I can't say that I have spent a whole lot of time working on a "scientific" alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution. Mainly I've been looking for evidence that the theory really doesn't hold up, on evidentiary and epistemological grounds. In any case, I am neither a working nor a theoretical scientist, merely a student of the history of science, going back to the ancient world and forward.
Darwin's theory calls for gradualism in evolutionary change — which the fossil record doesn't really support. Then when this became more or less generally acknowledged, attempts were made (e.g., punctuated equilibrium) to obviate the question of why the fossil record does not demonstrate the predicted gradualism. Talk about moving the goal post!
But this right there is a major reworking of Darwin's theory. That is, evidently, the theory had to be "fixed" in order better to conform with the evidence we do have.
For myself, I am vastly more interested, not so much in how species change over time, but in what actual biological organisms in general are and how they are organized. In other words, I'm not interested what biological organisms "look like" and how they "change over time," but in what makes them alive in contradistinction to inorganic, non-living systems in the world.
Darwin's theory is absolutely of no help on this question. And certainly I do not subscribe to this description of the evolutionary process:
“Chance alone is the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution. The central concept of biology … is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one compatible with observed and tested fact. All forms of life are the product of chance….” — Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity, 1971Having said that, the "evolution I 'accept'" would have to conform to my expectation that all living things consist of the material and immaterial.
WRT the "immaterial": This category includes both natural laws and informational processes. The material refers, of course, to physical matter out of which living bodies are formed.
Of course, since Einstein, we know that "matter" is energy in a particular form.
And also of course, that was not the way Darwin regarded matter. His theory is predicated on Newtonian mechanics, in which "matter" is analogous to teensy billiard balls, and all causation is "local." What natural selection "locks in" comes at the end of a "blind, random" process.
Yet biological systems — and biological functions — seem to be organized by means of non-local cause(s), and — rather than merely random processes — are purposeful processes. That is, they represent systems of causal entailment that appear to serve a natural purpose or goal, or what in philosophy is called a final cause. Of course, Francis Bacon — usually credited as the father of the scientific method — banished final cause from science back in the 16th century.
Be that as it may, I do not think it is possible to answer the question, "What is life?" unless science puts final cause back into its tool kit.
Anyhoot, it appears that homo sapiens sapiens has changed very little, if at all, since around 40,000 B.C. Looks like "stasis" at work here, not gradual evolutionary change....
Just some thoughts, dear allmendream. FWTW.
Thank you so much for writing!
Being a biochemist/molecular biologist, and having grown probably billions of cells for experimentation, I can confidently say that I do not know what it means for them to be alive. I have seen that living cells can be removed from a dead animal (or dead person): what does that mean? I don't know. Henrietta Lacks died years before I was born, yet her cells are still alive in labs worldwide. Does that mean that Mrs. Lacks is stuck on earth, or can we assume that her spirit moved on?
There really are questions that science cannot answer. I prefer not to think about them too much; I like to know answers, and that means sticking with those questions that *can* be answered.
Darwin's theory is absolutely of no help on this question. And certainly I do not subscribe to this description of the evolutionary process:
“Chance alone is the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, is at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution. The central concept of biology … is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one compatible with observed and tested fact. All forms of life are the product of chance….” — Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity, 1971
The "chance" that Monod spoke of really is not as random as you might think. Within the context of evolution, chance is more like rolling dice: the result is random, but it will always be constrained by the physical nature of the dice. You will never roll dice and get an ice cream cone, for instance. You will always see a number of pips, falling between n=the number of dice and 6n. DNA has four letters: those letters can be interchanged for each other, or letters can be added or subtracted. There really is nothing else that can happen. The effect of those letters changing depends on where they are; if they are in a protein coding gene, they can change the protein--but not always--and the change may cause the protein to be more, less, or equally functional. If a change in function is the result, it can be advantageous, disadvantageous, or neutral to survival. All random, yes, but within very narrow constraints.
Having said that, the "evolution I 'accept'" would have to conform to my expectation that all living things consist of the material and immaterial.
Of necessity, science is firmly entrenched within the realm of the material. Within the scientific community, we are way beyond debating whether the theory of evolution best describes the known facts and has sufficient predictive power; we're busily adding details and refining what we know. We will never get to the point where we can address metaphysical questions with evolution, or any other science.
Even if we could reach the point where we can assemble a living thing in the lab, from scratch, what would that mean? If we could produce an organism that had all the characteristics of the first living thing, what would that mean? I don't think that would answer what life is (in the metaphysical sense) at all.
Neither you or any other Creationist.
Yet you seem to insist that SOME element of the evolution you claim to accept has a physical basis - yet you have absolutely no idea, nor do you care to make a conjecture, as to what the physical basis is.
Is it intellectual laziness?
You have been discussing an issue you don't really understand for many years now. You don't understand the scientific basis for Darwinian evolution or the scientific physical basis for the evolution you claim you believe in either.
Heck, you don't really even understand what DNA is or what it does - yet are quite certain, somehow, that is isn't able to do it on its own.
Would you take the word of someone who doesn't understand an internal combustion engine that burning gas alone was not necessary and sufficient to provide the energy required to make the car go - that there must be some outside force acting upon the car?
I sure wouldn't. Thus I take your conjecture that DNA, which you don't understand, is not necessary and sufficient to producing a living organism without external and somewhat miraculous “marching orders” - with about the same level of confidence - that being zero.