Fred Hoyle's book "The Intelligent Universe" was a pretty good debunking of the idea that mutation (the engine that drives evolution) occurs purely at random. I'm not sure I agree with Hoyle's hypothesis of what actually causes it, but it's still a good read - and it has lots of perty pictures.

I've found that this is a difficult thing to discuss with people, because of taint from the trident debate between fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist scientists. Inevitably, the "intelligence" is assumed to be a codeword for the Christian God (and among Christians, this is indeed true).

In my view, though, intelligence is an emergent phenomenon that occurs with any sufficiently complex system. The most complex system there is is all of existance, and if there is a god, then there it is.

I suspect that the universe was not created by an intelligence, but rather it attained a form of sentience and began to assume control over its own ongoing creation.

Much like humans are beginning to do.

Hi John,

Agreed! I think this is a very difficult subject to discuss with almost everyone, regardless of their beliefs. I posted this article because it's well written and challenging, and if anything else it shows the hypocrisy that is embedded in the language used by people saying that it's all mechanistic/materialist.

I also agree with you about intelligence being an emergent phenomona, but by the same token, can't help but wonder if we are living in a simulation, run by our distance decendants, or perhaps our future selves, or maybe by something alien altogether. The of course there is the possibility, that our universe was designed by a very advanced race who mastered 'baby universe engineering'.

Oh, indeed! I liked this piece so much I ran it on my own site as well.

So far as the "Brain in a vat" theories go, my answer to them all tends to be "mu". Are we living in a simulation is not a terribly meaningful question - as "simulation" is a relative term. Our reality is no less real because it is a simulation running on a galactic computer somewhere. In fact, I think it is (in a vague way). Given that all any simulation is is a simplification of a more complicated system, we generate our own collective simulation because we aren't equipped to deal with full-on, raw reality.

This paper is just plain crap.

The living organism is not simply a complex extrapolation of mindless matter.

Yes, it is. Certainly there are all sorts of bacteria that bump around aimlessly, without purpose, eating what they bump into and arbitrarily splitting when they've accumulated enough 'food' to allow it. No plan, no desire, no method - just a set of systems that digest and replicate.

But then we need to ask - Why should an organism feel the need to procure, to avoid predation, to reproduce?

Who said anything about "need"? The fact is, that organisms that reproduce pass on their genetic material. When you drop a ball from your hand does it feel a "need" to fall? No one would write a paper that talks about "choosing" to fall or not.

Just because there are some moving parts in a bacteria, it doesn't make it magically different as Bloom seems to imply.

Over the course of time, we have seen this reproductive success enhanced in billions of ways. To the point that some creatures make elaborate plans on when and how to reproduce. That some creatures feel a "need" to reproduce, or a "longing" for offspring. But that doesn't mean that Natural Selection doesn't exist - it just means that its operations can be subtle and complex.

First, the author of this article uses literary technique as evidence against a scientific theory. Dawkins wrote his books for a lay audience (and he did it very well). If he used perfect scientific logic, he would have lost 90% of his readership. At least the author is intelligent enough to acknowledge that he is on shaky logical ground with his literary criticism when he says:

"Even if it really is the case that the above noted purpose-laden language is being employed merely as a convenient literary tool for getting across to the reader the way that NS works in a genuinely impersonal, material sense (and I do
not believe this is the case)..."

Oh! He admits it is shaky but doesn't "believe this is the case". That's approximately the same argument as the Christians use.

Then he asks, "Why should an organism feel the need to procure, to avoid predation, to reproduce?" That is very simple. Over time, organisms that did not feel the need to avoid predation and reproduce would be selected against because they would produce fewer offspring. Today's organisms reflect the fact that organisms have evolved to due to natural selection to desire to avoid predation and reproduce.

Underlying many of the author's arguments seems to be the question as to whether such complex systems could really have evolved via natural selection. Yes, it is very possible. We're talking about evolution over hundreds of thousands of years and more interations than the human mind can really comprehend.

Later the author resorts to crass insults against biologists in comparison to engineers that have the stench of undergraduate inter-departmental rivalry.

I'm sure it gets worse, but I couldn't finish reading such utter garbage.

Well, it isn't easy to discuss, obviously, as the different sides draw up the battle lines with great vigor and usually have little respect for the opposite view.

Personally I think Neil Broom made his arguments very respectfully. I would find it very difficult to show such self-restraint myself.

Neo-darwinism seems like even more of a religious cult than creationism. Circular arguments and trying to end the discussion with some variant of "That's just the way it is, period".

Evolution and natural selection is an absolutely amazing mechanism. Yes, it obviously seems to be as unshakable as the force of gravity. It is the suggestion that it is without plan, method or purpose that seems a bit farfetched. Gravity obviously serves the purpose of making things stick together. Evolution obviously serves the purpose of continuously improving life. The real question is then how that comes about, and how the principle manages to stay in constant operation. That's where the creationist resorts to postulating an intervention from God, and the neo-darwinist postulates that it is all random accidents all the way down.

A system that is drawing generative power from random accidents would be a rather amazing construct. If that were the case, the interesting question would be how a universe comes about that allows that to happen. When you then invoke the Blind Random Accident again is when it starts getting silly sooner or later.

If conscious and intelligent life forms exist, like us supposedly, it is obviously because the potential for such things is latent in the universe. It could even be considered inevitable that the universe would evolve something like us. Otherwise, where the hell do we come from? A miracle? It is that jump from senseless randomness to directed intelligence that is most awkward to explain, if one tries to insist that it wasn't there at all in the first place.

Oh, and the embarrassing fact that nobody's found any half-eyes, or half-flying animals, or half-egg laying birds. As the author suggests, organisms might draw incremental advantages from even badly seeing cells, but there's absolutely no reason to select for the components of a human eye, unless the selection is done according to a criterion.

why do people believe in a god that has our form(human form) when it is clear that dinosaurs were here long before any humans.why would a god that looks like us, make dinosaurs first? are the dinosaurs in heaven? religion was created because people were maniacs and it was a way to make them behave, and fear a god that could see their every action. birth defects and siamese twins prove that life is an accident and unintentional. a product of nature, like gravity.