MINDLESS DESIGN
Argument from design: (Paley) supposed that crossing a heath, he found either stone or watch
- For stone: he could conclude that it had always been there
- For watch: must conclude that it had a maker
He thought that it was self-evident that “There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance,
without a contriver; order without choice” The arrangement of the functioning parts must ‘imply
the presence of intelligence and mind’
- For nature: the intricate design of the eye for seeing, the ways in which animals attract
their mates, the design of valves to aid the circulation of the blood - all these show
complex design for a purpose and hence they must have a designer”
→ WRONG - design doesn’t need a designer → shown how by Darwin’s theory of evolution
Evolution: gradual change & the idea that living things might in this sense evolve (current in
Darwin’s time)
Darwin’s book - The origin of Species explained how evolution worked:
Idea: If, over a long period of time, creatures vary, and if there is sometimes a severe struggle for
life (which could not be disputed – he had read Malthus’s Essay on Population), then occasionally
some variation in structure or habits must occur that is advantageous to a creature.
- When this happens, individuals with that characteristic have the best chance of being
preserved in the struggle for life & will produce offspring similarly characterised
Natural Selection: the principle of preservation, or survival of the fittest: leads to the
improvement of each creature in relation to its conditions of life
Dennett Evolutionary Algorithm:
If you have variation, heredity and selection, then you must g et evolution
It is a scheme for creating Design out of Chaos without the aid of Mind
Campbell - blind variation and selective retention
Inevitable process that requires no designer and no plan
No foresight and No intention
Not happen for purpose or towards any end
DIRECTED EVOLUTION
Lamarck - agree with Darwin that species might gradually change into other species
BUT he proposed:
1) individual force (an animal’s drive to adapt to its conditions) that produced progress in
one direction
2) the inheritance of acquired characteristics
Believed that if an animal used a particular faculty to change itself, the effect would be passed on
to its offspring
Vision on Evolution:
Lamarck: directional and progressive, species inevitably improving over time
- More acceptable
Darwin: n o guarantee of progress and no inbuilt direction, vast species and subspecies, with
branches appearing all over the place, change always starting from whatever is available, and
species going extinct when conditions dictate
- No special place for humans - just one chance product of long and complex process ,
rather than its inevitable outcome or highest creation
, → Massive resistance from religion (opposition) (incl. USA) where the idea of directed evolution
underlies both creationism and its successor intelligence design with God as supreme director
who creates human beings in his image
Wrong idea “Chain of Being”: simple organisms at one end and conscious, intelligent humans at
the other
- Seems to justify our struggles and imply that progress is directed by our efforts
Lamark DID NOT mean that efforts involve consciously willed striving (wrong interpretation)
Integral theory of consciousness:(W
ilber) based on the great chain of being and on the idea of
inevitable progress from insentient matter to superconsciousness or transcendence
- Rejects the evidence accounting for the evolution of wings and eyes
Motivational theory (Hubbard): u
rges us all to realise the potential of our higher consciousness and
take control of our own future conscious evolution
Quantum Theory (Goswami): consciousness rather than matter or energy = primary force of the
universe
Rejection of Lamarckism:
Weismann: distinguishes in sexual species, between the germ line (sex cells passed from
generation to generation) and the soma (the body which dies)
- What happens to a body affects its chances of passing on its sex ceells but not those cells
themselves
Now: genetic info (genotype) is used to construct the body (phenotype)
- Changes to phenotype cannot affect the genotype
Epigenetics: effects DON'T change any genes but heritable changes in way that genes are
expressed (switching them on and off
Schemes which copy the instructions for making a product are better than schemes that copy the
product itself because of the inevitable errors introduced by imperfect copying
Neo-Darwinism: explained why no directing force was needed, natural selection working on
variation created by the recombination and mutation of genes was sufficient
SELFISH REPLICATORS
- We should recognize adaptations at the level necessitated by the facts & no higher
Multilevel selection theory: selection operating at many levels including group selection in which
groups of animals (or tribes or cultures) compete with each other for survival
Selfish Gene Theory: (against group selection):
The ultimate beneficiary of natural selection is neither the species, nor the group, nor even the
individual but the hereditary info: the gene
- Gene is replicator: it’s the info that’s copied either accurately and frequently or not
- Selfish genes because they will get copied if they can - regardless of their effect on other
genes, on their own organisms, or on the species as a whole
- Human beings (like other animals) ae lumbering robots that have been designed by
natural selection to carry the genes around and protect them
Panadaptationism: t endency to see every trait as necessarily adaptive) → Dangerous as many
features of organisms aren’t adaptations
Argument from design: (Paley) supposed that crossing a heath, he found either stone or watch
- For stone: he could conclude that it had always been there
- For watch: must conclude that it had a maker
He thought that it was self-evident that “There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance,
without a contriver; order without choice” The arrangement of the functioning parts must ‘imply
the presence of intelligence and mind’
- For nature: the intricate design of the eye for seeing, the ways in which animals attract
their mates, the design of valves to aid the circulation of the blood - all these show
complex design for a purpose and hence they must have a designer”
→ WRONG - design doesn’t need a designer → shown how by Darwin’s theory of evolution
Evolution: gradual change & the idea that living things might in this sense evolve (current in
Darwin’s time)
Darwin’s book - The origin of Species explained how evolution worked:
Idea: If, over a long period of time, creatures vary, and if there is sometimes a severe struggle for
life (which could not be disputed – he had read Malthus’s Essay on Population), then occasionally
some variation in structure or habits must occur that is advantageous to a creature.
- When this happens, individuals with that characteristic have the best chance of being
preserved in the struggle for life & will produce offspring similarly characterised
Natural Selection: the principle of preservation, or survival of the fittest: leads to the
improvement of each creature in relation to its conditions of life
Dennett Evolutionary Algorithm:
If you have variation, heredity and selection, then you must g et evolution
It is a scheme for creating Design out of Chaos without the aid of Mind
Campbell - blind variation and selective retention
Inevitable process that requires no designer and no plan
No foresight and No intention
Not happen for purpose or towards any end
DIRECTED EVOLUTION
Lamarck - agree with Darwin that species might gradually change into other species
BUT he proposed:
1) individual force (an animal’s drive to adapt to its conditions) that produced progress in
one direction
2) the inheritance of acquired characteristics
Believed that if an animal used a particular faculty to change itself, the effect would be passed on
to its offspring
Vision on Evolution:
Lamarck: directional and progressive, species inevitably improving over time
- More acceptable
Darwin: n o guarantee of progress and no inbuilt direction, vast species and subspecies, with
branches appearing all over the place, change always starting from whatever is available, and
species going extinct when conditions dictate
- No special place for humans - just one chance product of long and complex process ,
rather than its inevitable outcome or highest creation
, → Massive resistance from religion (opposition) (incl. USA) where the idea of directed evolution
underlies both creationism and its successor intelligence design with God as supreme director
who creates human beings in his image
Wrong idea “Chain of Being”: simple organisms at one end and conscious, intelligent humans at
the other
- Seems to justify our struggles and imply that progress is directed by our efforts
Lamark DID NOT mean that efforts involve consciously willed striving (wrong interpretation)
Integral theory of consciousness:(W
ilber) based on the great chain of being and on the idea of
inevitable progress from insentient matter to superconsciousness or transcendence
- Rejects the evidence accounting for the evolution of wings and eyes
Motivational theory (Hubbard): u
rges us all to realise the potential of our higher consciousness and
take control of our own future conscious evolution
Quantum Theory (Goswami): consciousness rather than matter or energy = primary force of the
universe
Rejection of Lamarckism:
Weismann: distinguishes in sexual species, between the germ line (sex cells passed from
generation to generation) and the soma (the body which dies)
- What happens to a body affects its chances of passing on its sex ceells but not those cells
themselves
Now: genetic info (genotype) is used to construct the body (phenotype)
- Changes to phenotype cannot affect the genotype
Epigenetics: effects DON'T change any genes but heritable changes in way that genes are
expressed (switching them on and off
Schemes which copy the instructions for making a product are better than schemes that copy the
product itself because of the inevitable errors introduced by imperfect copying
Neo-Darwinism: explained why no directing force was needed, natural selection working on
variation created by the recombination and mutation of genes was sufficient
SELFISH REPLICATORS
- We should recognize adaptations at the level necessitated by the facts & no higher
Multilevel selection theory: selection operating at many levels including group selection in which
groups of animals (or tribes or cultures) compete with each other for survival
Selfish Gene Theory: (against group selection):
The ultimate beneficiary of natural selection is neither the species, nor the group, nor even the
individual but the hereditary info: the gene
- Gene is replicator: it’s the info that’s copied either accurately and frequently or not
- Selfish genes because they will get copied if they can - regardless of their effect on other
genes, on their own organisms, or on the species as a whole
- Human beings (like other animals) ae lumbering robots that have been designed by
natural selection to carry the genes around and protect them
Panadaptationism: t endency to see every trait as necessarily adaptive) → Dangerous as many
features of organisms aren’t adaptations
