I am an agnostic who believes life is the result of intelligent design -
whether it was designed by God, some quantum process, or by the intelligence
that is an integral part of all nature. I suppose life also might have been
designed by "Natural Selection", but that seems the most unlikely
interpretation of the evidence, IMHO. To me, design is the opposite of
"self-assembly by chance". Like most ID supporters, I accept the age of the
earth, some form of common ancestry, and real scientific evidence.
Scientific interpretation of that evidence is often influenced by philosophy.
I am not a scientist, and am not going to produce any scientific theories,
but everyone is their own expert when it comes to philosophy. I am an eager
follower of those scientists whose philosophy I share, even if at the moment
such scientists are a minority in danger of being shouted down by the
majority.
I just read Quantum Evolution, by Johnjoe McFadden. I'll read it again in an
effort to better understand it. Mcfadden does not support a mechanistic or
reductionist view of life, pointing out that life, while made of the same
atoms and molecules of non-life, differs from non-life by an "ability to
initiate movement". He describes how much of the activity of life is
initiated at the quantum level, involving electrons and ions. He agrees with
design theorists that macro evolution appears to consist of quantum leaps
rather than gradualism. He speculates that the mutations of macro evolution
develop and remain in a quantum state in the non coding portion of DNA,
labeled by materialists as "junk", where natural selection can play no part
in their design. He suggests such complexity, already intelligently
organized, becomes a reality when "the wave function is collapsed by
measurement".
McFadden points out that natural selection maintains stasis. He says he is a
Darwinist, but not a Neo-Darwinist. Since natural selection was Darwin's
only contribution to evolutionary theory, perhaps McFadden believes "natural
selection" maintains stasis and promotes biological novelty simultaneously.
However if complexity is already intelligently organized by something such as
quantum processes, I see no evidence to suggest that natural selection would
select complexity. Simple organisms still dominate the biosphere, and anyone
not familiar with our evolutionary history might conclude that if natural
selection did anything, it eliminated complexity.
McFadden points to recent evidence of directed mutations -self-directed
mutations, mutations directed by the environment, by some quantum process, or
something other than chance. Although no scientist would dare voice such
heresy, who can deny the possibility of "directed by God"? (Why is it more
acceptable for a scientist to speculate about "collapse of the wave
function", the suspended animation of Shroedinger's cat, and multiple
universes than it is to speculate about God's role in the universe?) Quantum
theory has been accepted by physicists because the model has produced
results, but even such scientific icons as Einstein claimed no one really
understands it. If a model of "design" in biology produces more examples of
directed mutation, perhaps ID will also be accepted even though the designer
is never identified.
Bertvan
http://members.aol.com/bertvan
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