Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design

[A Jay]

One thing that I became aware of recently is the astonishing fact that Charles Darwin himself saw evolution as goal-directed. In other words, he believed that at the moment of creation, God "built in" the necessary purposes into the evolutionary processes (we might say today: he supplied the necessary information for evolution to work in a certain direction, i.e. conscious intelligent life/humans).

Now, neo-Darwinism has done away with this concept altogether, and later Darwinists desperately tried to argue away Darwin's views (and the fluctuating and contradictory statements by Darwin on religion played into their hands).

This paper makes it clear that Darwin thought evolution has a goal - which also jives with his Deist views on religion.

In other words, were Darwin alive today, maybe he would join the Discovery Institute

When reading the chapter 'Creation and Evolution' from David Ray Griffin's Religion and Scientific Naturalism, I was astonished as well to read some of the things that Darwin said that would later be denied or changed by neo-Darwinists in order to have a fully materialistic and atheistic account of the origin of life. The chapter is really good because it breaks Darwinian evolutionism into 14 dimensions so as to have a full grasp of what people mean by it, and then he methodically goes through each point and separates the wheat from the chaff. It's very enlightening to say the least.

Here's some of what DRG writes on his 14th dimension of Darwinian evolutionism, which is that it is non-progressive:

There is said to be no general trend behind or within the macroevolutionary process to produce organisms that are "higher" or "better" or "more valuable" than those that came earlier.

<SNIP>

Gould is one of the neo-Darwinists who has especially rejected the idea of evolutionary progress, calling it "noxious" (RIP, 319). Referring to Darwin's own reminder to himself never to speak of "higher" or "lower," Gould says (ESD, 36): "If an amoeba is as well adapted to its environment as we are to ours, who is to say that we are higher creatures?" Darwin's criterion of adaptation, Gould concedes, is "improved fitness," but this means, he contends, only "better designed for an immediate, local environment," not improvement in any "cosmic sense".

Sounds a lot like the postmodernists who say that there is no good or bad, only more or less useful ways of talking. Moving on.

In a chapter on "Natural Selection and 'Natural Improvement,'" Ospovat shows that "Darwin never seriously doubted that progress has been the general rule in the history of life" (DDT, 212). Richards agrees (MF, 146), thereby rejecting Gould's claim, cited above, that for Darwin improvement meant only "better designed for an immediate, local environment." Indeed, Richards says, far from there being a conflict in Darwin's mind between progress and the theory of natural selection, "Darwin crafted natural selection as an instrument to manufacture biological progress and moral perfection" (MF 131). That this was not merely Darwin's early view, later to be discarded, is shown by the fact that in the final paragraph of The Origin of Species, Darwin said: "Thus, from the war of nature...the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follow." Ospovat, citing the passage from Gould cited above, says: "Stephen Gould has made much of Darwin's vow never to use the terms 'higher' and 'lower.' But Darwin consistently refused to adhere to his rule" (DDT, 227).

<SNIP>

In his autobiography, Darwin included the existence of human beings, with their distinctive capacities, as a reason for believing in divine purpose, saying that it is impossible to conceive "this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity" (A, 92). Although Darwin did give up his early theological view that the details of the world reflected a divine plan, he accepted until the end the belief that results of a general nature were preordained by the "general laws" imposed by the Creator. Therefore, although the fact that the details were left to chance meant that humans as we know them were not intended (at least insofar as Darwin ignored the fact that his predictive determinism left no room for "chance" in the metaphysical sense), Darwin could still believe, as Ospovat shows, that beings with moral and intellectual qualities were intended (DDT, 72-73, 226).

 

[Windmill knight]

I came across this article in the NYT:

How Beauty Is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution (Published 2019)

The extravagant splendor of the animal kingdom can’t be explained by natural selection alone — so how did it come to be?

www.nytimes.com

It deals with the question of beauty in nature, mostly from a darwinian perspective, though at least one of the scientists there seems to think that 'sexual selection' (a female choosing a beautiful male) is a process independent from natural selection, mainly cause beauty is not always advantageous for survival and fitness - in fact, often quite the opposite, as a colorful bird will be an easier prey. Apparently, on this particular point, Darwin himself thought that animals were choosing "according to their standard of beauty", but this idea did not catch, obviously, cause that would be a flaw in natural selection and animals would be capable of aesthetics. Most darwinian scientists come up with some pretty convoluted, even laughable, ways to justify beauty in terms of natural selection, some of which are covered in the article. And I don't think any can account for the fact that while beautiful and colorful birds should simply not exist, they do. It's a bit like the neodarwinian arguments to explain away empathy - trying to fit the square peg in the round hole.

The one scientist in the article who sees 'sexual selection' as independent from natural selection, Richard Prum, is asked at some point why it is then, that animals find some things beautiful and others not, and he confesses he doesn't know. Of course, that's as far as a biologist will be able to go, cause to accept that beauty is irreducible would be just an inch away from accepting the predominance of things like consciousness, meaning, information, value and the transcendent over pure matter.

Overall I was a little surprised to see there were some problems about darwinism that made it to the NYT - and one problem that we haven't covered much here yet: beauty. Nothing too shocking, but it's better than nothing. I'll be waiting for the day in which they publish some of Behe and take him seriously. :)

 

[Windmill knight]

One thing that I became aware of recently is the astonishing fact that Charles Darwin himself saw evolution as goal-directed. In other words, he believed that at the moment of creation, God "built in" the necessary purposes into the evolutionary processes (we might say today: he supplied the necessary information for evolution to work in a certain direction, i.e. conscious intelligent life/humans).

Interesting. And I just posted an article that mentions that he thought that animals chose mates out of a sense of beauty. Perhaps his intuition of the religious and the transcendent wasn't entirely dead.

As for the neodarwinian types, I think they cannot fully escape the issue of teleology or a purpose, which makes them hypocrites or self-deluded. Because Nature has written all over that it is goal oriented. So much so, that even the Dawkins out there can't stop talking about biology in terms of function, efficiency, strategy, etc.

 

[luc]

When reading the chapter 'Creation and Evolution' from David Ray Griffin's Religion and Scientific Naturalism, I was astonished as well to read some of the things that Darwin said that would later be denied or changed by neo-Darwinists in order to have a fully materialistic and atheistic account of the origin of life.

I'm finally plunging into David Ray-Griffin's work now as well, and find it really useful. I particularly like his "God Exists But Gawd Does Not: From Evil to New Atheism to Fine-Tuning", because it's a nice and concise summary of many of his thoughts and it's less academic than some of his other writings.

These philosophical musings are less tangible than Behe's evidence for ID and such, but I think it's still *very* useful in terms of gaining knowledge in support of the Cs' cosmology. It's one thing to "consider" or "believe" what the Cs say about the hyperdimensional universe, but in relation to the materialist worldview, it's still "belief vs. belief". But with the philosophical arguments under my belt, I KNOW that a hyperdimensional reality is the only thing that makes sense and accounts for the human experience.

And it's crucial! Because we're so indoctrinated with the materialist outlook that this completely limits our perception, locks us in as it were. It makes us deny absolutely crucial features of our conscious experience, such as extrasensory perception, and I don't mean paranormal stuff necessarily, but the whole richness of experience, including hunches, intuition, conscience, sense of meaning etc. that, if you pay close attention, are a bridge to the future - to the higher realms that our experience is embedded in. But how can you pay close attention if you have a program running in the background that tries to reduce everything to purely material causes? I think it's important to realize just how badly we've been misled and to get rid of this self-limiting programming by thinking things through while paying close attention to our experience.

I mean, "evidence" isn't limited to physical evidence, is it? Our experience should count as evidence too! And no metaphyiscal theory that cannot handle ALL of our experience is worth anything.

By the way, one point Ray-Griffin makes in almost all his books is fascinating and the height of irony: it was actually the CHURCH that invented the materialistic worldview to justify their friggin' biblical miracles!! Like: everything is just materialistic, so miracles are possible ONLY through the intervention of a supernatural Gawd - a Gawd that is completely outside nature and can do whatever he wants, subject to no laws or principles whatsoever.

So the modern materialist-atheists are heirs to a bunch of authoritarian theologians defending miracles! Take that, Dawkins!

 

[Windmill knight]

I mean, "evidence" isn't limited to physical evidence, is it? Our experience should count as evidence too! And no metaphyiscal theory that cannot handle ALL of our experience is worth anything.

Absolutely. If you think about it, consciousness itself is the most 'paranormal' or 'supernatural' thing of them all, from the POV of materialism. Cause it's so radically different in nature and quality to matter - yet it is intimate to us, even more so than matter, and we couldn't possibly have this conversation, nor even think about having it, without consciousness. Our bodies are 'haunted' - by us! And there's no denying it.

Materialists who wish to explain away consciousness as a by-product of matter are like a carpenter who strictly only ever works with wood, cause that's the rule of his guild, and one day he is asked to reproduce a house made of gold. Then he says, 'well, right now I can't, but I'm pretty sure that if I had the right tools and sanded the right type of wood for long enough, it would start shining and eventually it would turn to gold'. Except that the materialist's argument is even more absurd.

Now everything would start to make sense again if we accepted consciousness/information/the abstract realm in general as something just as natural and real - perhaps even more - as matter.

By the way, one point Ray-Griffin makes in almost all his books is fascinating and the height of irony: it was actually the CHURCH that invented the materialistic worldview to justify their friggin' biblical miracles!! Like: everything is just materialistic, so miracles are possible ONLY through the intervention of a supernatural Gawd - a Gawd that is completely outside nature and can do whatever he wants, subject to no laws or principles whatsoever.

Ironic. They tried to elevate God so high that in time He ended disappearing into the clouds!

 

[Laura]

Gads, Luc, it just gets deeper and deeper, doesn't it?

And I agree that the hyperdimensional/multiple density model of the Universe is the only one that makes sense when you take everything into account.

I just finished reading Douglas Axe "Undeniable", and I felt a little sorry for him because he just wasn't able to go the distance with his scientific perspective. The instant there was proof positive of Design, he leapt over Origins of Life as nimbly as the Darwinists.

I keep coming back to what the apostle Paul was saying about things, about "powers and principalities" and such. I think he really had a clue though he was struggling mightily to sort it out and make sense of it.

 

[A Jay]

It's one thing to "consider" or "believe" what the Cs say about the hyperdimensional universe, but in relation to the materialist worldview, it's still "belief vs. belief". But with the philosophical arguments under my belt, I KNOW that a hyperdimensional reality is the only thing that makes sense and accounts for the human experience.

Which is one reason that I've really enjoyed Griffin and Whitehead. They don't have the whole banana, but process philosophy provides a philosophical framework to put everything together into a beautiful mosaic that does take consciousness, psi phenomena, hyperdimensions, etc. into account.

It was really good for me to have done all of the reading that I've done thus far on postmodernism and intelligent design/neo-Darwinism (Thank you Laura and the network!!), because now, like you, I KNOW that my belief in things higher and bigger than myself and the material world is grounded in logic, reason, AND experience! Which is both liberating and invigorating.

I mean, "evidence" isn't limited to physical evidence, is it? Our experience should count as evidence too! And no metaphyiscal theory that cannot handle ALL of our experience is worth anything.

Consciousness was always a problem for Darwinism, materialism, and postmodernism. None of these theories nor their theoreticians could explain their ability to explain their theories. It's the biggest elephant in the room and they would always just gloss over it. Yet, consciousness is the fundamental component and key to the whole shebang. You can't hand wave it away without invalidating the preciousness of your own experience and the reason why life and the universe exists.

So the modern materialist-atheists are heirs to a bunch of authoritarian theologians defending miracles! Take that, Dawkins!

Yeah, when I read that for the first time in Whitehead's Radically Different Postmodern Philosophy I was kinda floored. Here these guys are bashing the daylights out of religious institutions and religious thinkers, and the only reason they are able to do it is because of those religious institutions and thinkers. Irony indeed!

And I agree that the hyperdimensional/multiple density model of the Universe is the only one that makes sense when you take everything into account.

Agreed, and I think it's fascinating that the more we read and learn the more self-evident what the C's have said becomes.

 

[genero81]

It's about control. And there's only one way to control the human race and that's by eliminating any awareness, and thereby access, to higher densities and the growth/ learning that comes from having that perspective. It doesn't matter if it's the Church attempting to solidify control by placing itself as intermediary between the congregation and 'God,' or whether it's the materialist, scientific thought police demanding obedience to neo Darwinism, the effect is the same. OSIT

 

[Anthony]

Which is one reason that I've really enjoyed Griffin and Whitehead. They don't have the whole banana, but process philosophy provides a philosophical framework to put everything together into a beautiful mosaic that does take consciousness, psi phenomena, hyperdimensions, etc. into account.

Couldn't agree more. Whitehead isn't easy to understand, but Griffin does a good job, and process philosophy does cut through the postmodernistic, materialistic nonsense.

 

[luc]

I just finished reading Douglas Axe "Undeniable", and I felt a little sorry for him because he just wasn't able to go the distance with his scientific perspective. The instant there was proof positive of Design, he leapt over Origins of Life as nimbly as the Darwinists.

Haven't read Axe's book yet, but I find that religious faith kind of messes up the thinking of the IDers at a certain point. It's kinda like "ID is true, therefore Jesus!" Part of the problem it seems to me is the concept of God as supernatural (separate and beyond nature) and all-powerful. This prevents further questioning and probing.

The concept of the all-powerful God also led to the problem of evil: if God is all-powerful and all-good, how can there be evil? It's probably THE most important reason for atheism, and a good reason it is. But as David Stove pointed out on that issue, if your premises reliably produce problems, perhaps it's time to question your premises! As in: perhaps the divine realm is not "unhinged" from nature, but subject to laws and principles as well - ones that you can try to discover! And maybe "divine beings" are not all-powerful, just a lot more powerful than us. And maybe there's evil also in the divine realms! Boom! Problem of evil gone. And a powerful motivation to actually find out what evil is and how to get away from it.

Now, what's fascinating is how this concept of God came about. As Ray Griffin points out, the origin lies in the doctrine that God created the world out of nothing ("creatio ex nihilo"), which meant that God is all-powerful. The "out of nothing" doctrine came out of a poorly translated Genesis 1:1-2. But what it originally meant, and what was the common belief in the ancient Near East, was that God gave the world its form, i.e. he worked with existing "raw material" - he didn't create everything "out of nothing", which is rather nonsensical. And yet, Christians, Jews and Muslims alike believe this nowadays, and even invoke the Big Bang as "proof". According to Ray Griffin, this doctrine originated in opposition to the 2nd century Gnostic Marcion, who said that the Jewish God created the world out of evil matter, as opposed to the supreme divine reality revealed by Jesus. To counter that heresy, church people came up with the "out of nothing" theory.

Together with the invention of materialism by the church in reaction to Hermeticism in the 16th/17th century, you have this development:

Creatio-ex-nihilo ⇒ all-powerful God ⇒ removal of God from nature

...which led to:

1) materialist worldview ⇒ atheism possible because God unnecessary
2) the problem of evil ⇒ motivation for atheism

Taken together, this produces materialist atheism and all that this entails. Programming complete!

One cannot help but wonder if there is some tinkering behind this chain of events...


Also, contrast all of that with the Cs' consistent message that all things, including higher realms and our interactions with them, are "natural". It's all part of nature, only that nature isn't defined in strictly materialist terms.

The religious folks, even some of the otherwise brilliant IDers, seem to be trapped in this supernatural concept of God, this dualistic idea of "materialist universe PLUS all-powerful creator". Again, how can you study and understand the divine if there are no principles to be studied? If God can do whatever he wants according to his whims? If he's not part of nature? God the Almighty is a dangerous concept!

 

[Zasino]

God the Almighty is a dangerous concept!

Definitely. As a victim of a relatively strict Christian (catholic) education, in my teens I became skeptical of the big anthropomorphic projection in the sky, then developed a personal blend of pantheism and animism, which I continue to see validated by the material on this forum and Laura’s work with the C’s.
I think that the idea of the Big Friend in the Sky has been invented on purpose as a pretext or post-justification for a human hierarchy, with moral / ethical values imposed from above. Meanwhile there are enough indications that in fact, moral values are synthesized, so to speak, from “below”. J. Peterson often cites studies by Piaget on children which suggest this. The C’s recently mentioned that even 1D matter does have a (limited) consciousness.
I am still working at connecting the dots, but this state of affairs potentially upends the whole omelet.

 

[nicklebleu]

As I have been reading the different books about Darwinian evolution vs Intelligent Design, I have come to realize the difficulty of dealing with the ramifications of what I have learnt.

So far I have read Evolution 2.0, Genetic Entropy, DBB, and I’m halfway through The Edge of Evolution (and a few more books over the years critical to Darwinian evolutionary theory). I have come to the conclusion, that ID is the only theory that can account for all the problems discussed in these books.

But there seems to be a gap between what my mind perceives to be true and what I can deep down emotionally process. Or to formulate it differently, there seems to be kind of a gap between my mind and my heart. I seem to have some resistance in accepting the wider ramifications of what the acceptance of ID means - namely, that intelligence, or divinity, is REAL.

I have mulled over that point a lot in recent times and noticed a few things.

One is that I seem to have an issue with belief. I have always been quite averse to organized religion. I grew up in a household, where religion was “followed”, as in going to church on occasions, but it was more a social or convention thing, than anything connected to some deep-seated beliefs. The question of evil always stuck me as a proof, that what Christians say is illogical. As luc pointed out above: How can an almighty god tolerate such cruelty and evil in the world? So when my father died when I was 15, I turned my back on religion and wanted to have nothing at all to do with it. I effectively became an atheist. But deep down (as I have stated in this thread earlier on), there was always a gnawing doubt about the randomness of existence - why would the universe create something so vast, beautiful and complex, if it didn’t serve any purpose? But I left it at that, as I didn’t like the idea of reintroducing the notion of a divine mind.

The last session of the Cs was a bit of a revelation, when they introduced the distinction between belief based upon wishful thinking as opposed to belief based upon knowledge. But in my mind knowledge only goes so far. In the end, there is always a leap of faith involved to progress from knowledge to faith, as knowledge is always approximative and partly speculative, and never definitive, which for me always leaves the avenue open, that I could also be totally wrong. And it seems to me that part of my problem with accepting the wider implications of ID is that I haven’t made that final leap of faith yet.

The other issue likely to be involved is my realization, that I am probably still very much steeped in materialistic thinking. Rational thought and scientific evidence always were on a higher level for me than emotions or beliefs. Before I joined the forum, I was a hard-core materialist. Only what you can measure and describe in scientific terms is real, and everything else is but a figment of imagination. But when I read The Wave, a whole new world opened up before my eyes, and I was blown off my feet. At least a part of the materialist thinking crumbled. But the ruins - or should I say, the foundations? - are still there, I think. The notion of a divine cosmic mind sounds like a nice theory, but I can’t feel that “in my body”.

What to do? As far as I can see at the moment, I want to make that leap of faith, but for that the gap needs to become smaller, more manageable. So for the moment I plan on continuing to acquire knowledge about evolution, but also about the philosophical background of materialism and the way this has influenced out collective thinking mode.

Until one day I can hopefully bridge the gap a bit more - and jump.

 

[luc]

What to do? As far as I can see at the moment, I want to make that leap of faith, but for that the gap needs to become smaller, more manageable. So for the moment I plan on continuing to acquire knowledge about evolution, but also about the philosophical background of materialism and the way this has influenced out collective thinking mode.

Hey nicklebleu, I can totally relate to your post.

I think it might be helpful to switch gears a bit and read some of the more philosophical material. Ray Griffin's "God exists but Gawd does not" is excellent, and he takes the atheist attitude seriously and even shares much of the criticism leveled at religions. And yet, he makes a compelling case that nothing makes sense without the divine - only it's a different divine than what the religions teach. Ruppert Sheldrake's "Science Delusion" is also great in showing all the problems of materialism from a rational, scientific/philosophical perspective.

Perhaps most importantly, if you want to connect all of this to your heart as you put it: pay close attention to your own experience and try to think about it in non-materialistic terms. For example, if you feel satisfied because you achieved something - how does it feel? Where does this feeling come from? Or if you are touched by beauty - what is this? Or if your conscience, your moral intuition tells you something, perhaps when reading an article or witnessing something in real life - where does this feeling originate? You can of course always come up with Darwinian stories as to how this stuff "evolved". But that doesn't fly, because moral intuitions, sense of beauty, sense of meaning and satisfaction are things that point to your personal future. It's a perception that goes beyond our sense organs and the immediate material world. And this cannot have "evolved" to "save the tribe" or stuff like that. (David Stove's "Darwinian Fairytales" is another good one to get rid of Darwinist thinking). I think paying close attention to our own experience and connecting this with knowledge about the non-materialist nature of reality is key to really grasp all of this on a deeper level.

Anyway, these are some of the things on my mind right now, maybe it's helpful.

 

[genero81]

The other issue likely to be involved is my realization, that I am probably still very much steeped in materialistic thinking. Rational thought and scientific evidence always were on a higher level for me than emotions or beliefs. Before I joined the forum, I was a hard-core materialist. Only what you can measure and describe in scientific terms is real, and everything else is but a figment of imagination. But when I read The Wave, a whole new world opened up before my eyes, and I was blown off my feet. At least a part of the materialist thinking crumbled. But the ruins - or should I say, the foundations? - are still there, I think. The notion of a divine cosmic mind sounds like a nice theory, but I can’t feel that “in my body”.

What to do?

Just curious, did you read Speculum Mentis? Do you practice E.E. on a regular basis? Your mind is literally the DCM in limited form and context. So it seems to me you've taken an abstraction of mind as a thing in itself. (i.e. your mind) If you can recognize that for yourself, that recognition will correct it. At least according to Collingwood's way of thinking.

 

[mkrnhr]

The other issue likely to be involved is my realization, that I am probably still very much steeped in materialistic thinking. Rational thought and scientific evidence always were on a higher level for me than emotions or beliefs. Before I joined the forum, I was a hard-core materialist. Only what you can measure and describe in scientific terms is real, and everything else is but a figment of imagination. But when I read The Wave, a whole new world opened up before my eyes, and I was blown off my feet. At least a part of the materialist thinking crumbled. But the ruins - or should I say, the foundations? - are still there, I think. The notion of a divine cosmic mind sounds like a nice theory, but I can’t feel that “in my body”.

Perhaps most importantly, if you want to connect all of this to your heart as you put it: pay close attention to your own experience and try to think about it in non-materialistic terms. For example, if you feel satisfied because you achieved something - how does it feel? Where does this feeling come from? Or if you are touched by beauty - what is this? Or if your conscience, your moral intuition tells you something, perhaps when reading an article or witnessing something in real life - where does this feeling originate? You can of course always come up with Darwinian stories as to how this stuff "evolved". But that doesn't fly, because moral intuitions, sense of beauty, sense of meaning and satisfaction are things that point to your personal future. It's a perception that goes beyond our sense organs and the immediate material world.

I agree with Luc's approach. We can say that "we", the intellectual types who have taken the academic route as somehow handicaped in the sense that we live inside the head, and all we see is the external reality (that's why I think AI will never achieve human intelligence because you need to be organically embodied as a human in order to experience the world as a human). Thinking and abstract theorizing are useful but they are not the whole recipe for the "leap in faith". There is also the need to pay attention to what and who we are at a more basic level, the who is observing all these thoughts, values, sensations, experiences of the self and the other, the connection to the body, etc.

I think the latest part (starting at ~ 01:22:00) of the discussion in the MindMatters video touches beautifully on the subject.

Or in a more cliché way, to find the divine spark within oneself before seeing it in everything around, or something like that.