmos at large. We are merely extrapolating this presumption from an unproven theory based on an Earth-centric bias. "Darwinian evolution constitutes a tautology: a self-contained system of circular proofs, which are always true in a self-contained system of circular proofs."
 


The Intelligent Universe


Physicists now claim that we live in an intelligent universe. They suggest the universe is a great big Mind. Yet, there are some evolutionists who claim the concept of Mind-at-Large to be a sign of the evolution of human intelligence from inorganic matter. As an example, in his book, The Self-Aware Universe, Amit Goswami asks:

"How has the Cosmos existed for the past fifteen billion years if for the bulk of this time there were no conscious observers to do any collapsing of wave functions?"

For those readers unfamiliar with the new quantum physics paradigm, this terminology refers to a particular interpretation of findings which suggests that reality is a creation of the human mind, or the "conscious observer." The "wave function" referred to in this theory is thought to be the process of bringing a particular facet of reality into being, which can occur only once it is "collapsed" by the observation of a "conscious observer."

Goswami’s logic is compelling, but, of course, it is not the only possible translation of what could be occurring. The problem with this view, the anthropic principle, is we assume a closed system, based upon the Darwinian paradigm of the local evolution of consciousness on Earth as an independent and accidental event. Secondly, we suppose that consciousness is specifically "human" and Earth-based. The most simple answer is that we are not the first or the only conscious observers, and we are not alone in the Universe!

Pondering how consciousness "arose in the Universe," this peculiar Western viewpoint - the anthropic principle - refuses the primacy of consciousness, and instead assumes causality - an endless chain of linear causes - in the Universe. The anthropic principle assumes the evolution of intelligence from non-organic matter, and extrapolates the time required for the evolution of "conscious observers" based on the presumed localized, one-of-a-kind, anomaly of Earth-based human evolution. This assumption is then applied as a cosmic constant.

The Universe is more like a living organism with a conscious purpose. Modern physics sees evidence that the primal presence of consciousness is in itself the reason why, contrary to the law of entropy, the Universe is not running down. In other words, consciousness or "Mind-at-Large" is primal to "human" consciousness, not the other way around. We’ve got it backwards.

These sociobiological ideas suggest that humankind has acquired a certain "correct" point of view (scientific materialism) with which to peer into a micro and macro Universe that runs like a machine, while at the same time arguing against an ultra purpose or design. This view is remindful of an earlier scientific era when humans perceived the "clockwork" in the Universe, but this time an anthropomorphized (human-like) concept of "evolution" has replaced the clockmaker. Evolution has become a grand cosmological scheme in which man "evolved" patterns of thought which correctly mirror the Universe. Mankind is a being that "accidentally" hit the bulls eye in his "evolution" of intelligence and consciousness. But what’s the payoff? We could look directly into the Face of God on the clock, and never see the view.
 


Evolution’s Panchestron


In his book, Ishtar Rising, Robert Anton Wilson describes a "panchreston" as a system that explains everything. He argues, "any human formula which explains all human formulas is technically in the class of all classes which include themselves and leads to logical contradictions."

As Mary Midgely asserts, the myths and dramas attending the theme of evolution, while using scientific language, are "quite contrary to currently accepted scientific doctrines about it." These dramas provide their adherents with a "live faith" that adds meaning to their lives. In this sense they are religious. Why do such dramas go hand in hand with evolution? During my years as a believer in the "fact" of evolution, the two foremost excuses I made for people who contested their great ape lineage were:

(1)   these poor souls didn’t have an adequate understanding of the theory (i.e. they were dumb), and

(2)   humans generally are incapable of imagining the incredible span of time involved in such incremental processes of change (i.e. it must be happening even though we can’t see it or prove it).

Therefore, it is understandable why Midgely would suggest that, taken literally and without personal meaning, the theory of evolution is "scarcely graspable at all by the human imagination." Nonetheless, the creators of such evolutionary dramas owe to their readers a more honest expose of our current understanding of evolutionary processes so they might better understand what they are accepting as scientific fact. They would quickly realize the Emperor wears no clothes.
 


Gaia Theory and Gaia Mind


Microbiologist, Lynn Margulis, and chemist, James Lovelock, formulated the Gaia Hypothesis in the 1970s (now upgraded to a theory). They proposed that life creates the conditions for its own existence, challenging the reigning theory that the forces of geology set the conditions for life, while plants and animals, sort of accidentally along for the ride, evolved by chance under the right conditions.

The Darwinian concept of adaptation to the environment has been seriously questioned by Margulis, Lovelock and others working from a systems point of view. Evolution cannot be explained by the adaptation of organisms to local environments, they argue, because the environment is also being shaped by a network of living systems. The evolution of life according to the Gaia Theory is a cyclical, "self-regulating" feedback relationship. Interestingly, Margulis has stated that one day neo-Darwinism will be judged as:

"a minor 20th Century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon biology."

The Gaia Theory was originally proposed as the Gaia Hypothesis by James Lovelock in 1972 in a paper titled, "Gaia as seen through the atmosphere," and popularized in the 1979 book, Gaia: A New Look At Life on Earth. Lovelock’s initial hypothesis proposed that the whole Earth behaves like one self-regulating organism wherein all of the geologic, hydrologic, and biologic cycles of the planet mutually self-regulate the conditions on the surface of the Earth so as to perpetuate life. Later, when the mainstream scientific body got hold of the theory, it changed significantly, and we can all guess why. As Lovelock wrote of his earlier theory:

"I coined the term "Gaia Mind" in 1996 to describe a variation on an idea first suggested by Teilhard de Chardin in 1955 in Le Phenomene Humain, namely that the whole of the Earth is conscious, or more accurately, is in the process of becoming self-conscious [with mankind as the mirror], and that collectively we and our technology essentially are that process. Teilhard called this phenomenon the noosphere - derived from the same root as the words biosphere, lithosphere, etc. However, that version of the idea, as first put forward by Teilhard, often tended to emphasize our separation and departure from nature, as if each stage transcends and supersedes the previous one. This version of the idea of emergent global consciousness has become widespread with the advent of computers and the Internet, but has also often been criticized as focusing on technology at the expense of nature, as if the two are inherently antagonistic. By contrast, the term Gaia Mind is intended to emphasize our continuing connection to nature, and that the whole process is fundamentally an expression of the living Earth, as a totality, becoming self-aware and self-conscious rather of man, or humanity alone, doing so through technology."

One website explains Margulis’ theory that humans evolved from bacteria. It states,

"Acknowledging that our ancestors are bacteria is humbling and has disturbing implications. Besides impugning human sovereignty over the rest of nature, it challenges our ideas of individuality, uniqueness, and independence. It even violates our view of ourselves as discrete physical beings separated from the rest of nature and - still more unsettling - it challenges the alleged uniqueness of human intelligent consciousness."

All such "humbling" sentiments aside, while Margulis believes evolution has not been simply a 4-billion-year preparation for higher and more complex organisms, she bases this view on the fact that most of life’s history has been microbial. Her theory proposes, essentially, that without our interdependence on microbial ancestors and cohorts, we would "sink in feces and choke on carbon dioxide we exhale." Margulis sees humans as,

"recombination of the metabolic processes of bacteria that appeared before, during, and after the accumulation of atmospheric oxygen some 2,000 million years ago."

Margulis has also taken her theory to the "green" level, asserting that the "lesson of evolutionary history is that it will be through conservation, interaction, and networking, not domination, that we avert a premature end to our species."

Margulis still insists that consciousness evolved, but where did the consciousness come from? Answer: It had to come from inside the system in the "naturalist" framework. Consciousness has to evolve, it can’t have been there in the first place.
 


Vitalism


Proponents of 17th Century Vitalism posited that the body is governed by the action of a soul or vital force. This teaching asserts that evolution is not purely mechanical but is the result of a purposeful force called the "life force," which pervades the Universe. For instance, vitalist T.E. Hulme, suggested,

"the process of evolution can only be described as the gradual insertion of more and more freedom into matter. ... In the amoeba, you might say that the impulse has manufactured a small leak through which free activity could be inserted into the world, and the process of evolution has been the gradual enlargement of this leak."

(Beyond the Outsider)

Neo-Darwinists argue against such a mysterious (exterior) impulse, vital force or field.

The Vitalist school of thought argues that physics and chemistry are insufficient to explain life. The whole is more than the sum of its parts: this is what vitalism has in common with systems theory. Both vitalists and organismic biologists try to describe the way in which the whole is more than the sum of its parts. While organismic biologists view the inherent relationships which organize the whole as being the presumed added ingredient, vitalists look for an outside force, field, or nonphysical process.

Margulis and other systems thinkers continue to assert that there is no purpose or overarching goal in evolution. They insist the driving force of evolution is not random, but rather emerges out of "life’s inherent tendency to create novelty, in the spontaneous emergence of increasing complexity and order." Its a good thing this creative force is inherent and spontaneous, or it wouldn’t square with the paradigm of scientific naturalism. Clearly, it’s one thing for the new wave of systems thinkers to partially debunk Darwin, but they had better stop short of saying the driver is anywhere but inside the vehicle. This Baby’s on Board! Staying carefully within certain necessary aspects of scientific naturalism, Margulis and other systems thinkers explicitly assert that there is no purpose, goal or vital force in evolution.
 


Theory of Formative Causation


A modern example of Vitalist theory is Rupert Sheldrake’s Theory of Morphic Resonance, also called the Theory of Formative Causation, described in detail in his book, A New Science of Life. In his book, The Presence of the Past, Sheldrake explains that morphogenic fields contain an inherent memory. He explains, the "structure of these fields is not determined by either transcendent ideas or timeless mathematical formulae, but rather result from the actual forms of previous similar organisms." Sheldrake believes the structure of the morphogenic fields "depends on what has happened before." In an interview with Robert Gilman, Sheldrake explains why Vitalism has come back to life as a scientific theory and is being embraced in many corners:

"Using morphogenetic fields as the carrier of memory implies no absolute separation between minds. It suggests our identity is dual, like an electron that is both particle and wave. We have aspects that are unique and totally individual, yet at the same time much of our thought and behavior is shaped by, participates in, and helps to create transpersonal morphogenetic fields. Our ordinary learning within our culture shapes us in a similar way, but these ideas move that sharing to a more intimate level. We are thus both individuals and expressions of (and creators of) a group mind - like the Jungian collective unconscious, but more extensive, and in some aspects more changeable.

 

Because our brains contain levels (mammalian, reptilian, etc.) that connect us to other species, that group mind includes all life. We may even find, as we explore the possibilities of consciousness associated with what we now think of as non-living matter, that we are linked in consciousness to all creation. We would thus be linked to the stars not only through the chemicals in our bodies, but through our minds as well.

Accepting the idea of morphogenetic fields also opens the door to the scientific investigation of the idea that consciousness and mental processes can function without physical support. This would allow the existence of non-physical beings (gods, angels, life after death, etc.) - a subject of prime interest to most religious and spiritual traditions."


Theories of Panspermia


Panspermia is the theory that life on earth was seeded by microbial life from space. There are several variations on this theme held by many historical advocates, including the Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras (500-428 BCE), Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894), and William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1897).

More recently, Svante Arrhenius promulgated the theory of radio-panspermia, wherein microbes from space are transported by light pressure. Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe have advocated that DNA arrived on earth via meteorites, the theory of ballistic panspermia, or by comets, modern panspermia. Francis Crick has advocated the theory of directed panspermia, wherein RNA was transported by unmanned spaceships, or the space probes of intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations. This is also thought of as the "Noah’s Ark" theory.

As the reader may recall, British molecular biologist, Francis Crick, now at the Salk Institute, California, won a Nobel Prize for his part in the elucidation of the structure of DNA. Notably, Crick was later led to argue for Panspermia by his belief that the chances of life accidentally originating on Earth were very low. Crick argued that the universality of the genetic code can only be explained by an "infective" theory of the origin of life. In this theory, life on Earth would be a "clone" derived from a single set of organisms. Crick’s radical theory of directed panspermia suggests that RNA was the first replicator molecule on Earth in an early biological era.

 


Making Room for Intelligent Design


Intelligent Design (I.D.) Theory is the science that studies signs of intelligence. In his book, The Design Inference, its leading proponent, mathematician William Dembski, employs statistical testing of the natural world to see if it shows evidence of intelligent design. As Dembski has explained, evolutionary biology teaches that biological complexity is the result of material mechanisms. Dembski explains, the only alternative to "mechanism" in biological complexity is "intelligence," and the only alternative to evolutionary biology is intelligent design. He explains,

"Intelligent design studies the effects of intelligence in the world. Many special sciences already fall under intelligent design, including archeology, cryptography, forensics, and SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Intelligent design is thus already part of science. Moreover, it employs well-defined methods for detecting intelligence. These methods together with their application constitute the theory of intelligent design."

In response to Darwinists and naturalists who claim I.D. Theory is not science, Dembski argues,

"the mark of a pseudoscience is not that it is false but, in the words of physicist Wolfgang Pauli, that it is "not even false." In other words, with a pseudoscience there's no way to decide whether it is true or false. Evolutionary biologists argue that material mechanisms suffice to account for biological complexity. Intelligent design theorists argue that material mechanisms are inadequate to account for biological complexity. Both sides are trying to determine the truth of some definite matter of fact - whether life is the result of mindless material mechanisms or whether it demonstrably points to a designing intelligence. This is a genuine scientific debate."

In their commitment to keep intelligent cause outside of the boundaries of naturalist science, Darwinists and scientific naturalists charged, in one news story, that I.D. Theory is "Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo." Adrian Melott, author of the article published in Physics Today, claims I.D. Theory to be on the "cutting edge of creationism." Continually referring to Dembski as an "ID creationist," he claims, "ID is different from its forebears. It does a better job of disguising its sectarian intent." As William Dembski responds, "somehow science and our knowledge of the natural world is supposed to unravel once we allow that intelligence could be a fundamental principal operating in the universe," a charge he finds to be without merit.

As Dembski further suggests, human intelligence is finely tuned to the intelligibility of the world. Try as it will, Darwinian evolution cannot explain human consciousness. He explains,

"the match between our intelligence and the intelligibility of the world is no accident. Nor can it properly be attributed to natural selection, which places a premium on survival and reproduction and has no stake in truth or conscious thought. Indeed, meat-puppet robots are just fine as the output of a Darwinian evolutionary process."

In addition, Dembski suggests, I.D. Theory is compatible with any form of teleological guidance one could come up with. I.D. Theory does not require "an interventionist conception of design" and does not require God to be an "intervening meddler." He explains,

"for God to be an intervening meddler requires a world that finds divine intervention meddlesome. Intelligent Design requires neither a meddling God nor a meddled world. For that matter, it doesn’t even require that there be a God."

As Dembski has shown,

"one can see that a third mode of explanation is required, namely, intelligent design. Chance, necessity and design - these three modes of explanation - are needed to explain the full range of scientific phenomena."

Life is more than chance combinations of atoms and cells, write the authors of Giants of Gaia. To organize the parts which "collectively enable a bird to fly, or the human brain to form," the writers insist, "there had to be an order which brought together the parts not by chance, nor by simple adaptation to external stimulus, but through intelligence." This intelligence inherently constitutes the Universe.

Writing in his essay, "Astrogenesis," William Hamilton explains,

"The real paradigm shift is to consider that the Universe is a life-producing nursery and that the genesis and evolution of life is not earth-centered but rather is distributed among the stars of the galaxies. This idea can be developed into a viable theory as studies in panspermia and astrobiology continue. The real vision this offers is a way to reconcile the possibilities of ancient and recent visitors to earth who appear to be humanoid with an overarching theory that explains the existence of cosmic cousins."

In conclusion, we need not bow to the defunct theory of the evolution of the human form as an Earth-based anomaly. Let go! Unhinge. Be a BIPED: Beings for PURPOSE in Evolutionary DESIGN. Feel free to explore what that really means! Humans did not crawl out of the ponds of our earth habitat. We are an ancient race connected to the Universe. The human form is a cosmic happening. People are universal. Question who might want us to think otherwise! Star Trek is real! God is Real. Gaia is alive! The Cosmic Web is a creation hierarchy. Take it wherever you want. Get in fist fights at parties! Practice your absolute freedom from Acada-Media mind control!


References and Suggested Reading

 

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