"Seed-Product" Model, Charles Darwin & Creationism - By Vasantha Raja |
| Posted by Administrator (admin) on Dec 28 2008 at 7:26 AM |
The two Islamic scholars' [Inayat Bunglawala and Harun Yahya (or Adnan Oktar)] recent confrontation [published in Guardian Unlimited on July 1, Take Two series) shows, above all, the increasingly formidable task evolutionists are facing vis-a-vis the growing creationist onslaught.
Some evolutionist efforts to dodge the issue by pointing at the existing fossil record as conclusive proof of evolution may not convince many dithering believers as long as the Darwinists continue to cling on to their methodological fallacy of gradualism.
As I shall argue later, the chance-based 'simple-complex' model is the real culprit that endangers evolutionism. Instead, the evolutionists should take onboard the methodological implications of the recent biological and cosmological discoveries [related to the DNA and the Big Bang respectively] and adopt a directional 'seed-product' model to guide scientific research.
Although I do not belong to any particular religion I must confess that a seed-product model would unavoidably point at intelligent higher dimension/s of reality behind a 'sub-level' phenomenon of evolving space-time processes. One would be hard put to finding a better explanation than the Intelligent Design theory for a Big Bang "Genome" (if there is one, of course) where the potential for all subsequent developments are rudimentarily embedded - packed with incredible amounts of information plus mechanisms to guide and coordinate the universe's unfolding stages right from its violent birth leading to a micro-sphere, geo-sphere, biosphere, social-sphere and beyond.
It would seem inconceivable that a 'seed' of such richness could rise to existence out of nothingness/void as a sudden event or through random combinations of unthinking matter.
Moreover, it would imply an embedded objective purpose in the universe, in the sense a lemon seed would have an objective purpose of producing a lemon tree.
Inayat Bunglawala - who has no quarrel with Harun Yahya as to God's existence - points out, correctly in my view, that creationists need not deny evolution; that Muslims need not deny Allah's power to create the Big Bang to facilitate the subsequent evolutionary stages to unfold. [Christians, Jews or Hindus, for that matter, need not necessarily deny evolution as long as it is accommodated within creationism. In fact, that was exactly what the Vatican did recently by accepting 'evolution' as part of creationism.] But the problem with Bunglawala's approach is: he fails to tackle the dodgy assumptions behind the Darwinist concept of evolution. On the contrary, he wants to accommodate the Darwinist way intact. Reportedly, The Vatican also has done something similar.
Harun Yahya, the influential Muslim creationist, would have none of this. For, he knows that Darwinists share various methodological assumptions that go far beyond the concept of evolution. For instance, Darwinists believe that evolution takes place via unthinking chance events - not, for example, the directional way a specific DNA is destined to produce a specific organism under appropriate circumstances. Also, they believe in gradual evolution in line with their "simple-to-complex" model where simple things little by little build-up complex things via random combinations.
Clearly, the parts within durably well-formed structures must be efficiently related to the whole to maintain the general equilibrium. Thus, random quantitative changes that take place due to genetic and epigenetic causes should only take place within definite limits if the break-up of the whole framework is to be avoided. This is why it is impossible for a well-formed structure to gradually change into another well-formed structure. Thus, I believe, 'qualitative leaps' are a necessary aspect of development that must be incorporated into the evolutionary model.
For argument's sake let's assume there has been enormously lengthy 'trial & error' episodes (as Richard Dawkins' 'gradual slope' argument would envisage) producing all kinds of ill-formed structures along the way. If this was the case then the number of inefficient, and therefore unsurvivable, formations must be far greater than the well-formed ones. And the failed fossils resulted from such trial & error episodes must be ubiquitous.
Admittedly, such evidence is not there, and Harun Yahya has good grounds to reject Bunglawala's effort to justify Darwinist approach. [Note that the examples gradualists cite as evidence of 'transitional links' are in fact well-formed structures that cannot be explained without leaps. Hence 'the transitional links' are well-formed structures where the parts are efficiently harmonized within the whole. Accordingly, the so-called 'swimming whale that walks', for instance, is a well-formed animal body; and, its fossil merely displays evolution, not gradual evolution.
True, the fact that we share 98.4% of our genes with chimps does indicate our evolutionary heritage; but the 'qualitative leap' the minute 1.6% performs in creating humans cannot be fully explained by natural selection and genetic mutation. The information and mechanisms involved in creating different species are far too sophisticated to be comprehended through the Darwinist model. This is why the chance-dominated simple-complex model should be replaced by a seed-product model where natural obstacles play the role of provoking the latent potential of the evolving 'genome'.
Thus, the arguments against gradual transition do not disprove evolution as such; they only challenge the gradualist version of evolution. For, the "Supreme Intelligence", if there is one, may have designed gradual changes to take place within well-formed structures up to certain levels when "qualitative jumps" take place via the emergence of latent properties within genes. In other words, the transition from one well-formed structure to another (qualitatively different) well-formed structure may only be taking place within the "egg" of a well-formed animal, which means, the leap may be happening within the "egg". An individual organism's subjective effort to survive under extreme circumstances may only be providing the final impetus for such changes. Thus, natural obstacles may be seen as part of the design to provoke change.
Sudden breakdowns in established equilibriums causing leaps into irreducibly complex new structures are not an uncommon phenomenon as any student of developmental studies would agree. [Any Hegelian or Marxist dialectician would vouch that 'the leap' is an in-built aspect of the logic of reality.]
Perhaps the seemingly incompatible approaches of Bunglawala and Yahya can be reconciled if the concept of 'qualitative leap' is added to Darwinist 'gradual changes' along with a 'seed-product' model replacing the empiricist 'simple-complex' model. In other words, evolution may be seen as a 'seed-to-product' directional process creating irreducibly complex hierarchical stages rather than a chance-dominated simple-to-complex process. As already mentioned, the environment's role may merely be seen as 'natural hurdles' designed to kindle latent potential of genes to produce well-formed new species. The changes within the 'egg' may be seen as a consequence of an entire individual organism's effort.
This approach, I believe, can explain the non-existence of billions of deformed, imperfect fossils that invariably should have failed the survival test.
The scientific efforts to explain the birth and the evolution of the universe itself - not just the origin and the evolution of species - via random/gradual accumulation of events seem to me to be a consequence of a methodological trap rather than an empirical problem. Clearly, evolution's magnificent products since the Big Bang over 13 billion years ago [in cosmological terms, not a very long period at all] seem incredibly smart to be explained through probability alone. It may be far more fruitful to replace the simple-complex model with a 'seed-product' model where product is seen, in some sense, embedded in the seed as a potential to lawfully self-evolve interacting with external circumstances.
Thus, the Big Bang may be seen to involve a fertilized "Big Seed" where all subsequent stages of our evolving universe are potentially embedded to be unleashed. The Anthropic Principle in cosmology - a principle, by the way, even Richard Dawkins admires - seems to mark a giant step in this direction.
But, how did the 'Big Bang Seed', if there is one, come into being?
Mathematicians have calculated how improbable it is, for instance, for the human genome to emerge through chance events. Let alone the human genome, it was none other than the famous astronomer, Fred Hoyle, who compared the probability of life originating on Earth to the chances of a hurricane sweeping through a scrap yard producing a Boeing 747 aircraft. Needless to say how preposterous it would be to argue for the appearance of a far more complex 'Big Bang Seed' (if there is one) through random events.
Any effort to answer this is likely to produce a never-ending scenario that would lead us nowhere. Even if one assumes infinite cycles of evolving and dying universes, the design revealed through such processes seems to point at a conscious-intelligent force of a higher order in the background. Call it 'Mother Nature' call it God, that's not the main question. If nature could create an evolving consciousness, intelligence and creativity and compassion here on earth in a few billion years then it does not seem imprudent at all to postulate a background (transcendent or not) reality that is embellished with the same attributes - perhaps in a fully 'evolved' form. [I put 'evolution' in inverted commas to indicate the possibility of a dimension to which space-time concepts, including evolution, are not applicable.]
There is no need, at this stage, to commit oneself to any particular religious prejudices as to the exact form of a 'higher dimension'. As Lord Buddha did, one could adopt a policy of silence on that. [Buddha said, the state of nirvana cannot be adequately explained in words. But, Buddha added, it's not Nothingness.]
There is another important aspect the seed-product line of argument would bring into light: As the scientists penetrate deeper and deeper into the blueprint of our self-evolving universe, questions involving teleological explanations - such as "what is the 'Big Product' embedded in the 'Big Seed' as a potential to be unfolded" - are bound to arise.
Also, within the seed-product model any particular stage in the process could only be fully comprehended as part of the whole journey. The causes involved in determining the process cannot be limited to mechanical ones alone; teleological causes would be equally significant. In other words, the past and the future would become indispensable to fully comprehend the present. Thus, a radical revision of the existing methodological assumptions that guide scientific activity seems inevitable.
Does this mean 'chance' has no role within the seed-product model? On the contrary, it does have a role, albeit a limited one. Surely, an apple seed may determine the growth of an apple tree and fruits on it; but during its growth chance events can cause both positive and negative effects to the outcome. In other words, 'chance events' can be meaningfully accommodated within the general design to pre-determine the final product.
Thus, I think, Harun Yahya is wrong to reject evolution en masse. Inayat Bunglawala, on the other hand, is also wrong to accept Darwinist evolution en masse. What is needed is to develop the Darwinist version of evolution, along directional seed-product lines; and, to demonstrate the validity of a "supreme intelligence hypothesis" as the more coherent one in comparison with the "naturalist" approach. Also, I believe, the intelligent design theory - if presented in the way I have done - is heuristically far more potent than the "naturalist" simple-complex approach, and, therefore, helpful to scientists rather than being a hindrance as Richard Dawkins claims.
Finally, let me put my message, in a nutshell, to the creationists:
Any creationist effort to demolish 'evolution' outright will, in my view, prove to be a big blunder. What is needed, instead, is to expose the methodological fallacies within the Darwinist version of evolution. The Darwinist concept of chance-based gradual evolution, for instance, must be replaced with a directional 'seed-product' model where the seed is impregnated with the necessary information and mechanisms to systematically unleash subsequent developments. [I think the 'seed-product' model would eventually prove to be, heuristically, a far better guide for scientific research in relation to the birth and evolution of the universe too.] In the case of the evolution of species this would mean: the potential of genomes to introduce new forms of species through specific modifications that would occur within suitable individual members of a given kind, where environmental barricades (natural selection) are seen as just one of the major factors that merely provoke individual organisms' effort to survive - which in turn may activate the latent aspects of a genome to undergo qualitative change in a lawful manner.
If the ongoing LHC "Big Bang probe" substantiates the existence of a 'seed-like' embryonic set-up that somehow contains the subsequent evolutionary stages of the universe, then those evolutionists with empiricist prejudices will have a tough time in explaining the emergence of the "Big Bang Seed" through chance events.
[You can reach Harun/Inayat articles related to their debate through this website's Science-Spot column.]
Vasantha Raja - Editor: www.lankaeye.com
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