Dear Ulrich,

You know I'm not the biggest fan of the ID movement, and I'm especially suspicious of the Discovery Institute with all its funding coming from God-only-knows-where. ;-) Berlinski works for the Discovery Institute so I have to say I'm going to approach him with some trepidation, but since you've recommended him here I will pick up his book at some point.

Here I'll plug the Natural Genesis site again, which is one of the best anthologies on post-Darwinian paradigms of evolution I've found:
http://www.naturalgenesis.net/

I recently had an e-mail exchange with Arthur Fabel (who maintains the above site) in which he shared a paper with me that was published in the journal, "Ultimate Reality and Meaning", which I thought was quite apt for Anti-Matters, entitled "Natural Genesis: An Introduction to the Worldwide Discovery of a Creative Organic Universe". I'll e-mail it to you privately if you're interested.

Ned, you know my response.

Basically, according to Sri Aurobindo, materialistic thought is the gospel of death. (Mother's Agenda, August 19, 1966)

I welcome any criticism of materialistic thought, no matter from which quarter it comes. And Berlinski (a Jew) is perhaps the most intelligent critique of the materialistic "theory" of evolution.

Would Sri Aurobindo say that the universe was intelligently designed? Of course he would.

If "intelligent design" is a loaded term, so is "God." The Mother once said something to the effect that she avoided the G word like the plague – until Sri Aurobindo cured her of her aversion. (As you know, he used it liberally.)

The word "evolution" has been equally hijacked. Both creationists and materialistic evolutionist take it to be synonymous with the materialist account.

The scientific theory is concerned only with the outward and visible machinery and process, with the detail of Nature’s execution, with the physical development of things in Matter and the law of development of Life and Mind in Matter; its account of the process may have to be considerably changed or may be dropped altogether in the light of new discovery, but that will not affect the self-evident fact of a spiritual evolution, an evolution of Consciousness, a progression of the soul’s manifestation in material existence. (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 868)

I took a look at naturalgenesis.net but I'm afraid that much of what I wrote in my review of Kauffman's book would apply to some of this material as well.

Hi Ulrich,

Sorry for the late reply.

Like you, I not only am convinced that materialism is false, I am also convinced that it is dangerous and is the source of most of the world's evils at present. Also, I've got no problems with the term "intelligent design" itself, and of course I also am a believer in "intelligent design" in a sense.

But the ID movement itself is highly questionable -- some of the methods these people use to push their agenda, such as their political maneuvering to get ID taught in high school, etc., strike me as quite unethical. I'd hate to see integral yoga associated with things like that. Compare it to the process philosophy folks: they are not afraid to challenge materialism and Darwinism, but they're not pushing for process philosophy to be taught in high schools or anything.

The main argument the mainstream scientists have against ID is that it's not science. It could be taught in a theology class or even in a philosophy of science class, but it's not biology per se. How might you respond to that?

For me, personally, the main problem is that ID doesn't offer a metaphysic (like Whitehead's process philosophy or Sri Aurobindo's Vedantic synthesis) to replace the materialistic metaphysic and the Darwinian paradigm. It just seems that much of it is negative reasoning without anything too constructive to replace the status quo.

I also agree with your criticisms of the Natural Genesis site -- however, I feel it is a good resource in that it goes about as far as one can go purely with reason and the empirical sciences. What I found remarkable was that here is this compendium of data from multiple empirical sciences, and this data, while not conclusively proving a yogic metaphysic (which is something that only inner yogic experience can ultimately do), is remarkably consistent with it. For that reason I've found it to be a useful reference in dialoguing with agnostic or atheist friends.

Hi Ned, first of all, there is not need to apologize.

I am not competent to address the ethics of the ID movement or the Discovery Institute, and I certainly wouldn't do it on the basis of media reports, which on this subject strike me as slanted as it gets.

I actually have quite a few issues with standard science education, see for instance

A Mathematician's Lament

and

Realism: the bane of science education, and what can be done about it.

As regards biology instruction, I find the idea that neo-Darwinism explains evolution totally laughable. To teach this in school as a scientific theory (let alone a validated one) is IMHO a matter for the criminal courts.

The Natural Genesis site is surely a valuable resource. There is indeed a lot of good biology that goes beyond neo-Darwinism (and isn't taught in school). But in its desperate attempt to be naturalistic, it still betrays is materialistic leanings. Take these two passages from Fabel's article:

In a new century and millennium, an innovative synthesis of physics with biology is beginning to explain an inherently developing cosmic and planetary organism.

The old dilemma of growing vitality in a seemingly moribund cosmos is bridged due to recent advances.

All one can actually claim is that that this synthesis is beginning to make it possible to explain this " inherently developing cosmic and planetary organism." It no longer presents an obstacle. And the recent advances make it possible to bridge that dilemma. It isn't yet bridged by them, and I don't think it can be bridged if spirit is cut out of the equation. What I mean by "spirit" is of course something like the Vedantic concept of brahman, which is one but relates to the universe in a fourfold manner:

as a single substance it constitutes it,
as a single consciousness it contains it,
as a single force it shapes it,
as an infinite bliss/quality/value (ananda) it expresses and experiences itself in it.

The problem is that if everything is nature, then "nature" becomes meaningless. The more a term denotes, the less it connotes. If it denotes everything, it connotes nothing.

David Berlinski received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University. He became a Fellow of the Faculty in mathematics and a Post Doctoral Fellow in molecular biology at Columbia University. He has taught philosophy, mathematics, and English at Stanford, Rutgers, Columbia, the Université de Paris at Jussieu, the University of Puget Sound, the University of Santa Clara, San José State University and San Francisco State University. He has been a Fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques. He is the author of works on systems analysis, differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics. Berlinski is currently a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute.

I find it strange that the last sentence should invalidate all his former qualifications.