Why philosophy needs a post-Intelligent Design metaphysics of evolution

While I’m not a supporter of any creationist conception, my philosophical preference nevertheless favors a vision of Nature and evolution that sees purpose and aim in evolution. Let me unpack this.

What was once creationism evolved into what nowadays goes under the name of “Intelligent Design” (ID). If you are not familiar with the ID movement you can check some of their websites here, here, here, or here.

Some belittle ID as being just creationism in disguise. It is yet another pseudo-scientific belief system based on an untenable literal interpretation of the Bible, so the story goes.

Let me explain why I disagree with such a simplistic understanding of this cultural phenomenon.

First of all, in order to clear the way from any misunderstanding, let me tell you that my scientific mind is light years away from embracing any form of naive biblical creationist’s understanding of the world, life, and the cosmos. Creationism, in its original form, was an absurd religious ideology that, for example, rejected evolution as a whole, believed that the Earth has been created about ten thousand years ago (so-called “young-earth creationists”), or that humans have been created by God directly – that is, literally as described in the Book of Genesis. In my view, this is only another form of denialism, such as climate change denial, covid denial, or flat-earth theories.

However, having said that, if one accepts evolution as a real process, the fact that humans descend from primates, the Big Bang theory, and all the modern scientific findings in biology and cosmology, this does not necessarily force me to become a materialist and atheist who must embrace a concept of unguided evolution. Neo-Darwinism, with its too-narrow view, reduces basically everything to natural selection, random mutations, and few other processes, which are supposed to explain away everything, and making any hypothesis of divine intervention superfluous. But this is based on a belief system, not a scientific fact. Not only can I reconcile science with the belief that behind this Creation stands a higher Intelligence as the ultimate cause of all that exists, but I could even point to several scientific findings that clearly make the opposite view questionable, sometimes even increasingly difficult to maintain.

To some degree, this was also the aim of the ID movement. I would not label them as “creationists” in the sense described above. Most supporters of ID accept the existence of an evolutionary process, do not appeal to sacred scriptures, and have given up the idea that Eve has come into existence because someone removed a rib from Adam’s side. ID accepts the findings of modern science and tries (more or less successfully) to argue from there. Those who equate the ID movement with old-fashioned creationism have obviously never made an effort to inform themselves. In this sense, I regard the ID intellectual movement as a step further and something that can be taken a bit more seriously. It is a more coherent and credible defense of a form of metaphysical evolution framework that went beyond its original, untenable formulation.

Nevertheless, unfortunately, it was not bold enough to go all the way long. It stopped in the middle of an evolutionary transition itself and got stuck in an exclusively Christian and anthropocentric worldview. Humans remain the ultimate aim of the evolutionary process (what they call ‘human’s exceptionalism’), the only possible God standing behind evolution is that of the Bible, and only Western philosophical and metaphysical hypotheses are admitted. Moreover, and that’s even worse, on their websites one finds articles with clearly political right-wing nuances that are totally unrelated to evolution topics. Officially, they claim to be non-partisan and beyond religious affiliation. But the facts on the ground speak for themselves. One has only to follow for a while their websites, and you will find by yourself all the evidence supporting my conclusion.

So, yes, unfortunately, ID is still a political and religious movement that can not be considered something one can concede the status of a scientific organization.

That’s a pity. Because at the end of the story, all that plays in the hands of a mechanistic orthodox neo-Darwinian culture that portrays an unguided evolution as a scientific fact, something which it is not, but can easily belittle ID as another form of conservative creationism, and which it isn’t either.

A metaphysical view of evolution that goes beyond the physicalist, reductionist atheist evolutionary paradigm needs a further upgrade. Because, our society needs something that balances a still all-pervading and all-conditioning mechanistic, reductionist, soul-less vision of Nature and Life. Not to impose yet another dogmatic ultimate truth, we have enough of these and don’t need another one, but to build a cultural counterbalance that shows that another way of thinking and seeing the world and Nature is possible and perfectly in line with the modern scientific findings. A metaphysical paradigm of evolution should open itself to other cultures and philosophies, especially those which go beyond religion. In fact, I see the potential contribution of whatever religion as very limited when it comes to the question of meaning and purpose in the Universe and a theistic vs. non-theistic evolution. Much more valuable could be the insights from the mystic traditions of ALL civilizations, not just that of Christian tradition. And, please, for the Designer’s sake, the political affinities should remain a personal choice that must not be proclaimed on the official media of a philosophical movement that pretends to be recognized as “scientific.”

This, with tons of scientific evidence supported by articles from peer-reviewed mainstream journals, is the approach that I followed in my book “Spirit calls Nature”. If such an approach to science and spirituality is embraced, then I believe it could become one of the most influential contemporary metaphysical cultural movements.