Scientific Evolution vs. Metaphysical Speculations

In metaphysics, critical thinking isn't an option.

As it is well known, empiric facts, data, observations, and experimental outcomes, are one thing. While their interpretation is a completely different matter. It is something that philosophers of science (such as Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Pierre Duhem, etc.) amply discussed in the 20th century speaking of the ‘theory-ladenness’ in science. Like it or not, in one way or another, your conclusions that follow from observations are always laden with some assumptions, suppositions, and presuppositions.

There is nothing wrong with that. We always must resort to some worldview that relies on some assumptions to be able to frame an interpretation. There is no such thing as a completely objective ‘view from nowhere.’

The point, however, is that things begin to go astray when we pretend to have such a kind of ‘divine perspective.’ We must always be aware of where a fact ends, and where a personal interpretation begins. Because interpretations are always and inevitably colored by one’s own biases and metaphysical assumptions.

In principle, this should be taught in schools. Young minds should learn to discern the difference between raw data or brute facts, and their own personal interpretations and extrapolations they juxtapose to these facts. A critical attitude that adult scientists frequently don’t have, especially when it comes to deeper questions and statements of philosophical, or even metaphysical nature. An attitude that is allowed to enforce the materialist mindset in the collective, but which would be immediately suppressed if adopted to argue for the opposite thesis.

To illustrate what I mean by that, let me give an example. Here is a typical example of how a skeptical-materialist narrative starts from true facts but then takes them as evidence for their own metaphysical standpoint, which then is presented as a scientific truth.

The essence of the article is that some scientists found strong evidence that a trend toward increasing anatomical complexity in mammals during life’s evolution has both “diffusive aspects” (that is, it “accidentally” diffuses like a drop of ink in a glass of water) and “driven aspects” (‘driven’ by natural selection.) Evolution is not a linear march towards increasing complexity. It has its context-dependent twists and turns, that coincide with major ecological or environmental shifts, and sometimes may even decrease the complexity of the organisms.

So what? What kind of supernatural conclusion should follow from all that?

The authors of the article (a professor of evolutionary palaeobiology and a senior lecturer in life sciences) suggest that since the evidence, the raw data, and brute facts show that because of natural selection species evolved diffusely (read: “accidentally”), you should finally surrender to the conclusion that evolution has no aim, no purpose, it is just a random walk through the natural history of this planet.

To understand better why this is a metaphysical statement, not a scientific one, and that relies on a typical fallacy that (mostly for ideological reasons) likes to connect the lack of final causes with statistical notions like ‘randomness,’ you might like to read first my post entitled “Does God Play Dice in a Random World?”

Then, let’s go through some revealing sentences of the article.

• “It’s reassuring to think humans are evolution’s ultimate destination – but research shows we may be an accident”

There are at least two doubtful statements here.

1. It may be “reassuring” for some who nurture certain anthropocentric beliefs, such as “human’s exceptionalism”, usually based on some religious faith (and, BTW, not all religions believe that), but I can’t see anything reassuring in it. On the contrary, it would be terribly depressing to know that we are the ultimate apex of evolution. Humans are the most rapacious and brutal predators that walk upon Earth, have almost destroyed the environment, and are always prone to slaughter and kill each other. And this should be the “reassuring ultimate destination”? It looks like the authors have never thought through these things carefully and have in mind a simplistic popular religious narrative, not an educated theological argument. I prefer to believe that we are not at all the ultimate destination of evolution, but that does not prevent me from embracing a teleological view. There is no logical connection between the two.

2. The research shows that we are an “accident” no more and no less than a statistical analysis could show that a roulette wheel is rigged if it does not change the probability of the outcome, but only the order of it. It is one of the most pervasive logical fallacies, also among smart scientists, to believe that so-called ‘random events’ tell us anything about aims, purposes, or final causes.

• “It’s reassuring to imagine that complex bodies and brains like ours are the inevitable consequence of evolution, as if evolution had a goal. Unfortunately for human egos, a recent study comparing over a thousand mammals – the group we belong to – painted a less gratifying picture.”

Again, I wonder why the authors like so much the “reassurances” argument. I guess it is because of their (probably unconscious) assumption that the only reason why one could believe or see a goal in evolution, is because of an irrational and emotional attachment to childish beliefs. But one could equally argue that interjecting personal metaphysical speculations, without any logical reason, in a scientific article of a journal that declares to look upon academic rigor, could be because they need to reassure their own worldview, and ego as well.

• “Evolutionary biologists in the late 18th century, including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, reasoned that life must have an innate tendency to evolve into ever more complex forms, and believed this reflected God’s design. However, by the mid-19th century, Charles Darwin showed that natural selection has no direction, and will sometimes make organisms simpler.”

This is, again, an ideological extrapolation that evolutionary biologists love and even publish in texbooks. What Darwin showed is that natural selection is a real natural evolutionary mechanism at work, but this has nothing to do with “directions”, at least not in a teleological sense. Natural selection stands to a lack of aims and goals in evolution like job interviews stand to a lack of conscious and purposefully driven people applying for the job.

• “Because most organisms are still very simple, one possibility is that maximum complexity has increased ‘accidentally’, like the diffusion of a drop of ink in a glass of water. If true, this could be a blow to our human sense of significance as the most complex organisms.”

This is a form of anthropocentrism as well. The implicit idea (these kinds of metaphysical statements are always framed with implicit suggestions in order to make people think something without stating it explicitly) is that whatever we can’t predict and control must be “accidental” and, therefore, meaningless. But there is no logical rationale that connects diffusive dynamics or ‘random walks’ with the presumption that there must be a lack of sense of significance. For example, in social sciences, one speaks of the ‘diffusion of innovation’ that details how ideas or products spread (diffuse) through, and are adopted by, a social system. Nobody would build upon that a theory of “a blow to our human sense of significance.” On the contrary, the most homogenous diffusion of ideas and products is the very basis of purposeful and directed action in a society.

• “While [trends driven by natural selection] need not imply divine purpose, they at least suggest that complexity was mostly an improvement, which is reassuring for us humans.”

It’s all reassuring, indeed. The established scientific fact of natural selection leads to any contrived extrapolations for or against divine purpose, no more and no less than any natural mechanism does. Natural selection sieves out and separates A from B. A strainer has also a purpose: it ‘selects’ seeds or pulp for freshly squeezed orange juice. I could, thereby, even argue the other way around, namely that selection serves a divine purpose.
But of course, it is all random…. please return to my observations above.

• “Research into the evolution of complexity has only recently started gathering pace, so there is much we still don’t know. But we do know that the story of mammalian evolution hasn’t been a directional “march of progress”, but rather has many characteristics of a random and diffusive walk.”

Also, stock market prices can vary in time like random walks. And yet, in a capitalistic society, the stock exchange markets are considered the driving forces of ‘economic progress’ (whatever ‘progress’ may mean.) This line of reasoning doesn’t show anything.

In summary, we need to separate the wheat from the chaff and learn to distinguish between sound science and personal metaphysical speculations. When we deal with existential questions that have a metaphysical flavor, we can’t give up critical thinking.

The problem with all this is that the popular media regularly bombards the collective with this sort of pseudo-scientific propaganda made of all sorts of metaphysical claims presenting the lack of design in Nature as scientific evidence, while in reality, they only reflect the authors’ own personal belief system and, frankly, their shallow philosophy. While anyone who dares to argue from the opposite perspective, namely that which starts from scientific evidence in order to support the existence of design in Nature, has zero chance of being allowed to publish it.

It should then come as no surprise if materialism is so deeply rooted in our minds. And it is no coincidence that some religious communities feel attacked and then needlessly make evolution their enemy, and also reply much too often with equally shallow lines of reasoning.

It is time to go beyond ideological claims falsely presented as scientific evidence against other ideological or religious beliefs and amend the split between science and philosophy, consciousness and evolution, Spirit and Nature.