Evolution and Intelligence

Posted by Shajan on 10 April 2009 | 1 Comments

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Is there an intelligence driving evolution of life?

I believe so. My reasons are too complex to be discussed in this short space. I am aware that any hypothesis involving intelligence or mind as the cause for evolution is on precarious grounds. Is there a way out of this vulnerability?

Natural selection has been compared to a universal acid- 'It eats through just about every traditional concept'. This is a fitting description of the core idea behind science of life. Anything, from giraffe's long neck to the popularity of religious beliefs, can be explained as a result of natural selection.

Yet there are well-known scientists holding onto belief in an intelligent designer for various reasons. The difficulty with such theories is that no one knows what exactly this designer is or where it comes from. Can it be measured or detected? Intelligent design theories will remain a disguised version of creationism as long as such questions are unanswered.

Perhaps this problem should be viewed from a different angle. Instead of searching for an Intelligent Designer, ask why it cannot be found. Treat it as a black box, an unknown property of nature and look for a logical explanation why it remains beyond the grasp of human reason. Ultimate solution for the puzzle of life may come from an understanding of how human minds acquire knowledge.

There is intelligence behind evolution, but it is not an all powerful, all knowing patriarch. I believe in a God that is blind and stumbling, continuing its journey of self-discovery through unchartered waters, thirsting to know itself through its creations. The most powerful expression of this God is self-awareness, as being realized in man, the latest of its designs.

Life scientists study the stumbling ways of this God but see only randomness, failing to recognize that human intelligence is not the ultimate measure of reality but merely a spark from this cosmic intelligence.

-Shajan

http://science-and-religion.sulekha.com/


Comments

  • I agree that there is an intelligence driving the evolution of life, at least evolution in the biological sense. Life is more than material existence, it is, was, before there was the material, though that implies a dependence on time, which does not really exist, nor does the material world, it is all illusion.

    An Intelligent Designer can be found, though it depends on ones level of awareness; as of the last couple of decades, of this lifetime, I am well aware of other people, beings, whatever, as well as energises and structures beyond the physical.

    I do not “believe in a God that is blind and stumbling, continuing its journey through uncharted waters, thirsting to know itself and its creations”, I know a Higher Power that is neither blind, nor stumbling, and is only in uncharted waters in the sense of experiencing that which can only be experienced in the physical

    That “Life scientists study the stumbling ways of this God but see only randomness”, if that really is the case, is due to the limitations of science and scientists.

    We are a spark of that cosmic intelligence. Everything else is of that Source, Higher Power, God, whichever one wishes to apply; there is nothing else; that is all that exists.

    Posted by Richard King, 25/04/2009 10:31am (1 year ago)

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