Darwinian evolution produced human consciousness, because Darwinian evolution is true

(Note: further down in this entry, Leonard D. replies again, and I reply. I affirm that Darwinians have plausible reasons to believe in their theory, most importantly the genetic similarities among different life forms, but no proof that the theory is true, while there remain ample reasons to doubt the theory.)

In reply to my last reply in our discussion on “Memes versus truth,” where I said that “Darwinian evolution is inherently incompatible with the existence of human consciousness,” my correspondent Leonard D. sends this, to me, remarkable comment.

Of course Darwinians think that consciousness came into being via random mutation and selection. But this is not because we have any specific ideas about the evolution of consciousness per se. Rather, it’s because we believe the theory, and we are using it deductively. All biological traits came into being via random mutation and selection. Consciousness is a biological trait. QED.

Science has little understanding of what consciousness is, how it works, or what it is for. So it seems unfair to expect Darwinians to have any specific theory of how it evolved.

The wiki page on consciousness is worth reading to see how undeveloped the topic is. It’s all over the place. Evidently there are Darwinians theorizing about it. I expect they are making some heavy assumptions or definitional tricks to even get started.

[end of comment]

Again I thank Leonard for so unguardedly expressing the dogmatic, a priori logic on which the supposed science of evolutionary biology or Darwinism is founded. The Darwinian theory is no longer something to be proved or even filled out and supported by further evidence. It is itself the foundation of biological truth, the axiom on which all biological knowledge is based; and not only biological knowledge, but all scientific knowledge, since it is Darwinism which, by supposedly proving evolution without God, has sealed the case that only matter is real and thus elevated material science into the only valid form of knowledge. This is where Leonard is coming from when he says that since material Darwinian evolution is simply true, therefore consciousness evolved by Darwinian evolution. Leonard even adds “QED,” meaning “that which was to be demonstrated,” an expression normally used at the end of a proof of an argument. Leonard sincerely believes that he has proved something, when all he’s done is to repeat the Darwinian dogma and apply it to consciousness.

It might be replied that Leonard is just a commenter at a blog, not a scientist, and therefore his views are not representative of Darwinian thinking. But in fact they are representative. For example, in his highly recommended book Why Evolution is True, the evolutionary scientist Jerry Coyne repeatedly asserts as a fact that which he is supposed to be demonstrating. Also, the leading lights in the field, just like Leonard, constantly move back and forth between acknowledging with seeming modesty that there are lots of key things about Darwinian evolution that have not yet been demonstrated, and asserting with absolute authority that Darwinism is scientific fact, as true as the law of gravity, as Coyne has put it.

With the believers in materialism and in materialist science arguing in this profoundly unscientific manner, no wonder we have “Ida” the 47 million year old primate touted as “The Missing Link” (missing link between what and what?), and the first European Cro-Magnon man presented as an African Negro. Today’s materialist scientists believe that they are in the possession of the only truth, a claim that in the human mind and in practice translates into, “Whatever we WANT to be true, IS true.”

- end of initial entry -

Hannon writes:

Leonard D. says in his latest comment that

“Science has little understanding of what consciousness is, how it works, or what it is for. So it seems unfair to expect Darwinians to have any specific theory of how it evolved.”

Yet they do not even know if it evolved in the normal evolutionary, biological sense. They just assume this, as you note. Would it not seem equally unfair to label any alternative views of what consciousness is, or what its purpose is, as outside the realm of rational thinking or even scientific inquiry? Leonard D. implies this and many others more aggressively demand that such alternative thinking be disregarded altogether.

Moreover, this absurd “I do not know what we are dealing with here but your unscientific line of thought in the matter is invalid” posturing is nothing more than protectionist stonewalling. The hard core materialists claim to deride belief and faith as a matter of general principle, yet all of their chips are riding on an eventual Darwinian explication of consciousness. A sort of intellectual blackjack. Simply amazing.

Ben W. writes:

Leonard D.: “Of course Darwinians think that consciousness came into being via random mutation and selection”

So consciousness came into being through a random process, yet consciousness itself uses non-random cause-and-effect logical structures to decode the past. How does non-random cause-and-effect thinking arise out of randomness? Isn’t this contradictory?

Cause-and-effect thinking puts non-random, structured, logical grids on processes. How did a random process produce a non-random structure? Isn’t this the Darwinian paradox of consciousness that cannot be resolved in strictly Darwinian terms?

Mack writes:

I’m trying to wrap my head around your contention that “Darwinian evolution is inherently incompatible with the existence of human consciousness”—this is such a bold assertion that I want to spend some time with it. I am aware of quite a number of evolutionary explanations for consciousness, but that’s not very important until I can grok your argument completely.

Sometime I think a lengthy discussion of the evolutionary theories of consciousness might be in order. And maybe a re-visitation of speciation, there’s been a good deal of research on that topic lately too!

LA replies:

For starters, here are some VFR entries on whether Darwinian evolution is compatible with the existence of human consciousness, and specifically of the moral sense:

More mysteries of evolution [Carol Iannone, quoting an E.O. Wilson article which says that we must care about the environment if we are to survive, replies that Darwinians have no right to talk about their concerns for man’s future and other values, since Darwinian evolution could not produce such values. I argue further that Darwinian evolution could produce no desire for the good over pleasure or over things that help increase reproduction. Darwinism could produce no being who is steward or servant of nature, because that implies that man is somehow apart from nature, though in fact Darwinians imply all the time that man is apart from nature, even as they see he is merely a part of nature. Also, starting here, a long discussion with many interesting points.]

Darwinism and truth [Why should a Darwinist, such John Derbyshire, think that lying, such as lying about the fact that he’s an atheist, is wrong? And if Darwinism is true, can there be such a thing as wrong?]

Logically demonstrating why Darwinism precludes an objective moral good [Follow up of “Darwinism and truth.” Julien B. says that I have not logically shown the assertion to be logically true, so I give it another try.]

Zmirak eviscerates Derbyshire [John Zmirak at Taki’s Magazine argues that if we take Derbyshire’s ideas seriously, we can’t take his ideas seriously, because his Darwinian ideas cancel out the very possibility of truth, including the truth of his own statements about Darwinism, such as the altruistic compulsion, supposedly required by evolution, to sacrifice our immediate pleasures for the duties of raising children.]

What Darwinians’ recourse to teleology says about Darwinism [This entry points to comment in “junk yard” entry where I argue that “a Darwinian universe is incompatible both with the existence of an objective moral good and with the existence of a being with intentional consciousness who can know and love the good. And therefore it also lends strong support to the conclusion that Darwinism cannot be true.”]

On the emperor’s 200th birthday, he is still wearing no clothes [I post several of my comments at Secular Right showing that if there is human thought, Darwinism is false, and quoting E.O. Wilson’s statement that evolution has not explained human consciousness.]

June 19

Leonard D. writes:

I put the QED there exactly for the reason you say. It was a very simple deductive proof. [LA replies: I was under the impression that science is not supposed to work by deduction, but by induction, meaning evidence, not abstract reasoning.] I did prove something: from the assumption that Darwinian evolution is correct, I derived the conclusion that consciousness is evolved. This was indeed quite trivial, as you mockingly suggest. I never suggested it was deep.

And yes, I do hold Darwinism as something “no longer … to be proved.” But that is not because I dogmatically hold it as an axiom. It is because in my opinion, it has been scientifically proven. It has passed scientific challenge after challenge. [LA replies: Oh, yes, it’s been proved many times that new species and life forms have come into existence as a result of random genetic mutations and natural selection. How did I miss that?] Skeptics have demanded various intermediate forms thought to be impossible. Then these fossils were found. [LA replies: You’ve got to be kidding. A tiny handful have been found, when the theory requires thousands. For example, Australopithecus is an intermediate form between ape and man. But that doesn’t tell us how apes became Australopithecines, or how the latter became Homo erectus. Those intermediate forms are still missing. If you call the pitiful handful of intermediate forms proof that the intermediate form problem has been solved then I have a bridge to sell you.] It explains atavisms, and predicts their form. It explains embryological development. It explains the geographic distribution of species. [LA replies: This is all false, because you are engaged in the Darwinian fallacy of conflating the general fact of successive life forms, which I and most people accept, with the Darwinian theory that purports to explain HOW that succession took place. Obviously the gradual appearance of new forms fits the geographic distribution of species. but that doesn’t tell us HOW one species led to another. This staggering intellectual dishonesty, shared by all Darwinians, of using evidence of general evolution as “proof” of the Darwinian theory of evolution, continues.] It explains the incredible commonalities in the information found encoded in the genes of all living things. [LA replies: I certainly agree that that is the best evidence Darwinians have that species descended from other species, and it plausibly and reasonably gives rise to the Darwinian belief that this descent occurred by random variations and mutations that were naturally selected. But, again, we DO NOT KNOW that the changes were brought about by random variations and mutations; that is simply a supposition and an extrapolation based on observed slight changes taking places within individual species. It’s just as possible that the changes took place by other means of which we do not know, but have something to do with purposive direction and design. Since there is zero proof that random mutations naturally selected led to new species, the only reason the Darwinians insist on it is that it is the only explanation consonant with the materialist dogma that only matter exists. Once that dogma is dropped, other possibilities, far more reasonable and plausible, come into view. You may say that these other possibilities are pure imagination and spiritism, with not a bit of proof to back them up. But in fact there is not a bit of proof for your theory, and indeed your theory, I argue, is inherently impossible, while there is ample reason to believe that the complex forms and functions of living things came into being as the result of intelligence.] I could go on, but I am sure you can find apologists better than I am, if you are interested. (Here is a start for those interested but too lazy for google.)

Do I mean to suggest that every single life form that has ever existed has had a fossil found? No. Are there gaps? Yes, and there always will be. Are there still some anomalies? I don’t know, but I think it is likely. Can the theory be challenged in any number of ways? Clearly it can. I don’t find the modern challenges convincing in the slightest. [LA replies: The total absence of any proof that innumerable tiny random genetic mutations naturally selected have produced a new organ or life form ought to bring you up short, but it doesn’t. And not only is there no proof that this has happened, the Darwinians have not even presented any plausible scenarios by which it could have happened. They just keep repeating empty phrases—“tiny changes, tiny changes, intermediate forms, intermediate forms,” as though they mean something, but they don’t.] But proof, in science, is inductive, and thus it often comes down to matters of taste. And quite obviously, whether one believes in God makes a huge difference in this, for good reason. God has the power and the motive to do things His way.

But contra your suggestion, this is not dogma. It is utterly unexceptional for scientists to use proven results in any given domain of knowledge as axioms, to build on further. [LA replies: But there is no proof, zero, zilch, nada, that random genetic mutations naturally selected have produced new species. Yes, as I’ve conceded, there are reasonable reasons to suppose that that may be the case, the strongest such reason being the specific genetic links among species (see my later comment in this thread). But that still leaves us completely in the dark about HOW the changes occurred that led from one life form to another.] This is just how science works. Indeed, it is how any rational field works.

Now, I realize that for you, and probably also most of your readers, the assumption that evolution is proven well enough to build with is a nonstarter. But I am not attempting to build on it to convince you of anything. I did not expect my proof to prove anything to you. Rather, I was attempting to explain something about how Darwinists think. [LA replies: And I have shown both the reasonable and the unreasonable elements in their thinking.] Which was, that the question of how consciousness evolved is really not much of a question to us. We know consciousness exists from introspection, no matter how poorly it is understood scientifically. Ergo, it evolved, and that’s that. [LA replies: If you were thinking scientifically in the true sense, instead of dogmatically, you would not have said this. You would have said, “Since consciousness exists, and since scientists have no idea how it evolved, and since there are very strong reasons to doubt that a blind, random material process could produce non-material purposive consciousness, until science does demonstrate that consciousness arose through random mutations and natural selection, Darwinism remains an interesting hypothesis, but not proved.” But you don’t say that. Instead you go on repeating the dogma.] Certainly the details of how it evolved would be of great interest. And we may eventually know something about this, probably from genetics in combination with better understanding of our minds. But we are nowhere near it yet.

Now, to take up on what I gather your correspondent Hannon was getting at: perhaps it will become obvious at some point in the future that consciousness absolutely could not have evolved via natural selection. (I have a hard time imagining what we might discover about it that would show this, but let us make believe.) In that case, we have a disproof of Darwinism, or at least we have disproven strict materialist Darwinism applied to everything. And people such as me will have to retreat, and at the very least, reassess any deductions they have made incorrectly assuming that every aspect of every life form exists via Darwinian evolution. [LA replies: All right, that’s more like it. And I would add that in my view I have already shown that consciousness by its very nature could not have come into existence by random genetic mutations and natural selection.]

LA continues:

I agreed with Leonard on the significance of the “incredible commonalities in the information found encoded in the genes of all living things.” But we need to make a distinction between the general genetic commonality of all living things, and the specific genetic similarities that have been found. The fact that all living things share the same genetic stuff, with, for example, humans having 40 percent (or whatever) of their genome in common with orchids or fruitflies, does not by itself show common descent; it could just as easily show that evolution or the designer uses the same basic material over and over again. What is more persuasive of common descent is highly specific commonalities, such as inactive genes and mutations in one species that are also found in very distantly related species. At the same time, the question of how the descent occurred is still a complete mystery.

June 21

Ben W. writes:

Leonard D.: “Of course Darwinians think that consciousness came into being via random mutation and selection”

So consciousness came through a random process yet consciousness itself uses non-random cause-and-effect logical structures to decode the past. How does non-random cause-and-effect thinking arise out of randomness? Isn’t this contradictory?

Cause-and-effect thinking puts non-random, structured, logical grids on processes. How did a random process produce a non-random structure? Isn’t this the Darwinian paradox of consciousness that cannot be resolved in strictly Darwinian terms?

LA replies:

They don’t attempt to resolve it. They just assert it.

Fergie writes:

Leonard says,

Of course Darwinians think that consciousness came into being via random mutation and selection. But this is not because we have any specific ideas about the evolution of consciousness per se. Rather, it’s because we believe the theory, and we are using it deductively. All biological traits came into being via random mutation and selection. Consciousness is a biological trait. QED.

In other words, I am conscious, therefore I evolved. Ferg

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 18, 2009 06:59 PM | Send