The following is a continuation of a prior post, Genes, Genesis and God: Introduction.

Natural Genesis
A recent New York Times article reported that there is a growing concern among evolutionary biologists that science is in need of a Darwinian paradigm shift. The reasons for this involve the failure of the current evolutionary paradigm, known as the “modern synthesis,” to explain how biodiversity occurs and how natural processes and the behaviors of species may affect the course of evolutionary history (Erwin).

Holmes Rolston might add that neither does it explain the rise in complexity of life forms. Resistance to the new paradigm may have to do with a rejection of any suggestion that nature is teleologic. Grand narratives, after all, are out of style among orthodox biologists (a.k.a., the selfish gene theorists [Rolston, xv]).

Although Rolston is not necessarily presenting us with a grand narrative, he explicitly argues that there is a build up of diversity and complexity in nature which arises out of a historical accumulation and transmission, a sort of sharing of genetic know-how (x). In Rolston’s words, “Something is learned across evolutionary history: how to make more diverse and more complex kinds” (1).

Painting: “Seventh Generation,” Pamela Yates, copyright Pamela Yates (www.pamelayates.com)

He acknowledges this is not a straight line progression; plateaus and breakthroughs occur. For example, during Earth’s history, extinctions followed by rapid speciations happened as a result of climate changes and continental drift (3). He also recognizes that diversity and complexity are not always connected. Beetles and grasses can, for instance, become more diverse without becoming more complex. In fact, a combination of lower and higher forms is necessary to sustain life. But over time, a net gain occurs. (1-12). This waxing and waning is a “cybernetic trend” in which information develops through trial and error learning (12). What is learned about building living entities is recorded and transmitted genetically, the “key to all progress in biological nature” (14).

Genes are blind, in that they do not act with intention, but they are also “smart,” in the sense of a computer program “on a problem solving search” (31). Genes search for and lock on to successful mutations. They share (“distribute in portions”) information, transmitting the accumulated value of individuals and species across generations (46).1 They also introduce novelty into the story, such as the passing over from one kind of species to another (25-26, 29). Biologists can tell us much about how genetics works. What they cannot tell us is how life spontaneously self-generates. This, says Rolston is a key principle of the Earth’s genesis.

The capacity to self-create (autopoiesis) allows order to emerge from chaotic circumstances that natural selection can bring on (12). The natural sciences cannot explain the source of this creativity, nor is there anything in their theories to rule out that God might be that source. Furthermore, the argument that life is built from the bottom up by an imperfect and inelegant evolutionary process in no way rules out God. As Rolston explains, it does not matter from what direction the information or inspiration come. Nor does it matter that autonomous life may struggle and stumble amidst an “atmosphere of possibilities” (367). Such is part and parcel of the creative process. The point is, life on Earth miraculously emerges out of nothing. Science simply has no basis on which to preclude God as the explanation (365-66, 368).

Notes
1 Rolston also says that, with respect to development of individual organisms, organisms are not merely the sum of their genes. Instead, genes are part of an integrated system “where the organism is a whole, a synthesis, and codes its morphologies and behaviors in the genes, which are analytic units of that synthesis, each gene a cybernetic bit of the program that codes the specific form of life” (79).

Works cited
Erwin, Douglas H (2007, June 26). “Darwin Still Rules, but Some Biologists Dream of a Paradigm Shift.” The New York Times. Retrieved June 26, 2007 from http://www.nytimes.com.
Rolston III, Holmes. Genes, Genesis and God, Values and their Origins in Natural and Human History. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1999.