Monday, June 16, 2008

On cats, evolution, and Darwinism

Lawrence Auster has taken the trouble to discuss Darwinism in relation to some of the cat behaviors I wondered about in the last posting — see that and the comments following. It's of course a complicated and highly charged subject, but insofar as I've arrived at tentative views, here they are.

First, you have to distinguish between evolution and Darwin's theory of the mechanism by which he believed evolution operates, natural selection. Evolution — the idea that species change over vast periods of time, and new species come into being — seems to me virtually unarguable. The fossil record and the evidence from physiology are as conclusive as anything in science can be.

Darwin's theory of natural selection claims that evolution is explained by random mutations that have survival value and therefore tend to be incorporated in succeeding generations. The standard idea of natural selection allows for no goal, meaning, or transcendent influence in the process. It's supposed to be just a mechanism based on chance.

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With the necessary hedge that I have no scientific qualifications in this area, I will say that it's at least a reasonable theory that mutations and the resulting survival traits might account for some evolution within species. It's quite a leap from that to evolution of new species — and the introduction of consciousness with all its sequels.

Many scientists who wouldn't dream of denying evolution are skeptical about natural selection as a total explanation. Rupert Sheldrake, who has his own (controversial) theory that he calls morphic resonance, says:
Most biologists take it for granted that living organisms are nothing but complex machines, governed only by the known laws of physics and chemistry. I myself used to share this point of view. But over a period of several years I came to see that such an assumption is difficult to justify. For when so little is actually understood, there is an open possibility that at least some of the phenomena of life depends on laws or factors as yet unrecognized by the physical sciences.
In the abstract of his overview of scientific objections to natural selection, Jerry Bergman writes:
Using evolutionary criteria, the hierarchy found is the reverse of that expected by evolution theory; animals lower on the evolutionary scale were found to reproduce in greater numbers, and were as a whole more resistant to variations in the environment. Individual survival after birth tends to be mostly the result of chance; in most cases natural selection eliminates only the sick and the deformed. Environmental variations which cause evolution-temperature, the population of other animals, and the surrounding plant life, all of which have been fairly stable for eons-can result in only very limited degree and types of changes. The natural selection hypothesis also involves circular reasoning; an extant species survived because it was fit, and must be fit because it obviously has survived. The commonality of overdesign, or the existence of complex mechanisms that do not effect survival, but may add much to the quality of life, also creates a severe problem for the natural selection theory.

But a further issue, which Lawrence Auster with his usual eloquence alludes to, is that there is a realm which science, by its nature, simply cannot explain on any materialistic or "accidental" basis. I don't want to put words in his mouth, so let me emphasize that what follows is my interpretation, not his.

Consciousness, and the phenomena associated with it — aesthetic appreciation and emotions, for instance — is not a kind of matter, and no amount of mutations combined with environmental factors can explain it. What survival value does consciousness have? A rock survives far longer than the consciousness of any sentient being's lifetime. Consciousness has its source and purpose in something of a different order than matter.

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Now we are beyond what science or pure reason can comprehend. For some people, that is the end of the discussion and it makes no sense to even talk about it any further. For those who aren't satisfied with stopping there, they need not.

There is another tradition, not in opposition to science but just on a different level, that goes back (as far as we know) in Western thought at least to Pythagoras, through Plato, Aquinas, the medieval mystics, and even into the modern era in out-of-the-mainstream writers like Henri Bergson and Aldous Huxley — not to mention psychical researchers — that suggests that the material world is only the husk of a greater Reality that can't be perceived by the senses. The Indian tradition going back to the Upanishads that underlies Hinduism says much the same, and the concept can be found in one way or another in most of the world's religions.

I believe intuitively that this is true, and that everything in the material world is only a manifestation of a non-physical, and ultimately spiritual, reality. And that applies to evolution. Evolution of forms is only part of the story, and the less important part. Evolution of consciousness is even more significant, because it is through consciousness that life, in the form of mankind, can finally begin to apprehend its purpose.

Apprehend, not comprehend, because the awareness is not acquired through reason or even emotion, but through a higher faculty of consciousness that when developed allows us to reconnect with our source in God.

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9 comments:

Dennis Mangan said...

Rick: Some excellent observations. Responding to the whole would take more wit than I've got, but here are a couple of things.
1. The passage from Jerry Bergman uses some sleight-of-hand, e.g. when he says that "survival of the fittest" is a tautology. "Fitness" in evolutionary terms just means that an organism is sufficiently adapted to its environment that it reproduces in greater numbers than otherwise. "Survival of the fittest" is hence more of a slogan than a description of how evolution works. Likewise, his statement about "animals lower on the evolutionary scale" doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Organisms are adapted (or not) to their environment; lower or higher doesn't enter into it. Obviously the simpler the organism, the greater in general its offspring. It's easier to reproduce when the offspring have only a few cells, as compared to an elephant.

2. I believe that the theory of Huxley and the Upanishads (and of my intellectual idol, Schopenhauer) regarding the material world has been all but proved. The problem as I see it is that whatever lies "beyond" is something that, by the very nature of the case, we can never know.

Rick Darby said...

Dennis,

1. I didn't mean to suggest that Jerry Bergman's abstract was the best possible statement of the case against natural selection as the definitive explanation of evolution. I was just Googling to find presumably reputable scientists who jibbed at natural selection and his article came up; I hoped readers would either read the whole piece or at least get a sense of the variety of rational objections.

I have been aware of Rupert Sheldrake for some time — I met him at an annual meeting of the Society for Psychical Research — and while I think I understand his idea of morphic resonance, he's not a very good salesman for it; his explanation strikes me as possibly more difficult and obscure than it needs to be. In general, though, he's quite an impressive unconventional scientist who has done excellent experimental work on animal telepathy.

2. If we can't know anything about the trans-material world, how can it be "all but proved"?

I would say that to some extent it is knowable through the enormous body of psychical research that has been carried out during that past century and a half. And while it is not scientific in the ordinary sense, the information transmitted by spirits through mediums, taken as a whole, offers more clues; and mysticism provides another kind of knowledge, although only to those who have directly experienced it.

leadpb said...

Thank you for a very engaging post. You reiterate:

"The standard idea of natural selection allows for no goal, meaning, or transcendent influence in the process. It's supposed to be just a mechanism based on chance."

This conundrum is an exasperating one if you believe that the basic theory of evolution is at least very tenable, but also believe in the transcendent. Perhaps we might gain some satisfaction in considering that "randomness" has different meanings. This word is tossed about an awful lot but does it have meaning beyond a cold statistical definition? Why couldn't there be a divine aspect to it with some organizing principle that we recognize in the outcome?

I agree with those who criticize Darwinism for its assertion that life on our planet is derived from meaningless and reducible mechanisms. But what if those mechanisms were acting on a so-called randomness underlain by as yet undiscerned direction and purpose? It doesn't have to be anthropocentric purpose per se but it must have rules. Can we learn the rules of the game? The fact that biodiversity seems to always move toward higher complexity, even after global extinction events, I think is a good indication that something like this is operating at least on a macro level.

Someone like Auster will say that this essentially means I want to have my cake and eat it too. This gives me some pause-- enough to look around for for a fork.

Dennis Mangan said...

"If we can't know anything about the trans-material world, how can it be "all but proved"? "

Rick, what I mean is that it can be shown that this world, the material world, cannot be the only reality. But since our perceptions can by definition only be of this world, what that other reality is we cannot say. Since Schopenhauer took 2 large volumes to show this, it's difficult to recapitulate in a comment. I highly recommend his book, "The World as Will and Representation".

Rick Darby said...

leadpb,

You've expressed very well the possibility that there is more to "chance" than meets the eye. We see "through a glass, darkly." What looks to us, with our imperfect instruments of perception, like meaningless accidents could be purposeful guidance from a spiritual dimension.

Dennis,

That is true only if we try to comprehend finer grades of reality through the media designed to process the material world — the senses and the cognitive mind. It seems clear to me from the findings of psychical research and the reports of those with special spiritual gifts that the mind has other capabilities that can, to one degree or another, penetrate the astral and still higher planes. See the voluminous literature on out-of-body experience, mediumship, and mysticism. I think that with your obviously fine intelligence you will be able to distinguish what is genuine from the phony, and find plenty that meets your rational criteria for evidence.

leadpb said...

Thanks, Rick. You've inspired me to coin the term "divine randomness" but don't wait up for the book (or the blog).

Just curious-- have you read Gopi Krishna's "Kundalini, the evolutionary energy of man" (Shambhala, 1971)? It really opened my eyes to what personal experience can mean for our collective understanding of what is below the surface. His trial was *not pleasant* and his thesis at the end as to what it meant is somewhat off-putting, but it is a compelling read. What happened to him was totally unexpected.

Rick Darby said...

leadpb,

No, I haven't read it, although I remember often going into the Shambhala bookstore in Berkeley around that time — the store was associated with the publishing company.

You've got me curious, and since I probably won't be reading the book anytime soon, what was Gopi Krishna's "trial"? What did you find off-putting about his thesis?

leadpb said...

Rick,

His trial was that, yes, he had awoken the Kundalini (surreptitiously during a routine meditation) but it had been expressed from the base of his spine to the crown of his head *through the wrong channel*. Apparently there is a "good" channel and a "bad" channel for this thing. The result was tortuous pain and loss of appetite, etc., for some years until he finally found someone to help him realign the energy routing. But still he had notable aftereffects the remainder of his days.

His interpretation-- there is also commentary in the book by James Hillman-- of his experience was that rather than merely a sublime personal awakening, such experiences reveal the next step of man's evolution. We have only to find out how to unlock such secrets on a wider scale. In retrospect "off-putting" is a little harsh, just my impression from having read it many years ago. Reminds me of the last bit of "St. Anthony's Fire" where the 'epilogue' goes on and on in painful detail.

leadpb said...

make that "The Day of St. Anthony's Fire".