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Evolution: Mind or Randomness?

(Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (2010) XXII, 1/2, pp. 32-66)

By

Dennis F. Polis, Ph.D.

Philosophical naturalists claim macroevolution shows order emerging by pure chance. This claim is incompatible with accepted physical and biological principles. The present state of the universe is implicit in its initial state and the laws of nature. Logical principles essential to science require these laws to be maintained by a self-conserving reality identifiable as God. Further, the laws share a common dynamic with human committed intentions. Both are logical propagators seen to be intentional by theists and naturalists alike. Mechanism and teleology project a single reality into different conceptual spaces. Statistically, evolution is only possible given predefined goals. For fitness to be explanatory, it must be prior to survival events, entailing immanent goals verified by convergent evolution, toolkit genes and evolutionary stasis. Aristotle's falsifiable claims for teleology are confirmed by evolution. Evolution is not random, but fully intentional, evidencing mind in nature.

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GOD AND SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION

     Evolution is a principal battleground in the culture wars. For naturalists it definitively answers the design argument for God. (Richard Dawkins 1996; Dennett 2003; Stenger 2008.) For Intelligent Design advocates, it glosses over insurmountable problems. (Behe 2008; Dembski & Wells 2010; Meyer 2009). The question arises does evolution, as outlined by Stephen Jay Gould (2002), Dawkins and others, supports randomness or Mind, naturalism or theism? Historically, the debate began with Charles Darwin's opposition to William Paley's design argument for the existence of God. Paley opens his Natural Theology: "In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there." (1809:1) Paley argues that as a watch implies a watchmaker, so nature, exemplified in the eye, implies a Designer. Darwin opposed Paley's argument on based the theory of evolution he and Alfred Russel Wallace presented in 1858. Darwin later wrote to Asa Gray:

I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I shd wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye was expressly designed. On the other hand I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe & especially the nature of man, & to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.  (1993: 224)

     Two points are often passed over. (1) Darwin's prime reason for rejecting Providence is not chance, but the problem of evil, which became acute with his daughter's death. Chance only rationalizes his preexisting doubt. (2) Darwin holds "designed laws" and rejects "brute force." et, holding that everything results from "designed laws," while the details are due to "what we may call chance" was inconsistent with the accepted idea of probability articulated by Pierre LaPlace in 1820:

An intelligence knowing, at a given instant of time, all forces acting in nature, as well as the momentary positions of all things of which the universe consists, would be able to comprehend the motions of the largest bodies of the world and those of the smallest atoms in one single formula, provided it were sufficiently powerful to subject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, both future and past would be present before its eyes. (In Lindsay & Margenau 1936: 517).

Darwin understood this, and remained perplexed and conflicted.  His claim is theological. It is that while God designed the laws, He does not intend their all their effects. Wallace goes further, seeing evolution as evidence for mind in nature:

all life development – all organic life forces – are due to mind-action, we must postulate not forces, but guidance; not only self-acting agencies as are involved in natural selection and adaptation through survival of the fittest, but that far higher mentality which foresees all possible results of our cosmos. That constitution, in all its complexity of structure and of duly coordinated forces acting continuously through eons of time, has culminated in the foreseen result. (1911:212)

     Thus, contemporary atheists' rejection of design in both the laws and their effects is an interpretation of evolution unknown to its founders. Naturalists reject Mind by projecting the science into a mechanistic conceptual space excluding ends. Teleology provides a complimentary projection of the same reality. This can be resolved using the projection paradigm outlined by Polis (1993). It sees knowledge as a relationship in which subjects interact with objects to experience a subset of their possible acts. By mapping experience into a circumscribed conceptual space, abstraction discards experienced notes of intelligibility. Thus, knowledge consists of projections, or dimensionally diminished maps, of limited experience into restricted conceptual frameworks. These limitations can be ameliorated by diversifying our experience and extending our conceptual space. The tensions outlined can be resolved by integrating diverse projections into a worldview in which randomness is a function of human ignorance and mechanisms are means to ends.

     Whence come Darwin's "designed laws"? The stone Paley dismissed betokens more than he imagined. Its structure and situs evidence geological processes. Its isotopic ratios may yield the age of the earth. Its elements reflect cosmic nucleosynthesis. Similarly, its persistence manifests God's existence. If we ask why our stone continues as it is, a physicist will cite conservation laws: conservation of mass/energy for its not disappearing, and conservation of electric charge, baryon number, etc. to maintain its constituents. Examining this explanation, we find:

     (1) We explain things by immaterial laws of nature. Asking, "What is the law of conservation of mass/energy made of?" betrays a category error. Natural laws are not made of particles or fields, but are immaterial principles operating throughout the cosmos.

     (2) These laws are immanent, operating in matter, and transcendent, depending on no single species or instance of matter, but controlling all matter regardless of constitution or properties.

     (3) The laws explain things here and now because they act here and now. If laws did not act, we could never experience their effects. For energy to be conserved here and now, the law of conservation of energy must act here and now. The explanation is a concurrent, co-existing cause, not a Humean prior event. "Explanation" has two meanings. One is a word string describing a causal structure. The other is the cause so described. We are discussing causes in nature.

     (4) Conservation laws are aspects of reality, not fictions. Laws of nature are not invented, but discovered. The laws of physics are human products, but the realities they describe antedate humans by eons. These realities, not our descriptions, maintain the stone.

     (5) Since the laws explain why energy, momentum, and electric charge remain constant, science requires explanations not only for changes, but also for constancy.

     If events just happened, science would fail. Any experiment could have "just happened" for no reason. Thus, the fundamental principle of science is that all phenomena have explanations. This point is pivotal. Either (a) some phenomena require causes, or (b) every phenomenon requires a cause. Imagine Antoine Becquerel, the discoverer of radioactivity, presenting his finding that an image appeared on a photographic plate exposed not to light but to uranium ore. He claims to have discovered a new phenomenon because the image requires an explanation. Someone in the back says, "My dear Professor Becquerel, only some phenomena require an explanation. This could well be one requiring none. You have not made your case." What is Becquerel to say other than, "every phenomenon requires an explanation"? It is inadequate to say the phenomena we typically explain require explanations, but those we are not used to explaining require none.

     It is valid to ask why a stone continues in being. Scientists are used to such questions, answering that natural laws explain it. If our question is valid, it is valid to pursue it to a conclusion. Iterate and ask, "Why do conservation laws continue to operate?" As the constancy of energy requires a law of conservation of energy, so the law's constancy requires a conserving meta-law. Iterating yields a meta-meta-law. An infinite regress of meta-meta-meta-laws leads nowhere. The only way to satisfy the scientific requirement for an explanation is with a self-conserving source of law, God. Unless some reality holds itself in existence, the principle that all phenomena have explanations fails. We must either accept God's existence and on-going operation, or abandon science.

     This resolves several issues. First, it sidesteps David Hume's (1777: 50) critique of causality. He treated time-sequenced causality; we used concurrent causality. Second, it avoids problems with the Kalam cosmological argument, which requires a beginning in time. We focused on the here and now. Third, God is not a hypothesis (Stenger 2008), but is entailed by the logic of science. Fourth, ID proponents argue that "theistic evolution offers no compelling reason for thinking that nature is a divine creation." (Dembski & Wells 2010: 6). The laws of nature evidence continuous creation. Fifth, deism is untenable, for if God stopped acting, the cosmos would cease to be.

MIND IN NATURE?

     Of course, we have not shown the laws evidence design. That something called "God" sustains the laws of nature does not, it itself, entail mind in nature. Mind is a separate question. When theists see natural order, we see divine purpose. When naturalists see it, they see only mechanistic laws.

Fig. 1 Self-Organization

Quinacridone molecules on graphite self-assembled into chains.

Source: Frank Trixler GNU Free Doumentation (2010)

In his beautifully illustrated book The Self-Made Tapestry, Phillip Ball gives many examples of pattern formation in nature that should provide a strong antidote for those who still labor under the delusion that mindless natural processes are unable to account for the complex world we see around us. Stenger (2008: 61)

Stenger does not bother to justify "mindless" before "natural processes." Instead, he follows Dennett (1987) in illustrating emerging order with cellular automata. These are programs transforming patterns of geometric cells based on the state of neighboring cells.Dawkins likewise discusses patterns arising from simulated evolution based on simple rules(1996a: 84). All three illustrate order emerging from rules imposed by minds. It is hard to see how this advances their case. Dawkins' surprise bears particular reflection:

When I wrote the program, I never thought that it would involve anything more than a variety of tree-like shapes. I had hoped for weeping willows, Cedars of Lebanon, or Lombardi poplars, seaweeds, perhaps deer antlers. Nothing in my biologist's intuition, nothing in my 20 years' experience of programming computers, nothing in my wildest dreams, prepared me for what actually emerged on the screen. (1996a: 84)

Because he cannot foresee where even deterministic processes lead, their end state cannot motivate him. Although Dawkins programmed the computer and selected a mutant to survive at each step, he was surprised. This would be irrelevant were he not comparing himself to God. Dawkins' surprise gave him the feeling that the process is mindless. That does not imply natural processes are. Because he did not anticipate his results, they were unplanned. An omniscient God would hardly be surprised.  Does sustaining the laws of nature make God a lawgiver? Lawgivers act intentionally. We found God as a terminus for lines of action, not a source of intentionality. Are the laws of nature "designed" as Darwin believed, the "will of God"? Analyzing propositional types will help answer this.

LOGICAL PROPAGATORS

     Logical propagators are propositions or judgments allowing information about one space-time point to be applied to another. Using conservation laws to explain a stone's existence required our premises be true at the time and place of their application. It is inadequate for a law to be true at another time or place. To be effective, an explanation must be operative when and where applied.  Consider an argument whose premises are only true sometimes. For a conclusion to follow, the major and minor premises must be true simultaneously. If one premise is true now and the other later, the conclusion is unsound. For example:

All now in the room can hear Mary.                             (Time specific)

John will be in the room tomorrow.                             (Time Mismatch)

John can hear Mary.                                                   (Invalid)

This is invalid because of the temporal mismatch. There is nothing profound here.

     Still, we routinely draw conclusions true at one time from data true at another. Scientists and engineers make predictions, and we base our lives on past experience and future expectation. Whenever we do this, we rely on logical propagators. Consider:

All in the room when Mary speaks can hear her.           (Timeless)

Mary now intends to speak in the room tomorrow.       (Logical Propagator)

John will be in the room tomorrow.                              (Time matched)

John can hear Mary tomorrow.                                    (Valid)

The second premise uses a fact today to make an assertion about tomorrow. It is because Mary now intends to speak tomorrow that we can validly draw the conclusion. Absent her committed intention, the conclusion would be as unsound as before. Logical propagators link information at two times.

     While propagator propositions are in the logical order, they express a reality transcending a single time. In asserting existence ("There is a ball") or a property ("The ball is rubber"), we are saying something true at one time. A committed intention, however, points to future information. It is a present tendency with a path to fruition. If we are careful, we can call real tendencies "logical propagators." They control the development of earlier material states into later ones, but are not material states. They are logical because they transform information. They are propagators because they propagate information from one time to another.

     There are two species of logical propagators: committed intentions and natural laws. If Mary commits to speaking tomorrow, she will speak tomorrow. If billiard balls or quanta are in state S1 at t1, then, by the laws of nature, they will be in state S2 at time t2. Both predictions are true ceteris paribus (other things being equal), because unforeseen factors may intervene. Mary could die. An earthquake could upset the billiard table. A cosmic ray could disrupt a quantum system. Humans are more complex, so more things can intervene, but the principle is the same.  Since committed intentions and natural laws are two species in the same dynamic genus, this is not a metaphor, but a shared dynamic. The time-development of human behavior under committed intentionality and that of physical systems under natural laws equally play out immanent dispositions or logical propagators. Both allow us to predict future information from present information. Both express immaterial principles in observable behavior.

     What is the observable sign of intentionality? Is it not a systematic time development ordered to ends? This is how naturalists understand intentionality. Eliminativists' theory-theory is based on human intentions and natural laws having a common dynamic so that intentions become theoretical constructs for behavioral prediction. (Goldman 1993: 351-).  Dennett (1987) argues that physical systems behave exactly as though expressing intentions. Dawkins (1989) writes of the selfish intent of genes. Shared dynamics is a fact relied upon by naturalists.

     Given Hume's critique of causality, our grasp of time-sequenced causality is not adequately based on observing physical events. However, it is warranted by our experience of willing. Being aware of our own committed intentionality and its subsequent incarnation, we expect analogues in nature. Contrary to determinists who give time-sequenced causality priority over volition, will is the prime analogue and causality derivative. Association plays a role, but, as Hume noted, association does not warrant necessity. The idea of causal connection over time derives from our experience as agents.

     The Principle of Causal Openness: Principle of Causal Closure is a linchpin of naturalism. It posits that only physical states and processes can cause physical effects. Jaegwon Kim defends it thus:  "If you pick any physical event and trace out its causal ancestry or posterity, that will never take you outside the physical domain. That is, no causal chain will ever cross the boundary between the physical and the nonphysical" (1998: 40).  This must be wrong because we found a causal chain leading to God. What is Kim missing?

     Both perennial and Eastern philosophy distinguish two kinds of efficient causality. In Posterior Analytics ii, 12, 95a14-24, Aristotle differentiates what were subsequently called essential and accidental causality. The Buddhist logicians similarly distinguish ultimate and empirical causation. (Theodor Stcherbatsky 1960: vol. 1, 125f). While time-sequenced or accidental causality continues to be discussed, contemporary philosophy neglects essential causality. It is the concurrent causality used above: for energy to be conserved here and now, the conservation law must be operative here and now. Kim traces chains of causal events in time and finds only temporal events. As he projects reality into a space of event concepts, events are all he finds.

     Accidental, or Humean-Kantian, causality is the time sequence of events according to rule critiqued by Hume and puzzled over by Kant. It is accidental because, as Hume observed, it lacks necessity. Essential causality is quite different. Sosa & Tooley realize that Aristotelian causality differs by not involving events and that causality first became problematic with Hume, but miss the connection (1993: 31f). In his Metaphysics, Aristotle reflects on a builder building a house (1941, xi, 9, 1066a27).  He notes an identity of cause and effect: the cause (the builder building the house) is identical with the effect (the house being built by the builder). The only difference is the focus of our attention. Unlike accidental causality, we have a single event viewed in two projections, not two events. One projection focuses on the agent, the other on the effect. As with conservation of energy, the operation of the cause and the realization of its effect are simultaneous and inseparable.

     Because there is one event, essential causality has a necessity impossible with accidental causality's disjoint events. This is not to say that conservation of energy or building a house is metaphysically necessary, but that, given these events, it is impossible to separate the operation of the cause from the realization of its effect. Every happening is a doing, and every doing is a happening. This Aristotelian analysis underpins the fundamental principle of science used earlier.  In extreme cases, e.g. in some theories of quantum gravity, the concept of time can break down, and with it, Humean-Kantian causality. Essential causality, by which the laws of nature operate, survives, as it is independent of space-time structure, and thus more fundamental.

     Naturalists like Kim are trapped in a single causal dimension. They look for causality only horizontally, in temporal sequences, missing the vertical dimension of ontological dependence. The house being built depends on the builder building. The builder building depends on laws of nature maintaining him in operation. The laws of nature depend on God's sustaining will. Since the vertical line of causation is atemporal, it is missed by a mechanical projection looking solely to time-ordered events for explanations. No prior event can explain a later, disjoint, event. It is simply not there when the later event occurs. Physics reflects this insight in quantum field theory's locality or contiguity postulate, which rejects action at a distance or, more precisely, action at a space-time separation. Information from an earlier event is only present later because a logical propagator has brought it forward in time. Logical propagators operate on information, acting in the physical theater of operation via intentionality. Immaterial entities are not only causally effective, but are causes par excellence. Without them, events would be disjoint monads.

     While essential and accidental causality are distinct, they are related. Accidental causality's regular sequence of events is the integral effect of natural laws' essential causality. This is seen in quantum field theory, a paradigm of fundamental physics. A system's Hamiltonian gives its energy and also generates changes. It enters the Schrödinger equation, which, integrated over time, gives:

Equation 1 describes the development of a state, |?1>, at time t1 into a later state, |?2>. The states each represent every field, particle and physical property. They exhaust the materiality of their events. Those events affect each other only through exp-iH(t1 - t2), where H is the Hamiltonian operator expressing the local, immaterial laws of nature. Exp-iH(t1 - t2), the S-matrix, is a logical propagator carrying information from time t1 to time t2. Thus, mechanistic laws produce ends.

     Physics reflects the causal ineffectiveness of material states. The answer to "how can immaterial entities be causally effective in physical systems?" is by being the laws transforming information in time. The real question is "How can disjoint material states cause one another?" They cannot absent an operative intentionality. There is a subtle interplay here. Essential causality expresses present intentionality, which may be formulated locally and mechanistically by the Schrödinger equation. Integrated over time, the Schrödinger equation yields an S-matrix formulation, which formulates both accidental causality and finality. Thus, intentionality, mechanism and finality are inexorably bound. We conclude with Albertus Magnus, Opus naturae est opus intelligenia. ("The work of nature is the work of intelligence." Guy Guldentops 2001: 199.)

     Final Causality: Human intentionality and natural laws are the foundation in reality of the concept of final causality or teleology. (Greek telos = end or goal.) There is a muddled idea that final causality means the future acts as a magnet reaching back in time to pull present states into future states. What acts here and now is present here and now. Mary's goal of speaking tomorrow does not pull her from the future. It acts now because she is committed to it now. Finality reflects a present tendency ordered to a future state. We have just seen that this idea is integral to physics.  As with Dawkins' simulation, the outcomes are implicit in the initial state and in the rules or intentions transforming it, the laws of nature. These jointly dictate the genesis of species. Still, many biologists reject teleology. Ordering to a final state involves means-ends relationships. Spiders make webs to catch insects and feed themselves. The contradictory is "webs are not a means of catching insects to eat." Once we see webs are a means to catch and eat insects, this hypothesis is falsified. So, there are end-means relationships in nature and, a fortiori, ends or final causes.

     The co-evolution of species results in extrinsic finality or interdependence, so that pollen is partially for the sake of bees, and bees are for the fertilization of plants. The web of interdependence in ecosystems makes each species be for the sake of the others. Species diversity increases the number of feedback loops and so ecological stability (Eugene Odum 1971: 149f, 257; Anthony R. Ives & Stephen R. Carpenter 2007). So, from our perspective as part of the ecosystem, each species is for our sake – as well as for the sake of other species.

     Some may object that seeing intentionality in biological end-means relationships is anthropomorphic – projecting human intentionality into nature, where it does not occur. This is a perilous objection for naturalists. For eliminativists, intent is theoretical posit, so there is no intent to project. For naturalists holding our consciousness to be physically evolved, intent necessarily occurs in physical processes. They cannot object to mental principles in nature. It is not being asserted that rocks are conscious, but that naturalists cannot consistently object to teleologic intentionality as anthropomorphic. For a naturalist, if there is mind at all, there is mind in nature. There is no place else for it to be.

     Classic Arguments for Mind in Nature:  The argument from design has two main flavors: Paley's watchmaker argument based on biological data, and the fine-tuning argument based on physical constants having the exact values required to make life possible. While these arguments are mutually supportive, fine tuning is beyond our present scope.  St Thomas Aquinas' fifth way is related to design arguments, as both focus on mind in nature. Yet, design arguments are based on form (an ordered relationship of parts), while Aquinas is concerned with function seeking goals and so is a teleological argument, not an argument from design. Aquinas argues:

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly [ex intentione], do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God. (1981: I, q. 2, art. 3).

While some may object that "best" is subjective, the argument is adequately based on means-ends relationships. As the arrow example shows, Aquinas's claim on the relation of ends to minds is factual and experiential. Ends betoken minds because only minds can presently hold future ends.

     Dawkins' (1996: 103) speaks for most naturalists when he criticizes the fifth way based on the claim that evolution is an example of apparent design independent of mind. Yet, Aquinas was familiar with the concept of natural selection from Aristotle:  "Wherever then all the parts came about just what they would have been if they had come be for an end, such things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish" (1941: ii, 8, 198b29-32).  It is hard to imagine Aquinas forgetting something so well-known to him. So, perhaps natural selection is not the decisive defeater Dawkins supposes.

INTENTIONALITY IN EVOLUTION

     Evolution rests on three points. (1) The existence of variant genotypes. These result from "random" mutations and transcription errors. (2) A selection mechanism favoring variations enhancing reproduction and survival. (3) Inheritability – the capacity to pass on variations that lead to enhanced survival and reproduction. Our critique also has three points: (1) Evolution depends on the same natural laws we have just seen to be intentional. (2) Its randomness is not objective, but subjective – due to human cognitive limitations. (3) The idea of fitness is either vacuous or it requires a pre-existing standard which itself evidences intentionality.

    Darwin held evolution results from "designed laws." Dawkins (1996a: 17) says, "There is no reason to think the laws of physics are violated in living matter." Physical states develop over time due to the intentional laws transforming earlier into later state information. The mutations causing to genetic variants express these laws. They likewise control natural selection and the expression of genotypes (genetic codes) in phenotypes (observable traits). Finally, they provide for the inheritance of genetic information. Thus, intentional laws of nature guide evolution at every point.

     One who objects that quantum theory violates causality either does not understand the theory or has not followed the argument closely. Natural laws operate by essential, concurrent causality. Quantum uncertainty militates against accidental, time-sequenced causality. It precludes gathering sufficient data on an earlier state to predict a later state deterministically. Quantum uncertainty does not attack the laws' essential causality, but presupposes it. Further, evolution is logically independent of quantum indeterminism. It was born in the era of Laplacian determinism, sixty-nine years before Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle . Heisenberg published two years after the 1925 Scopes "monkey trial."  Random and determinate are contradictories. If something is truly determinate, it cannot be ontologically random. If it is ontologically random, it cannot be determinate. Since evolution is compatible with determinism, we need to analyze "what we may call chance."

     Probability and Randomness: Statistical probability seems straightforward. Its foundation is equal likelihood. Place 50 white balls and 50 black balls in an urn and mix them. The probability of picking a black ball without looking is 50%. Roll a six-sided die. The probability of any side coming up is 1/6. This is because we have no reason to believe one outcome is more likely than another. Yet, as LaPlace implies, if we look at a die roll in detail, specifying its exact angle of initial contact, velocity, angular momentum, coefficient of friction etc., we could calculate the outcome. Nothing is intrinsically random about a dice roll. Since we are ignorant of these details, the outcome is random for us. Again, suppose that the top layer in our urn has all white balls. Mary knows that, so for her the probability of picking a white ball is 100%, and the outcome is determinate. For John, who has not looked, the draw is random (his information allows no prediction). The probability is 50% for him. Why is it 50% for John and 100% for Mary? The only difference is their knowledge.

     Claude Shannon (1948) defined information is a reduction in possibility – that is logical possibility, not possible existence. Once a message is sent, it is what it is, and no longer possibly something else. At the receiving end, we do not know what it is. As we receive each bit (0 or 1), our ignorance is reduced, and with it, the logical probability that the message could be other than it is. When there is just one bit left, there is a 50% chance (to us) that it could be the real message and a 50% chance that it could be like the real message with the last bit different. All the while, the message remains unchanged. The probabilities we calculate have nothing to do with the real message and everything to do with our knowledge and ignorance.

     Probability is not an objective property of nature, but describes the subject-object relation of knowledge. To be relative to knowledge is to be relative to ignorance. So probability is a function of ignorance. When our ignorance ceases, probability becomes certainty. Physical processes are random to the degree that we cannot calculate a determinate outcome. If we can calculate it, the outcome is deterministic for us. If we cannot, it is random for us. Being deterministic or random is not an ontological, but an epistemological property. There will always be a definite outcome. The next ball will be white or black, the atom will decay in the next minute or it will not. We are rarely able to predict this, so for us, it is random. This is as true in quantum theory as in classical physics. The difference is that in quantum theory we cannot determine the initial conditions, while in the classical case we can.

     Many believe quantum theory is ontologically random and argue that while the original theory of evolution did not depend on ontological randomness, the present theory does. Bohm's (1952) quantum theory refutes this. It makes the same predictions as standard quantum theory, but is deterministic with a probability based on ignorance. Genetic mutations have the same chemistry whether or not quanta are ontologically random. Thus, evolution is logically isolated from ontological randomness. Further, quantum theory restricts probability to observations and asserts states evolve deterministically between observations (Paul A. M. Dirac 1958: 108). The unpredictable disturbances in quantum measurements entail indeterminism (Heisenberg 1930). There is no evidence it is ontological. We have more than enough known ignorance to explain quantum randomness: ignorance of the initial state of quantum systems, of the detectors used to observe them, and of the vacuum fluctuations perturbing quantum events.

     Gould (1989) claimed that if you rewound the tape and played it again, evolution would come out different, and we would not be here. His thesis has been criticized by paleontologist Simon Conway Morris (1998), who discusses its evidentiary basis in the fossils of the mid-Cambrian Burgess Shale. Gould's claim is also incompatible with physics. Since unobserved processes are deterministic, however many times we run them backwards and forwards in time, they turn out the same (Susskind 2008: 182). If we take "random" to mean that rerunning evolution will give different results, then either evolution is not random, or quantum physics is wrong.

     So far, we have seen: (1) The natural laws controlling genetic mutation are not mindless, but intentional, having an intrinsic finality. (2) There is good reason to believe that quantum randomness is not ontological, but due to ignorance. (3) Even if it is not, the theory of evolution is insensitive to whether or not quantum randomness is ontological, and unobserved processes, like those of evolution, are deterministic. So, "random genetic mutations" depend on divine intentionality. They are random because we cannot predict them, not because they are mindless or indeterminate. They are the product of logical propagators morphing the universe's initial information into its present information.

     Is God Inefficient?  Let us offer an objection on naturalists' behalf: mutations seem not to be ordered to the species that finally evolve, as many mutations lead to either a quick death or an evolutionary dead end. Thus, they do not evidence intent. It is very inefficient to throw away millions of mutations to get a few keepers. How does God measure efficiency? The question reaches beyond our ken, but we can make some observations. First, God need not scrimp on being because He is not sure where His next entity is coming from. So, the idea of God being miserly with being has no appeal. Second, is not it smarter to have a few simple laws play out in limitless diversity than to create myriads of ad hoc designs? This is a common view among religious scientists. Nobel physics laureate Arno Penzias reflects:

If God created the universe, he would have done it elegantly... The absence of any imprint of intervention upon creation is what we would expect from a truly all-powerful Creator. You do not need somebody diddling around like Frank Morgan in The Wizard of Oz to keep the universe going. Instead, what you have is a half a page of mathematics that describes everything. In some sense, the power of the creation lies in its underlying simplicity. (In Slack 1998)

A heavy design hand is the mark of a kludging engineer, not an omniscient and omnipotent Creator: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts'" (Isaiah 55: 8-9).  Further, considering mutants in abstraction is Alfred North Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness, which involves treating abstractions as realities (1927: 11). Mutants are part of an ecosystem. They compete for resources, may be predators and prey, enter symbiotic relationships and contribute to ecosystem dynamics in other ways. Thus, they affect not only the evolution of their own genetic line, but that of every species in the ecosystem.

     Evolution and Improbability: The idea that evolution is fundamentally random raises an insurmountable problem: the odds against hitting on a workable genetic code randomly are impossibly high. Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wicramasinghe (1981) calculated the chance of getting the enzymes required by the simplest cell as 1:1040000 (1 followed by 40,000 zeros). Thus, a completely random process has virtually no chance of explaining it. This type of calculation has been criticized because the initial self-replicating forms may have been much simpler, and protein assembly is not random, but guided by the laws of nature.

     Mushegian & Koonin (1996) tell us that the simplest known genome, that of the Gram-positive parasitic bacterium mycoplasma genitalium, has 468 protein-coding genes, while the simplest known Gram-negative bacterium, haemophilus influenzae has 1703. They compared these genomes and found 240 genes with orthologs, leading them to posit a common ancestor. However, the orthologous genes cannot support all the essential pathways, and so 16 additional genes are required. They conclude that a modern-type cell needs at least 256 genes. The probability of getting this sequence randomly is about 1 : 10179. Thus, while the first organisms may have been simpler, the odds of randomly assembling one are still impossibly high. Further, if subsequent mutations occurred randomly, a simple staring point does not resolve the improbability of more evolved successors. It remains improbable to move from the starting point to more advanced forms randomly.

     The eminent French mathematician Émil Borel discussed the application of probability theory to self-organizing systems. Writing of crystal formation, he noted that

it would not be possible to treat this as a problem of probability without taking account of certain properties of matter, properties that facilitate the formation of crystals and that we are certainly obliged to verify. We ought, it seems to me, to consider it likely that the formation of elementary living organisms, and the evolution of those organisms, are also governed by elementary properties of matter that we do not understand perfectly but whose existence we ought nevertheless admit (Borel 1963: 125).

    In brief, we cannot calculate accurate probabilities without considering the laws of nature guiding the processes. For evolution to work, we must abandon the idea of complete randomness. Further, putting aside free will, equation 1 tells us that the present state is fully immanent in the initial state and the laws of nature. Given the actual initial state of the universe, all variations are not equally likely. The probability of the present state is 100 percent.

NATURAL SELECTION

     Natural selection or survival of the fittest plays a role in overcoming improbability. We need not quarrel with this principle for it does not support, but militates against, mindless randomness. For fitness to have explanatory power, it has to be prior to what it explains. If we simply say the surviving species are "the fittest," what have we explained? A real explanation requires objective survival criteria prior to survival. Being harder for predators to see, able to exploit open ecological niches, or having higher reproductive rates leads to species success. These advantages reflect objective, nomological features of nature.

     Artificial Intelligence (AI) often employs a "generate-and-test" strategy. One process generates possible solutions to a problem, while another tests their viability (Avron Barr & Edward A. Feigenbaum 1981: vol. 1, 30ff). The generation process need not be directed. In fact, the less directed, the better. Good generation processes yield a great variety of possible solutions. On the other hand, the testing process must be rigorous so only viable solutions are accepted. The scientific method does the same. We generate many theories, then test them experimentally.

     Evolution uses this strategy. Genetic mutation is the generation process. Dawkins describes the testing process:

In nature, the usual selecting agent is direct, stark and simple. It is the grim reaper. Of course, the reasons for survival are anything but simple – that is why natural selection can build up animals and plants of such formidable complexity. But there is something very crude and simple about death itself. And nonrandom death is all it takes to select phenotypes, and hence the genes that they contain, in nature. (Dawkins 1996: 87f).

Random death does not suffice. The death must be end-directed for natural selection to work. Also, the probability of generating an acceptable solution in a reasonable time must be near 100 percent. Thus, generation-and-test alone can not solve the improbability problem.

     Dawkins makes our case (1996: 66-71). Addressing the improbability problem, he considers computer programs randomly generating the string "ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL." He calculates the chance of getting this string in one try as 1 in 1040. He agrees that, on average, even the fastest computer would need many times the age of the universe to generate it randomly. If evolution acted that way, it would be virtually impossible. To solve this, Dawkins argues for cumulative step selection. In it, the computer generates a random 28-character string and compares it to "ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL." If it has the right character in some position, it locks that character down and generates random characters only for the other positions. Dawkins' program took only 43 steps to generate the target string this way.

     Why the vast difference? Because Dawkins put the answer in at the beginning! He explicitly told the program when it generates the right character in a given position, stop diddling with that position and concentrate on the others. This is AI's generate-and-test strategy. It works only if we have a criterion to test against – a target we put in at the beginning. We are not twisting Dawkins' point, as is clear from the summary on his last page:

However improbable a large-scale change may be, smaller changes are less improbable. And provided we postulate a sufficiently large series of sufficiently finely graded intermediaries, we shall be able to derive anything from anything else, without invoking astronomical improbabilities. We are allowed to do this only if there is sufficient time to fit all the intermediaries in. And also only if there is a mechanism for guiding each step in some particular direction, otherwise the sequence of steps will career off in an endless random walk (1996: 453; emphasis added).

Simply taking many small steps does not suffice. Guidance is essential. While the probability of each step may be smaller, the overall probability is the product of the step probabilities, and so no lower. William Dembski & Johathan Wells (2010) analyzed Dawkins' WEASEL program and showed that when a strategy increases the probability of success, it must supply information, here admitted to be guidance. Borel argued that the guidance of the laws of nature ameliorates a priori improbability.

     While Dawkins had an explicit target, nature has implicit targets. Simple examples of implicit targets are self-assembling physical systems involving: "the spontaneous formation of organized structures from many discrete components that interact with one another directly (e.g., electrostatic interactions between charged objects) and/or indirectly through their environment" (Fialkowski 2006: 2484). Just as in equation 1, local interactions governed by the laws of nature generate an implicit outcome. While they are called self-organizing or assembling, in fact, the laws of nature organize these systems.

     Given that the laws of nature are essentially intentional, naturalists' examples for the efficacy of mechanism support finality. Paley's watch clarifies a critical point. Having a complete mechanical explanation does not preclude it from serving a purpose. Naturalists have no viable argument against teleology. Instead, they offer mechanisms as though given a mechanism, no end is possible. Theists often commit the same error, thinking finality and mechanism incompatible. For example, the famous apologist Frederick Tennant wrote: "the multitude of interwoven adaptations by which the world is constituted a theatre of life, intelligence, and morality, cannot reasonably be regarded as an outcome of mechanism, or of blind formative power, or aught but purposive intelligence" (1928, 2: 121).

    More recently, Dembski & Wells (2010) failed to see that the laws of nature entail teleology. Mechanism is not "blind formative power." Mechanism and finality are not contradictory, but complementary. Finality entails ends. Mechanism describes means. Means do not exclude ends. They imply them. Ends do not exclude means. They require them.

    If Dawkins is right, evolution has objective, preprogrammed targets! This is an incredible claim, so let us be precise: determinate tendencies are essential to natural selection's operation. Tendencies must operate concurrently to be effective. We saw this in the concurrent or essential causality of the laws of nature. Saying the targets are objective does not mean they require an incarnate archetype, prototype, or any other palpable design. It means there are observable tendencies to determinate biological ends in response to ecological challenges. Explicit targets are spelled out, while implicit ones are encoded in rules giving the same result. Both contain identical information. Three lines of evidence support predefined targets in evolution: (1) convergent evolution or homoplasy, (2) toolkit genes and (3) evolutionary stasis.

CONVERGENT EVOLUTION

     Plants and animals in different evolutionary lines (not monophyletic) converge on objectively similar forms to fit similar ecological niches (Figure 2):

Euphorbia obesa

 Astrophytum arteries

Figure 2. Convergent Plant Evolution

The Euphorbia of Africa and southern Asia, and the Cactaceae of the Americas evolved independently, but converged to similar forms.

Source: Frank Vincentz, GNU Free Documentation (2010) & David Midgley, Creative Commons Attribution (2010).

Dawkins (1996: 133) notes the similarity is not total, but shows traces of diverse origins. Still, as Simon Morris (1998) argues, there are objective target forms fitting organisms to niches. Hundreds of examples of the same target form being arrived at from different origins have been observed, just as would happen if you ran Dawkins' text generation program many times. Similar leaf forms, skull forms, tongue forms, pheromones, antibodies, etc. have evolved at widely separated locales from different genetic stock among birds, reptiles, fish, spiders, and plants. In each case, objectively similar forms evolved. Joseph T. Gregory (1951) documented convergently evolved lower jaw structures in hesperornis, a toothed bird of the cretaceous and the mosasaurs, a group of giant marine lizards. Some even involve different phyla. Joel Berger and Jerry L. Kaster (1979) investigated the similarity of caddisfly larvae to snails and ruled out mimicry to avoid piscine predation. 

     In Australasia, marsupials diversified to fit niches filled by placental mammals elsewhere. Marsupial and placental mammals are quite independent, having split in the late Mesozoic. Their oldest known fossils, sinodelphys szalayi (marsupial) and eomaia scansoria (a placental ancestor) both come from the early Cretaceous (c.125,000,000 BC) in China (Qiang Ji et al. 2002). Nevertheless, the marsupial Tasmanian wolf evolved into nearly the same form as placental canid wolves (Figure 3):

Figure 3. Convergent Animal Evolution

Skulls of the unrelated Tasmanian wolf (left) & gray wolf (right).

Source: Fritz Geller-Grimm, Creative Commons Attribution (2010).

Similarly, saber-tooth tigers had two distinctly evolved analogues. One, thylacosmilus, a saber-toothed marsupial lion, even evolved catlike retractable claws. The Dactylopsila of New Guinea have the same stripe pattern and odoriferous defense as skunks (Dawkins 2004: 164n). Madagascar's tenrecs evolved to converge with hedgehogs and with water shrews (Dawkins 2004: 166).

    The objective similarities arrived at by convergent evolution are hard evidence of goal seeking. Another goal sought by natural selection is vision. Its preexistence as a goal is shown by forty independent evolutionary paths (Dawkins 1996b) using eight different optical plans (Fernald 2000), all supporting the same end. (Goals are defined by ends, not by means. Means are subordinated to ends.) Science focuses on common features to explain diverse cases. In explaining gravity, we fix on mass as the common feature and neglect color, shape, etc. In evolution, hundreds of targets, revealed by convergent form and function, are common despite divergent origins.

     How do naturalists explain convergent evolution? Some say the environment causes it to happen. If so, the riddle causes its solution. Riddles and the environment occasion solutions, but solutions do not occur absent an intentional response. The environment poses an opportunity the generate-and-test strategy can exploit. Rudolf A. Raff offers a more sensible answer: "Convergences keep happening because organisms keep wanting to do similar things, and there are only so many ways of doing them, as dictated by physical laws." (In Angier 1998: 7). In brief, biological forms are implicit in the laws of nature. Gould reached the same conclusion: "These physical laws are formal causes or blueprints of optimal adaptive design for given circumstances of size, materials or ecology. The laws give us insight into the adaptive values, or final causes of organic designs" (2002: 1207).

TOOLKIT GENES

     A new branch of biology, evo-devo, studies the evolution of developmental mechanisms. It has discovered a series of toolkit genes whose expression can be modulated to vary structural forms. The same toolkit genes can yield different embryogenesis, depending on their regulation. Thus, BMP4 controls beak and jaw configurations (Kevin J. Parsons and R. Craig Albertson 2009). Modifying its expression produces parrots' nut cracking beaks of or humming birds' long thin beaks. It is thought that many phenotypic changes in species branching result from mutations to the codes (homeobox genes) controlling the expression of toolbox genes rather than to toolbox genes themselves. A major goal of evo-devo is to identify and describe the functions and interactions of all toolkit genes.

     Contrary to Dawkins' claim that we can "derive anything from anything else," evolution is far less random. Given that forty independent evolutionary paths with eight different optical plans all yield vision and Dawkins' thesis, we would expect any random mutation might eventually produce vision. In fact, one toolkit gene, Pax6, controls vision in organisms as diverse as vertebrates, mollusks, and fruit flies (Gould 2004: 83). Is convergence on the goal of vision explained by sharing Pax6 genes? Mechanistically it is, but explaining how goals are attained does not refute their reality, or explain why Pax6, BMP4, and similar toolkit genes are in the shared genome. They are not random, but necessitated by pre-established tests, implicit in the laws for gene winnowing. Gould Admits that: "Our former best examples of full efficacy for the functional force of natural selection exist only because the internal constraints of homologous genes and developmental pathways have kept fruitful channels of change open and parallel, even in the most disparate and most genealogically distant bilateralian phyla" (2002: 1069).

     A recent evo-devo discovery further supports intentionality. Neil Shubin, Edward B. Daeschler & Farish A. Jenkins (2006) reported the discovery of Tiktaalik roseae, a 375 million year old fossil land-exploring fish, on Canada's Ellesmere Island. It had a startling feature, wrists. Wrists were thought confined to fully land-based animals, because fish do not need them. Shubin explains, "This was telling us that a piece of the toolkit, to make arms, legs, hand and feet, could very well be present in fish limbs... Lacking were the environmental conditions where these structures would be useful." (In Yoon 2007: 1). This is supported by genetic studies of a living relative of Tiktaalik, the paddlefish Polyodon spathula (Davis 2007). Without conditions making these structures useful, there is no evolutionary pressure to develop a gene to form them. Thus, the capacity to form the limbs needed for land survival evolved before the need for them, and without specific selection pressure for the unexpressed potential. Evolution is a forward-looking process. Preparing means in advance of ends is a strong indicator of intentionality (Aristotle 1941, ii, 8, 199a10). Thus, evolution involves prior, immanent intentionalities.

     This may require re-thinking the idea that genes develop in response to environmental pressure. It now appears that specific capabilities, such as the ability to develop vision, wrists or specific beak and jaw forms, are latent in the genetic toolkit, but unexpressed until needed. In other words, genes seem to develop adaptive flexibility before the environmental pressure to express the available alternatives! This is evidence of the forward-looking dynamics described by Aquinas in his teleological argument.  One surprising result of evo-devo is that toolkit genes themselves are evolutionary targets. Once evolved, the coding sequences of toolkit genes are conserved so that nearly identical tool kit genes are found in different phyla. The genes are so stable against evolutionary changes that fruit flies can function with genes taken from chickens replacing their own (Lutz 1996).

EVOLUTIONARY STASIS

Figure 4

Strange attractors cause non-repeating orbits confined to a target region.

Source:Alex Fufatt,GNU Free Documentation (2010)

     Evolution's target forms are dynamically similar to chaos theory's strange attractors, which are dynamic traps eventually enthralling nonlinear systems. Attractors occur in "phase spaces" whose dimensions are the value and rate of change of each state descriptor (Ruelle 1989; Baker & Gollub 1990). When a system is enthralled, it stays near a central point, oscillating in fascinating, non-repeating trajectories. Systems trapped by the same attractor are objectively similar. As with convergent evolution, the final patterns are implicit in the governing laws. This is more than an analogy, for René Thom (1975) developed nonlinear mathematical models for the evolution of organic forms. While the exact final state depends on the exact initial conditions, a wide range of initial conditions will eventually be enthralled by the same attractor. One might imagine attractors as black holes trapping everything in a certain region of space, where the "space" is defined by initial conditions. Thus, as convergent evolution shows, objectively similar forms can derive from a wide variety of initial states. This may explain the "clumping of taxa in morphospace" noted by Gould (2002: 82).

     The relative stability of the strange attractor model accords with Eldredge & Gould's the pivotal punctuated equilibrium theory (1972). In it, species' forms remain stable for long eras, punctuated by periods of branching speciation. This contrasts with Darwin's (1857: 238-63) gradualism and was unexpected by most evolutionary biologists (Mayr 1992).  Niles Eldredge found that Paleozoic trilobites remained unchanged throughout their occurrence in the geologic record, while new species appear suddenly. "Most species, during their geological history, either do not change in any appreciable way, or else they fluctuate mildly, with no apparent direction. Phyletic gradualism is very rare." (Eldredge & Gould 1972: 115). Geology provides evidence of stable floral and faunal assemblages followed by mass extinctions and the geologically rapid evolution of new species. E. g., species were stable before an astronomical impact caused the KT boundary extinction and the evolution of new species. Dawkins impugns punctuationism's import, but not its validity (2004: 605). Indeed, he suggests the great lakes of Africa experienced rapid speciation followed by equilibrium (2004: 338).

TELEOLOGY?

     These findings support the inadequacy of paradigms which exclude teleology. Ernest Mayr  notes that: "Teleological thinking requires continuous evolutionary change, but Darwin rejected teleology and accepted stasis" (1992: 28) This is curious because teleology requires the opposite. Recall that telos means "end." An endless teleological process is an oxymoron. Aristotle, the founder of scientific teleology, is clear that being goal-directed implies a completion:

those things are natural which, by a continuous movement originated from an internal principle, arrive at some completion [telos]: the same completion is not reached from every principle; nor any chance completion, but always the tendency in each is towards the same end, if there is no impediment (1941, ii, 8, 199b15-18).

     Gould objects, "Darwinian natural selection only produces adaptation to changing local environments, not any global scheme of progress" (1993: 43) Yet, there is no empirical difference between adapting to "local circumstances" and a "global scheme of progress," when the local response produces global progress. Consider rain falling on a watershed. The water flow is directed by the local slope, but still ends in a river determined by the global topography. Global topography and local slopes are alternate descriptions of the same reality. As equation 1 shows, local mechanistic descriptions differ from global teleologic ones only by the conceptual space used – not by any reality. This reflects the relation of essential to accidental causality. The cumulative effect of concurrent action is a causal connection between separate events. Integrating the response to local circumstances yields global progress. No rational person can deny an observed "global scheme of progress" leading from prokaryotes (unnucleated organisms) through unicellular eukaryotes, colonial organisms, simple invertebrates, and on to Homo sapiens. Some might object to "scheme," with its intentional overtones, but the global progress is undeniable. The fact is that the integral effect of adapting to local circumstances has been global progress.

     Gould (1996) had argued that our perception of progress is due to a misapprehension. While the statistical diversity of organisms is increasing, the average organism is still a bacterium, so there is no goal seeking. Human beings are an aberration on the fringe of a statistical distribution. This shows the importance of the conceptual space into which we project data. In the space of statistical concepts, human beings are an anomaly. In the space of teleological concepts, human beings result from means evolved over eons. Which projection is right? They both are. Consider the pyramids. The capstone is a statistical outlier is the distribution of elevations, but it is still supported by what lies beneath it. The statistical view is not wrong, it is incomplete. All the data of evo-devo and of ecological support, all the history of progressive elaboration, are projected out of it. We are a statistical anomaly, but that anomaly is pinnacle supported by means evolved over eons. The statistical projection does not militate against goal-seeking, but is just what we would expect for a capstone.

     When we put aside the question of God, it is generally agreed that goal-seeking signifies intelligence. For example, a primary object in modeling human intelligence is goal-seeking behavior. James Reggia's artificial intelligence group at the University of Maryland is clear that "the executive functions of planning and goal-seeking are high-level cognitive operations that bestow capabilities often thought to be uniquely human." (Reggia et al. (2006)) Yet, when God is mentioned, the significance of goal-seeking becomes problematic – not because of any logical change, but because God is socially unacceptable in naturalist circles. Naturalists resist seeing nature as ordered to ends because they are trapped in an obsolete paradigm. While science is not just another postmodern cultural narrative, naturalism is. Naturalists bow to peer pressure and reject teleology as a fashion statement.

     The author has found six lines of objection to teleology:

  1.  It assumes vitalism, some extra life force beyond the laws of nature.
  2.  It involves backwards causation: the future reaches back in time to pull a system to its end.
  3.  It is incompatible with known mechanistic explanations.
  4.  It is "mentalistic," assuming mind in nature when there is none.
  5.  It is empirically untestable.
  6.  Teleology is a metaphor, not an explanation.

    Yet our analysis shows no vitalistic principle. On the contrary, we have recommitted ourselves to explaining events by the laws of nature.Thus, objections to vitalismare irrelevant. The future does not "pull" the present forward. Teleology acts via present intentionality, viz. the laws of nature. The same is true of human striving: we act out of our present intentions. Finality and mechanism are not opposed, but are related as ends and means. Mathematically, they are convertible representations of the same phenomena. Mechanisms can serve ends and ends require means. Mind in nature is a conclusion drawn from the data of teleological processes, not a premise in deriving them. Thus, the "mentalistic" objection is question begging. Rather than engaging the evidence, it uses an a priori denial of the conclusion to reject data. 

The assertion that teleology is "empirically untestable" is baseless. Aristotle made falsifiable claims: (a) Means-ends relationships exist in nature (1941, ii, 8, 199a8) – confirmed whenever behavior is a means to an end such as communication, propagation, or nutrition; (b) There are target forms (1941, ii, 8, 199b15-18) – verified by convergent evolution, the stability of toolkit genes and evolutionary stasis in stable environments. (c) Means are prepared in advance of need (1941, ii, 8, 199a10ff) – confirmed by toolkit genes. Metaphors have no predictive power, but teleology does. Many biological processes are too complex to calculate mechanically; however, their ends are clear. We cannot calculate how a spider will respond to a fly caught in its web, but its ends predict its behavior. Rejecting teleology's predictive power is irrational.  Thus, the standard objections to teleology are either a priori or fail under empirical scrutiny. In fact, arguments of one of the most militantly atheistic naturalists, Richard Dawkins, confirm the underlying intentionality of evolutionary processes. It is not a "spin." It is knowing how to look at the evidence. The evidence supports the mechanisms of evolution and in doing so, shows prior intentionality at every step.

DESIGN?

     Is this "Intelligent Design"? Not if ID is understood as a replacing evolution. We have rejected neither the data nor the theory of evolution, but have shown that it entails intentional control. We know, not a priori, but in light of experience, that God's general will for matter is given by the laws of nature that physicists have spent the last few centuries elucidating. Lacking omniscience, we cannot know that the actual laws follow our generalizations in precluding miraculous exceptions. Nor can we rule out emerging multi-body effects. Such exclusionary claims confuse generalization with necessity.

     Science requires openness. The laws of physics only approximate the laws of nature. Similarly, the data tell us that divine intentionality for life is described by evolution. We may quibble over details, but would do better to focus on evolution's finality and intentionality. Its randomness stems neither from mindlessness nor ontological indeterminacy, but from our inability to predict outcomes. To enshrine human ignorance in ontology is ultimately anthropomorphic. It is irrational to model our subjective cognitive limits as objective, ontological and mindless randomness.

     It is deprecating to say God is incapable of willing laws and initial conditions to achieve His ends for nature. Equation 1 allows the calculation of an initial state from any final state consistent with the laws of nature. We may not know the exact Hamiltonian and state variables, or be unable to calculate the result, but God is omniscient. What kind of theology demands that He diddle with biological evolution? Surely not biblical theology, for Jeremiah 33: 25 speaks of the Lord's "covenant with day and night and the fixed laws of heaven and earth."

     Whether it is design depends on its definition. "Design" often bears the connotation of separate planning and implementation phases. Stenger (2007: 67) defines "design to refer to the act of an agent, be she divine or human, stupid or intelligent, to draw a blueprint – so to speak – of some artifact that is later assembled from that plan." No theologian worth his salt would say God has designs which He later implements. There is no sooner or later in God, Who is unchanging and timeless. (Aquinas, 1981, I, q. 9.)

    Temporal and eternal happenings are often confused. We in time see a before and after: laws operating on initial conditions to produce later effects, toolkit genes evolved before they are needed. This appears to be prior design and later implementation, but for God, all space-time is present simultaneously. God is not a designer in Stenger's sense, for He uses no temporally prior plans, Platonic forms, exemplar ideas or species archetypes. Universal ideas are abstractions humans use to reduce complexity to our mental capacity, and so incompatible with omniscience. Positing species exemplars leads to thinking some individuals are more perfectly realize the exemplar than others, justifying prejudice. God wills reality in its full diversity and uniqueness.

     Still, there is design. Dawkins' idea of design differs from Stenger's. While the index of The Blind Watchmaker promises us a definition of "design" on page 29, what we find is a test for being well designed: "A living body or organ is well designed if it has attributes that an intelligent and knowledgeable engineer might have built into it in order to achieve some sensible purpose." Implicit is the idea that design is evidenced by attributes ordered to sensible purposes. By this definition, biological organisms are designed. The only question is: are they well designed?

     Dawkins argues that they are not because human engineers can improve on their design. However, he neglects systems engineering. Evolution's target forms are implicit in the laws of nature. To judge whether nature is well designed, we need to understand that God is not merely "designing" an optimal eye, knee, or back. He is "designing" a consistent and harmonious universe capable of evolving organisms able "to achieve some sensible purpose." Dawkins fails to show that any superior system design is available. Optimizing isolated subsystems is the error of suboptimization and generally degrades system efficiency. Thus, his charge that God is guilty of faulty design simply reflects Dawkins' unfamiliarity with systems engineering.

CONCLUSION

    In conclusion, the claim that "what we may call chance" dispenses with the need for mind to explain the order of nature fails under scrutiny.  The theory of evolution was posited in the era of determinism and is logically independent of ontological randomness. Quantum theory says that unobserved processes, such as evolution, are deterministic.  Randomness is not an objective property of reality, but reflects our inability to predict.  Statistically, completely random evolution is impossible.  Evolution uses generate-and-test, an end-means strategy also used in artificial intelligence and in the scientific method.  Mutations depend on intentional laws of nature.  Fitness requires prior objective tendencies to be explanatory instead of tautological. Its criteria express intentionality implicit in the laws of nature. Random natural selection cannot advance evolution.  So, evolution is only possible if it involves predefined targets.  Convergent evolution, genetic toolkits and punctuationism confirm the existence of objective target forms in evolution. Finally, Aristotelian teleology makes falsifiable predictions that have been verified.

    Contrary to the claim that evolution dispenses with mind in nature, it depends on on-going intentionality at every turn. As with chaos theory, low-level order yields intermediate processes too complex for our mental capacity. Later, at higher levels organization, recognizable order reemerges – as shown by strange attractors and convergent evolution. Both in chaos theory and in evolution, order in is transformed into order out. The process seems random only because of our inability to follow it in detail; however, ends provide explanatory invariants when even when detailed calculation is infeasible.

     The argument from design sees the hand of God in nature, but naturalists do not see past the laws of nature to their Source. To convince them, we must clarify the source and character of those laws. They are intrinsically intentional, and evolution only works if natural selection involves objective, preprogrammed targets. The entire evolutionary process depends on predefined intentionality. As the Neoplatonists recognized long ago, you cannot have intentions without an intending mind. So, the intentionality of evolution implies an intending mind, viz. God. That is the essence of Aquinas's fifth way. It depends only on the existence of intentionality or means-end relationships in nature. They can be found from garden spider webs to physics lab experiments, and are impossible to deny.

In sum, this analysis rejects no principle or datum of science. Rather, the projection paradigm has enabled one to see science in a new light. It accepts the laws of nature, but looks beyond them to their Source. It accepts mechanistic explanations, but sees them as means-ordered-to-ends. It accepts the randomness of evolution, but recognizes it as a measure of human ignorance, not an objective property of nature. Applying the projection paradigm to integrate multiple perspectives of the same reality has allows one to see further than our naturalist friends.

NOTE:

1. I wish to acknowledge my latr brother, ecologist Gary Polis, for many discussions on evolution and naturalism; the anonymous contributors of Wikipedia for background and reasearch leads; those who have posted naruealist arguments on the Internet, especially Kenneth Himma, Ian Musgrave, and Colin Allen; as well as the contributors of Fingures 1-4. This essay is part of a larger study God, Science and Mind: The Irrationality of Naturalism (forthcoming).

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