Welcome to the worlds of Steven Michael Harris (Author, Theorist, Educator and Performer).
In the beginnings of knowledge when little was known about the workings about the world and man, religion filled the void of ignorance by giving “God” as the explanation for the mysteries unexplained. Various breakthroughs in the understanding of the world and of the variety and beauty of life have taken, bit by bit, the realm of the unexplained away from “God” as it was explained by science. Darwin really shook things up with his explanation of how the mathematics of natural selection could explain the diversity of life and did explain the evolution of various species from other now extinct species over billions of years (therefore causing conflict with religious writings of creationism) and genetic analysis has given further evidence for the family lines of various species of plant and animal life.
Various religious groups have now been promoting a “science” of creationism to protect their beliefs in the bible and other religious writing from the conflicting evidence concerning the age of the earth among other things. One of their favorite arguments is to say that the theory of evolution is just a theory and not proven and that the belief in evolution is a false God or false religion of its own.
In some ways they are right.
I am not writing that religion is the way to find an answer to any problem about the nature of the world or man or the mind, but I am writing that evolution and natural selection and genetics have become a religion of sorts.
When the evolutionary theorists state that a mutation occurs at some point and that an animal develops some organ such as an eye or apparatus of echolocation due to accidents of time and genetics, I agree with them. When the evolutionary theorists state that an animal evolved into a certain shape that we can see with an arrangement of body parts having various structures and functions, I agree. When they state that humans evolved a heart of a certain shape and function that is different from a predecessor, I agree. We can see all of these differences in the species and can explain how they work and why they work and evolution/natural selection deserves the credit.
But when they explain the unknown of function and structure as something that is just caused by the magic of evolution and natural selection without an understanding of how such a realm works (and sometimes without any attempt at an explanation) or when they claim that a section of the brain serves some function because of some evolutionary reason (with only statistical evidence of changes of firing rates in accord with that function) or describe some evolutionary or genetic reason for some subset of the function of brain and mind without proof that such a subset even exists as they have described it, I disagree. This is the case concerning the mind and the brain and behavior. They have no idea how the mind and brain work and no idea how the brain and mind influence behavior nor what the basic principals are behind qualia and consciousness and disorders and habits and decline and statistical trends in behavior (nor about how individuals will behave in markedly different ways as exceptions to the statistical rule).
With many pieces of evidence that go against their theories, they are constantly giving credit to evolution/natural selection and giving credit to genetics for the complex structure of the nervous system when they don’t really understand the principles behind how the nervous system works and how the mind and feelings and actions, etc. emerge from these many cells arranged in such a complex way. (They also ignore the genome evidence that there are not enough genes to map out a structure of such complexity as the brain.) When they give credit to evolution and genetics for the way we behave and the way animals differ in behavior and for the predictability of the arrangement of the brain while at the same time giving credit to the same evolution and genetics for the flexibility of the brain in dealing with changes in bodies or for the strange exceptions of design in certain individuals who function quite well but with marked differences in the arrangement of their nervous systems with no genetic differences caused by early insults to their bodies or some other unknown... when they say that genetics carries “instructions” for a certain amount of plasticity (flexibility of design) while at the same time carries the instructions for the particulars of the wiring diagram of the brain... when they say that we evolved a certain behavior because of a certain thinking process or need (without proof other than the sense of their argument or the agreement of other such creative writing)... all of this and more, then they might as well replace the words “evolution” and “natural selection” and “genetics” with the word “God.” They are offering the explanation of their false god for unknowns that they have no way of explaining through their ignorance or lack of creativity. If it is too complex to explain or understand, these days they replace the word “God” as the explanation with the word “evolution.”
My argument here does not disagree with the existence of evolution/natural selection. Evolution and natural selection are facts, not theory. But the lines of what you explain with evolution and what you explain with other factors need to be redrawn. Early in the evolution of life on this planet there evolved a nervous system that works and learns according to a kind of mathematics and according to certain principles that, when understood much better than now, will explain how a brain can be arranged both predictably and with flexibility and will explain the nature of how decline occurs through the accumulation of stresses and will explain new ways to redress those problems with new therapies and this explanation will not come from the copout explanation that it is all in the genetic instructions or that the complexity just evolved over time.
If you have read my essays you might be able to recognize that I have offered alternative explanations that don’t resort to that copout (although evolution is still a partner in the explanation).
[Click to Go Back to Unified Theory Directory Page]
placeholder
This is a placeholder
Copyright © 1997-2008
steven michael harris
Lexington, virginia, usa