Accepting the above as true, Darwinists still miss
the main point concerning evolutionary paths.
What is the entire point of science?
It's to be able to predict and by doing so
control our fate.
It's naturally assumed that by answering the question
how did we get here, we will learn how the system
works and be able to predict the future of that
system.
But that's not the case when it comes to evolutionary
systems. Some aspects are predictable, others
are not at all.
Self-organization
Self-organization can be defined as the spontaneous emergence
of global structure out of local interactions. “Spontaneous”
means that no internal or external agent is in control of
the process: for a large enough system, any individual agent
can be eliminated or replaced without damaging the resulting
structure. The process is truly collective, i.e. parallel
and distributed over all the agents. This makes the
resulting organization intrinsically robust and resistant
to damage and perturbations. (Heylighen, 2008, p. 6)
Using the game of chess as an example.
Once a life form has evolved, or once
a game of chess is over, reconstructing
the moves from beginning to end does
nothing to help predict the next move
in another ongoing game.
As each move is influenced by countless
and mostly unknowable variables.
From whims, to guesses, emotions, environment
and so on.
Let's say each move has ten possibilities.
And ten variables, the context within which
the decision was made, determine each decision.
Once the decision is made, the nine unchosen
paths vanish into thin air. Those unchosen paths
are NOT saved in the fossil record, they are NOT
recorded in the gene pool. They can't be recovered.
The ten variables, the context for the decision
are also not recorded. You can go back in time
and point out the decisions, or steps that
were made, but not the reasons WHY they
were made.
So predicting the next move in chess, or
in an evolutionary path is a fools errand.
The reason WHY each choice mas made will always
be unknowable when reconstructing the past.
Only in the present can the context be seen.
HOWEVER each move in the game of chess is
determined by a purposeful intelligence.
A player has a goal, to win, or reproduce
as the case may be, and that's the driving
force for each decision.
Intelligent decisions within a complex context
decide the next step, and by extension
each and every step as they chase a predetermined
....goal or purpose.
Same is true for all higher forms of life
evolved enough to act on their own behalf.
The evolutionary path is not decided by
random events or simple selective pressures
but by intelligent purpose. That is the
answer to WHY.
HOW is not enough, it's only half the answer
and the simple half to boot.
They 'self-organize'. Selection merely fine tunes
what self organization initially created.
The two go hand in hand, but the heart of
creation and evolution is self organization
or emergence, not natural selection.
Even Dear Emily knew this 150 years ago, see
her incredible poem defining the modern form
of self organization below. As she says the
environment merely endorses the internal
and universal process of creation born
of the persistent competition of opposing
forces. Known today as the critical interaction
between static and chaotic attractors.
The uniqueness of biological self-organization: challenging
the Darwinian paradigm
Abstract
Here we discuss the challenge posed by self-organization to
the Darwinian conception of evolution. As we point out,
natural selection can only be the major creative agency
in evolution if all or most of the adaptive complexity
manifest in living organisms is built up over many generations
by the cumulative selection of naturally occurring small,
random mutations or variants, i.e., additive, incremental
steps over an extended period of time.
Biological self-organization—witnessed classically in the
folding of a protein, or in the formation of the cell membrane
—is a fundamentally different means of generating complexity.
We agree that self-organizing systems may be fine-tuned by
selection and that self-organization may be therefore
considered a complementary mechanism to natural selection
as a causal agency in the evolution of life. But we argue
that if self-organization proves to be a common mechanism
for the generation of adaptive order from the molecular
to the organismic level, then this will greatly undermine
the Darwinian claim that natural selection is the major
creative agency in evolution.
We also point out that although complex self-organizing systems
are easy to create in the electronic realm of cellular automata,
to date translating in silico simulations into real material
structures that self-organize into complex forms from local
interactions between their constituents has not proved easy.
This suggests that self-organizing systems analogous to those
utilized by biological systems are at least rare and may
indeed represent, as pre-Darwinists believed, a unique
ascending hierarchy of natural forms. Such a unique
adaptive hierarchy would pose another major challenge to
the current Darwinian view of evolution, as it would mean
the basic forms of life are necessary features of the order
of nature and that the major pathways of evolution are
determined by physical law, or more specifically by the
self-organizing properties of biomatter, rather than
natural selection.
Growth of Man -- like Growth of Nature --
Gravitates within --
Atmosphere, and Sun endorse it --
Bit it stir -- alone --
Each -- its difficult Ideal
Must achieve -- Itself --
Through the solitary prowess
Of a Silent Life --
Effort -- is the sole condition --
Patience of Itself --
Patience of opposing forces --
And intact Belief --
Looking on -- is the Department
Of its Audience --
But Transaction -- is assisted
By no Countenance --
s