The Darwin debate is one of the most persistent of contemporary culture. And Darwin's theory of evolution is one of the most heavily defended ideologies of modern times, and yet its basis in the claims for natural selection has always been suspect. In one way the reason for this is not hard to find. A program of scientific reductionism will run out of gas, and start misapplying itself to the value domain as a total theory of reality. Sooner or later, culture will become restive and revolt. And so we see it. The problems were completely foreseen by the philosopher Kant, yet his thinking has little debate in the watered down debate on both sides. 

The difficulties with Darwinism have been stated a hundred times, and nothing could be easier than seeing the problem here, and yet an immense amount of confused thinking has obfuscated the issues. Now with the Intelligent Design movement the whole debate has been rendered almost intractable by confusing the issue still further. Much of the classic criticism of Darwin's theory has been taken over by religionists and mixed with their own perspectives, often making the original critiques dysfunctional by the addition of spiritualizing red herrings. 

In all the garbled versions of the 'fact' and the 'theory' let us simply reiterate that the 'fact' of evolution has been strongly confirmed by the evidence, but that the theory of natural selection is, always was, remains, problematical, and insufficient demonstrated. 

The debate is a form of metaphysical deadlock, and conceals precisely those antinomies described by the philosopher Kant. If you have a theory of evolution, then you have a claim on the question of divinity, soul, and free will. But since each of these questions will without fail equivocate dialectically ad infinitum, it is probably the case you will always be wrong if you misuse such a theory to claim to break the tie on these issues. We see at once that Darwin's theory is in trouble. A theory of natural selection simply can't break the tie on the dialectic of divinity, soul, and free will. That's the hard reality of our life, our metaphysically limited life. These statements themselves are not fully proven, so you will be driven to break the tie again and again. The current Intelligent Design is a typical instance of this species of foolishness.

Over and Out. That's it. Darwinism debriefed. Next case. 

Some Reflections on Darwinism

One way to break the deadlock is by ditching the claims for a full theory, and retreating to 'evolutionary maps', the approach taken in the eonic effect. And studying history itself. We can construct all the evolution we need in an historical mode, using visible historical data. 

Using a Kantian approach we can partially solve the problem, or at least explicate why we can't solve the problem, if we introduce one new idea to the reductionist program, the idea of freedom essentially, and use this to produce a broader perspective. Many of the problems go away if we do this, which is not to say we have produced an alternate theory. 

Look carefully at biological research. It thrives because, behind the claims for theory, they adopt the 'map' approach. The detail is brilliant, the theory sawdust.  

Darwinists demand a distinction of cultural and biological evolution, then violate the boundaries between the two.  In part this is because of the wrong emphasis on purely genetic evolution. But always the crux of the problem is selectionist thinking. The study of the pattern of non-random evolution called the 'eonic effect' can highlight the limits of any type of theory dealing with natural selection. What is the relation of history and evolution, and how can history help us in sorting out the confusions? That's a big question, but in a nutshell, the descent of man, as envisaged in the Paleolithic, must show some resemblance to what we see in history. Why? For the very simple reason that what we call man's evolution in deep time was actually, also, the beginning of history, in the sense of the emergence of free agency, if not free will. So we cannot have one kind of explanation for deep time and another for history. That is the catch-22 that allows us to infer a great deal about evolution from man's own history.  

Before studying this it is useful to consider some of the classic criticisms of Darwin's theory. These criticisms has been the object of endless 'rebuttals' by Darwinians, but these have never really addressed the issues properly. Always a lingering doubt remains. And the fundamentalist/Creationist attempts to use these criticisms for their own purposes has made it difficult for many to disassociate critical thinking on evolution from Trojan horse tactics by religionists. Sometimes this takes the form of attacking methodological naturalism. Certainly this ism has its problems, its metaphysical hidden assumptions, but the rejection of naturalism can only backfire. It all depends on how we define nature. Since we might not understand evolution it follows that defining naturalism is a work in progress. Scientists, it is true, tend to assume they already are able to define naturalism in advance, proceeding to deny certain avenues of enquiry that aren't naturalistic. But even given this it is hard to seem how attacking naturalism is going to help. It is simply not useful to divide evolutionary study in twain betwixt material and supposed spiritual processes. The ambiguity of Intelligent Design critiques is at fault here.  The rich structure of biochemical entities, beside its powerfully intriguing enigmas of 'design' in quotation marks, certainly gives us equally an 'odd sense of ultra-sophisticated mechanics'. That 'sense of design' is quite different from the argument from design, which has long since been challenged by figures such as Hume and Kant. So what are the ID critics really saying? This argument works both ways in any case. Look at the amazing structures of DNA biochemistry. We have an amazing demonstration of something that does operate 'mechanically', amazing as that seems at first. We used to be impressed by the hitech in toasters, but after looking at DNA in action, I, for one, find closer to chimpanzees than anything else. Speak for yourself. That, however, is not grounds for more totem mystifications. The realm of DNA confirms our suspicion that evolution is testing the limits of our powers of comprehension, and that if we persist in naturalistic enquiry we will, in fact, see nature's depth. Noone of this tells us how such structures evolved. The point is merely that selectionist explanation seems limited. 

We need to rescue history from Darwinian fallacies. Although the study of history is carefully distinguished by biologists from issues of evolution, the influence of Darwinism on the study of history is indirect, unseen, and very great. It is also pernicious and misleading, because, taken seriously, there would be no real history at all if we reduced everything to Darwinian foundations. Current accounts of art, altruism, religion, and the rest using scenarios of genetic adaptationism are misleading at best, and at worst signs that scientific training is creating stupidity in otherwise intelligent men. Attempting to explicitly carry out the 'Darwin revolution' on history is the ambition of many, including the sociobiologists whose attempts to annex history to fundamentalist Darwinism are given a scientific sanction they don't deserve. 

Therefore, it is essential, and interesting, before looking at evolution and history, to review some of the critical literature on the subject to be clear that no one is under any evidentiary obligation to take Darwinian selectionism as established scientifically, surprising as some may find that. 

Debates over evolution routinely, almost obsessively, muddle the difference between the reality of evolution, taken as a historical record of fossils, and the theory purporting to explain that--natural selection. Much, but not all of the blame, lies with religious critics who seem to hope that by undermining claims for the mechanism they will thereby refute the claims of evolution itself. 

Natural Selection--A Close Look

The problem then is natural selection, not evolution. It is fairly easy to see where Darwinism goes wrong. We fail to properly observe incidents of selectionist evolution. It's that simple. In the link to another page on the hurricane argument we can take a closer look at the severe problems with verification of any such claims. 

 Darwinists claim a fully developed theory on the basis of which all views of culture and ethics are to be changed, and they claim this aggressively, calling all other views unscientific. We should therefore demand to see what grounds they have for this. In fact, we discover a theory with severe flaws, about which it is good to be skeptical. Thus, we under no obligation to accept the claimed conclusions or their applications to culture, religion, and history. This is crucial in the debate over sociobiology, where very dubious models of the evolution of ethics build on the previous case for natural selection, and are successful because of promotional rather than scientific factors. The case for natural selection is much weaker than Darwinists seem to realize, and springs from prior assumptions about what constitutes a naturalistic explanation. This can fatally prejudice interpretation of the fossil record whose treacherous immensity is not easily made the object of our simplistic theories.

The same two questions always haunt the theory, natural selection, and the rate of evolution.

• It was always this way, and it is worth remembering the problems T.H. Huxley had with Darwin's theory, whose implications of the fact of evolution he vigorously defended. He was never fully satisfied of the proof of natural selection, struggled with issues of saltation, and was acquainted with the parallel developmental tradition whose implications are even now resurfacing in evolution.  Finally, he changed his perspective in later life, on the issues of evolution and ethics. So we might take our cue from Huxley, at the point where critics of Darwinism are subjected to considerable abuse in a field where the myths of the founders reign. 

The problem with natural selection is that it is statistically implausible. This fact is too often ignored, or else made the object of ridicule in the first chapter of Darwin texts. But the problems simply won't go away. It is confusing because natural selection is always, almost by definition, the case. It operates at all times. It is tangible. Intangible, or intermittent factors, might elude us completely, be unseen, and throw our interpretations out of whack. Huxley was always clearly nervous about this, and badgered Darwin on the point. 

If natural selection is not the exclusive mechanism of evolution, we should expect to find a pattern of discontinuity, of any kind,  in the record, and that we do find. That is not grounds for supernaturalism, only of some unknown operative factor. This raises the issue of macroevolution and microevolution, and there the questions become difficult. But the basic point here is a challenge to the exclusive basis of natural selection. Given that, with no agendas of religion attached, we can proceed to the study of history without further ado.  

 Always be wary here when Darwinists use indignation to do an end run here around the Standard Objections to Natural Selection. It is the point of no return for innocent minds in the education mill. Most have never even read a single critique of Darwinism, yet the underground literature is considerable. Being brainwashed is not a svengalian conspiracy, but the result of inadequate information in an explosion of partial knowledge, and its rote dissemination in semi-ideological contexts. It is very difficult to make one's way through the literature, and you are effectively on your own. The result is hi-tech complexity mixed with rank distortions, a bad state of affairs. That hampers the obvious and urgent need to simply toss in the towel with respect to absolute claims about evolution. Who cares anymore? Better to retreat to protect the reputation of science.  There is no way this theory is going to abolish religion. Its job is done there, a one shot deal. If anything adherence to extreme Darwinism is forcing a comeback of religious preoccupations. Secularization was proceeding just as well without Darwin's theory, which injected a red-herring into complex issues for which there is probably no easy answer. 

Double agendas, religious and scientific, divide the unknown for reasons of cultural politics. Agendas of naturalism, although productive and fruitful, tend to distract attention form the real complexity, and the real unknowns, for the definition of naturalism is not a given. And man, let alone his evolution, is a mystery. Darwinists collide with fundamentalists, and this tends to set the 'spiritual' against the 'material'. But Buddhism, at least originally, was as materialist as you can get, yet saw a side of man that is lost to modern thought. Millennia of Buddhists have confirmed the deep psychology of man. No spiritual or reductionist argument is likely to gainsay this history that has evolved (!) in a world parallel to the rise of the west. 

 We need no conclusions here one way or the other about earlier evolution, no one knows. But we must be clear that natural selection is not appropriate in the context of cultural evolution, and is a poor candidate for the evolution of values, art, religion, and much else. Hopefully this page will make you a Darwin doubter. Once a Darwin doubter, you are a better Darwin student. At least separate organismic and cultural evolution.   

The Eonic Effect: History and Evolution

Study of the eonic effect can be helpful in seeing the difficulties of evolution at close hand, although its context is quite different from organismic evolution. What do we mean by evolution, and how does it relate to history? Can we really accept the claims here for natural selection in the descent of man? You can argue for a century about this, but a crash course in the eonic effect will free you from assumptions in this area, and stop the hopeless confusion of Darwinism applied to society.

• The eonic effect deals with a new approach to historical evolution, and demonstrates a non-random pattern in full view, just behind us in world history. Nothing could be simpler. It is very easy, dead easy, to demonstrate a non-random pattern in history, yet its implications are considerable. We can see that the evolution of ethics proceeds independently of normal selectionist mechanisms. The techniques use simple periodization, and obviate the dangers of historicism. Even if the claims over the eonic effect are wrong, which is doubtful, the exercise of actually trying to deal with evolution in action are instructive. For the hidden assumptions in Darwinism are gross and quite the result of never seeing more than a sieve-like fossil record. 

History has its own, observed, evidence of developmental evolution, at the centuries level. So the balance of the evidence is in our favor. Period. SNAP OUT OF DARWIN HYPNOSIS! For deep time we toss in the towel, perhaps, case not proven. But as to the descent of man, our eonic effect constitutes a photo finish argument that wishes to manually override claims for the evolution, especially cultural, of early man. Religion, art, and the fundamentals of civilization, even science, show a characteristically elusive macro factor in history. Our photo finish argument means that if someone who wasn't at the races claims the horse was black, and the photo finish shapshot says it was gray, then the latter evidence overrides. Thus the eonic effect suggests a discrepancy in current accounts.  

• Theoretical Self-Defense:  It can be very difficult to stand up to the confusions of Darwinian theory, and you are likely to swing into an opposite error. Study of the eonic effect can't resolve all the issues, but it can free the study of history from preconceptions, without precipitating the confusions of Creationism, with which we will adopt no quarrel except at the point 'where punctuated equilibrium turns theological etc'. We can admire the design argument, but we cannot make it knowledge (as far as I know). Our perspective is evolution. But Darwinian natural selection is almost certainly far off the mark, as to the evolution of man. 

This approach is not anti-evolution and will help you study the literature which is often caught in misleading defenses of the standard version. The issue here is not spirit versus matter, religion and science, but the nature of theories of evolution, in a naturalistic context, naturalism being improperly defined in relation to reductionism. This issue is non-random evolution, and an argument about history, thereby. We actually don't need to assume anything about Darwinism, to proceed. But non-random evolution is the object of much confusion. Dawkins in Climbing Mount Improbable counterattacks against the various critiques of randomness in traditional anti-Darwinism, e.g. random mutations but non-random natural selection are said to show evolution is not random.   That is all very well but it merely changes the subject, the issue is non-random, that is, directional, evolution. So the statements about non-random natural selection have mostly confused the issue. That said, waste Zero time worrying about refuting Darwin is that will delay or obviate a consideration of history in light of the eonic effect.  

Notes

Ernst Mayr, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought, Cambrdige: Harvard University Press, 1991. Michael Ruse, The Evolution Wars: A Guide to the Debates, Santa Barbara, Ca: ABC-Clio, 2000. William Irvine, Apes, Angels, and Victorians: Darwin, Huxley and Evolution, New York: MacGraw-Hill, 1955. Loren Eiseley, Darwin’s Century: Evolution and the Men Who Discovered It, New York: Doubleday, 1961. Peter Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1983. Sherrie Lyons, Thomas Henry Huxley: The Evolution of a Scientist, Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1999. Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism, New York: Knopf, 1992. Larry Witham, By Design: Science and the Search for God, San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003, Larry Witham, Where Darwin Meets the Bible, New York: Oxford, 2002.  Robert Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994.