Science, Culture and Integral Yoga Get free daily SCIY
updates by entering your email address here: Recent Comments
Re: Convergent evolution ned Tue 02 Jun 2009 12:17 PM PDT Kepler, I agree with your assessment of Conway Morris. I liked his ideas but I also felt he was crippled by this sort of orthodox Christianity.
Convergent evolution Kepler Mon 01 Jun 2009 07:04 PM PDT I didn’t know much about Simon Conway Morris prior to reading his essay reproduced in the current AntiMatters, but I’ve since learned. He has impeccable scientific credentials and is known for the concept of convergent evolution, which demonstrates that biological evolution has repeatedly and wholly independently “converged” to the same solutions (the camera-like eye, complex vocalizations, and many other examples he has carefully documented) in ways that would be outrageously improbable via purely “contingent” evolution, which asserts that meaningless random mutations naturally selected (a so-called “drunkard’s walk”), produce all biological structure. Very interesting stuff, detailed in his 2003 book Life's Solution.
In this essay, from 2005, he talks about his ideas on evolution in the context of religious thought. He sees in convergent evolution the signs of purpose and intention (quite unlike Stephen J Gould who apparently believed fully in contingent evolution – notwithstanding his disputes with ultra-Darwinists over punctuated equilibrium), and he makes other interesting observations like the plausibility of dimensions of reality “orthogonal” to the material world, and the suggestive nature of song and music.
He also strongly distances himself from the Intelligent Design movement, seemingly because its scientific claims (even the best from Berlinski and Behe) have been plausibly countered, and Conway Morris is utterly convinced humans are indeed a product of evolution.
Unfortunately, at the end of the day his chosen interpretive framework for all this meaning and intention in evolution is, to use his own phrase, “orthodox Christianity”. I assume he’s not conversant with (or not interested in) more modern and fruitful approachs to attributing spiritual meaning to evolution’s convergence on mentally conscious physical beings. Reading his build-up to what it all might mean, it's striking how well Sri Aurobindo's views seem to explain the phenomena Conway Morris has been studying; but instead he wants to find some way to work Jesus, sin, and salvation into the picture. Perhaps the atavism of the Church of England weighs heavily in his subconscious mind? Kepler
Recent Articles
Evidence of Sraddhalu Ranade’s involvement in legal action koantum
Occidentalism by Ian Buruma, Avishai Margalit (NYRB) Rich
Orientalism Revisited: Edward Said’s unfinished critique (Boston Review) ronjon
The Third Eye and Two Ways of (Un)knowing: Gnosis, Alternative Modernities, and Postcolonial Futures: Makarand Paranjape,Professor of English, JNU, New Delhi Rich
Cogito in the Matrix by Erik Davis Rich
Progress and Violence, by Shiv Visvanathan Rich
The Cybernetic Delirium of Norbert Wiener by Stephen Pfohl (C Theory) Rich
100 Years of Sri Aurobindo on Evolution: The Illusion of Human Progress and the Ideal of Human Unity (part 5 of 6) Rich
Postsecular Interrogations: AsiaSource Interview with Talal Asad Debashish
A response to the organizers of AUM 2009 koantum
Neo-Liberalism as Doxa and India Discourse on Globalization by, Rohit Chopra [Full paper added by ron] Rich
Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining koantum
Response to Sraddhalu, Alok letter of May 10th on Heehs reintegration Rich
A Proposal - Shifting From Words to Action by Savitra Debashish
Law Suits, Sraddhalu and the Fraternity of Conspiracy Theorists Rich
Recent Comments
Re: Convergent evolution ned
Convergent evolution Kepler
Re: Orientalism Revisited: Edward Said’s unfinished critique (Boston Review) rakesh
Re: Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining sane yeshwant
Re: Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining ned
Re: Peter, his book and/or the REAL ISSUES?! (from SAICE) by Aurofilio ned
Re: Peter, his book and/or the REAL ISSUES?! (from SAICE) by Aurofilio Filio
Re: Active Omissions: A Review of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Manoj - Annotated by Debashish Debashish
Re: Active Omissions: A Review of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Manoj - Annotated by Debashish Kepler
Re: Active Omissions: A Review of The Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Manoj - Annotated by Debashish Debashish
Notable SCIY Topics
Life Divine Colloquia via Skype
Goodbye To All That: reflections on the future body
Integral Ideology
Psalm for Coltrane
Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies III
Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies II
Techno-Capitalism and Post-Human Destinies I
Promise of the Future
Derrida the Movie - a Review
Louis Armstrong International Airport
Drill Baby Drill
Prana, Kratu, Jazz
RYD has posted in Mirror of Tomorrow, separately, a short compilation (in my last book there is much more) that I have put together quoting from The Mother on Atavism. Have you read it? This is where the divide is, a psychological divide. Not between Indians and not Indians, but between a certain fringe of Indian mentality versus a certain fringe of Western (but also Indian) mentality, i.e. in Auroville. A comment has been posted in reference to an article titled: Archetypal Images and Symbols—by Paulette Comment posted by: Paulette
No comments:
Post a Comment