by Dr. Gerry Lower

OpEdNews.com

James O. Goldsborough recently provided a summary of the current status of evolutionary theory in America's classrooms ("Another Attempt to Deny Evolution," February 12, 2004, San Diego Union-Tribune). Last month, for example, the state of Georgia ordered a ban on the word "evolution" from its science classrooms and from all text books in the state. Given the history of the "Scopes Monkey Trial" in 1925, when William Jennings Bryan and the State of Tennessee became the laughing stocks of the educated world for trying to defend Biblical supernaturalism in public, Goldsborough points out that this recent effort by creationists in Georgia is something of an encore performance.

"Thanks to the intervention of former President Jimmy Carter, school superintendent Kathy Cox, an elected official, was compelled to rescind her order. Charles Darwin's name can remain in Georgia textbooks, along with those of Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and others who have made their little contributions to our understanding of things."

Goldsborough continues, "One cannot help wonder what would have become of the schoolchildren of the modern state of Georgia if Carter did not happen to live there." The State of Georgia owes former president Carter a great deal indeed for embarrassment spared. But, as pointed out by Goldsborough, "the creationists lose these battles, but keep coming back."

The "it's only a theory" argument against evolution is rooted in ignorance and blind loyalty to Old Testament supernaturalism. In the past half century, there are virtually no instances of the terms "hypothetical" and "theoretical" being used correctly, least of all by creationists who make no distinctions between the terms. If something is considered less than certain and inadequatly established as a basis for action, it can be considered "hypothetical." If something is considered solidly established so as to provide the only viable basis for further extension and action, it can be considered theoretical.

A theoretical viewpoint is emphatically not "hypothetical" as creationists falsely assume. A theoretical viewpoint is the most accurate, all-embracing viewpoint currently available based upon verifiable scientific (empirical/logical) knowledge. A theoretical viewpoint, despite whatever shortcomings it may yet have, is the most intelligent viewpoint around, simple as that. It has more to do with how much of human reality one is willing to trust to human stewardship and how much one is willing to trust to the gods.

The Cellular Theory of Life (the notion that living organisms are comprised of cells) emerged in the late 18th century with the work of Hooke and Leeuwenhoek and is now so well established that it is literally taken for granted, and rightly so. If you discover a new strain of flora or fauna, you may rest assured that it is comprised of highly-specialized and highly-integrated cells.

The Germ Theory of Infectious Disease (the notion that infectious disease is caused by pathogenic microorganisms) emerged during the mid-19th century with the work of Snow, Pasteur and Koch and is likewise no longer threatened by religious supernaturalism. Meanwhile, the grandest and most vile contribution of religion to dealing with human disease was to assign causation to godly retribution and blame it all on the victims, a concept rejected by the first Christian two millennia ago. "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents" that he be born blind (John 9:1).

One wonders if God's spokesmen in the Old Testament church ever bothered to read the New Testament. Apparently, Roman theologians considered the views of their church's spiritual founder as being "hypothetical," certainly not "theoretical," as in providing a basis for further thought and action. Given the role of traditional Roman religion in providing the self-righteous justification for nearly two millennia of imperialism and colonialism, this says very little for traditional religion's grasp of the nature of things, not even of things Christian.

Given a choice between the conjectural and the theoretical, one cannot lose by sticking with the theoretical. Religion was wrong about the motions of the heavens (Galileo), wrong about the origins of the earth (Lyell), wrong about the origins of life on earth (Darwin), wrong about the origins of disease (Pasteur) and wrong about political philosophy (Jefferson). Science has never lost an argument to religion in honest eyes.

In truth, however, both sides of the modern day argument between creationists and evolutionists are wrong and inadequate, respectively. On the one hand, the creationists choose to believe in a supernatural god who created a world of things and who determines everything in that world. On the other hand, traditional evolutionists believe in a world that comes of itself, a world of continuous creation in which mutation and natural selection provide earth-bound causation. The former has faith that causation is external and determined, the latter believes that causation is earth bound and probabalistic.

That is the crux of the debate. Science has serious problems dealing with the notion of external religious determinism in the world, seeing itself as having done most of the determining when it comes to comprehending how the material world works. Religion has justifiable problems dealing with the notion that life is probabalistic, a mere accident of random mutations and natural selection. This is correctly seen as a spit in the eye of the gods. Both sides are justified in what they need to see in life explanations and both sides are wrong in how they are looking at the problem and failing to see.

To make up for the shortcomings of traditional evolutionary theory, the latest evolving creation of the creationists is the so-called "intelligent design" argument. "According to intelligent design, natural selection is insufficient to explain the DNA mutations necessary to create homo sapiens. God must have directed the process." Because science has not adequately explained the source of creativity and order in life, the creationists are content to dispense with the entire theory in favor of faith in the supernatural.

On behalf of traditional evolutionary theory, Goldsborough replies that "God may exist, who knows? But God isn't needed to explain natural selection. DNA mutations are quite capable of getting us out of the slime." He concludes that "Children can learn about God in church. In schools, we teach science."

In this debate, both sides are wrong as a result of the frameworks within which they conceptualize the problem. Religion, traditionally wrong about the world, is for once correct with its request that the source of creativity and order in the world be explained. Science, traditionally right about the world, is for once wrong with its request that determinism be rejected entirely. Great scientists and philosophers know better, all of them necessarily being highly determined people.

To put it simply, DNA mutations are not enough to get us "out of the slime." From the viewpoint of "postmodern" molecular biology, environmental mutagens only supply the mutational pressure driving the process of biological evolution. The "design," the inherent order, is built right into matter, the Greek atomic "stuff" of which everything in life is constructed.

The term which the creationists are looking for is "emergent order" and the concept of "self-organizing systems," a viable scientific arena since Oparin demonstrated the energy-dependent formation of biotic molecules from pre-biotic molecules in the early 20th century. Today, we know that creative potential is built right into the evolutionary program, inherent in the material genome. We know that order comes from the inside out. We have five fingers because that is the only option we have ever had, all the way back to the beginnings of "fingers."

We are integral code in the overall evolutionary program, inseparable from the gods. Our five fingers are determined by hardwired genomic information, the result of billions of years of evolutionary experience. What we do with those five fingers is entirely probabalistic, as a function of antecedent planning and foresight. Life is determined on the inside and probabalistic on the outside. All living things are determined from the inside out and then, with birth, are set free into the probabalistic outside world of all living things.

The distinction between internal and external environments, a distinction first made by the father of experimental medicine, Claude Bernard, is central to natural systems theory and it removes the conflict between creationists and evolutionists. The need for religion to explain order in life is fulfilled by the creative potential inherent in the genome, potential which leads, with adequate mutational pressure, to emergent order as a function of what is needed in the interest of survival. It only requires replacing one's external source of order with an internal source of order (a God within), manifest with the genomic orchestration beneath biological existence.

But, something is still missing. Both sides of the debate between evolutionists and creationists also ignore the continuum between biological evolution and cultural evolution. Biological evolution for humans is essentially over and has been for quite some time. Human cranial capacity reached a natural plateau about 100,000 years ago and we have, over the past 10,000 years, taken such overt control over our own external environment as to minimize mutational pressures. Moreover, cultural evolution, as an exponential evolutionary process, has rapidly outpaced biological evolution, such that the entirety of cultural evolution, from Abraham to Einstein, has occurred in far too short a time frame to notice much resembling biological evolution. Biologically speaking, we are pretty much stuck with what we have got for the duration.

The name of the current game is cultural evolution, largely an exercise in human unification, from tribal to national to global organization. It is also largely an exercise in self-comprehension and maturation, from the beat of tribal drums to the world wide web. In this evolution, Science has provided the natural conceptual evolution (from What/Socrates to How/Newton to Why/Einstein) and cultural evolution has been driven by the impact of newly emergent human knowledge and method (e.g., Industrial and Informational revolutions) on traditional cultural belief systems, the ancient "isms" of both east and west.

In that cultural regard (and as Jefferson well knew), we (the people) are the eyes and ears of the social and cultural whole, the sensory apparatus of the "ghost in the machine," the human unconscious that knows more about life than we do because it has learned so much more than we can consciously deal with. That "God within," the provider of insights, is a locus of dynamic learning and thinking and sharing. Getting to know that God, one's inner self, is the path to insight and enlightenment. But, that is an old story, made continuously more real by the continued acquisition of knowledge of the material world and how and why it works.

It only requires that we think for ourselves and make our own judgments of other's judgments. By doing so, we open the doors to common human agreement. It only requires replacing religion's external source of creativity and order with an internal source of creativity and order. It requires adopting an externally passive God and an internally vibrant, thinking, caring God, the one Einstein could "hear" by merely thinking, the God of all people from whence comes pan-cultural knowledge for all people.

That is why Jefferson, as a scientist and natural philosopher, placed God in the "head and heart" of every person, and why he placed the highest authority in "the will of the people." We are still waiting (patiently and with deep faith) to hear, for the first time, the voice of the people and to see, for the first time, the will of the people manifest in a global democracy.

Dr. Gerry Lower lives in Keystone, South Dakota.  His new book, "Jefferson's Eyes - Deist Views of Bush World," can be explored at www.jeffersonseyes.com and he can be reached at tisland@blackhills.com .