Evolution's Hand ~ OVERVIEW ~

The modern perception that irreconcilable differences exist between science and religion sets the stage for Evolution's Hand. Science and religion are both fundamentally important and fundamentally different. Through science we seek to understand the material basis of existence while through religion we seek to give meaning to all existence. In its most pure form science deals exclusively with naturalistic explanation. By definition any supernatural explanation is ruled out before a scientific investigation begins. In this sense science is a tightly circumscribed system or method of investigation and as such it is incapable of providing a broad interpretation of its own findings. Thus the many scientists who declare the non-existence of God based on scientific evidence are not involved in science as such, rather they are involved in philosophy in that they are giving a philosophical interpretation of contemporary science. Evolution's Hand is also a philosophical interpretation of the findings of contemporary science but it differs in that the evidence is interpreted as favoring the existence of a creator.

Evolution's Hand draws heavily on contemporary scientific thought and data to make the argument for a prior intelligence in the affairs of the universe. In some respects it follows the classical form of argumentation from design, but the phenomenon of evolution gives the argument a continuity that was lacking until now. Aristotle would argue that the proof for the existence of God is to be found in nature itself, in its order and motion. In essence Aristotle argues that the immense order found in nature offers a proof of the existence of God. The general scientific objection centers on the proposal that if we have difficulty in explaining or understanding a phenomenon in the real world how much more difficulty will be encountered in explaining a phenomenon (God) that we can never get to know or experience through science. Of course theists can counter that the "proposals to explain the origin of the universe by means of parallel universes or by different axes of time suffer from the same deficiency.

At the same time Pascal argues that it is impossible to deduce the existence of the higher order from the lower order of things which is quite similar to the scientific objection. In a sense the classical metaphysical argument is "catastrophic" in nature - we become incapable of explaining the reality of the universe therefore we invoke the existence of God whose reality we can never explain at all. We seem to shift from the unknown of the lower order of things to the absolute unknown of the higher order of God.

In Evolution's Hand attempts to deal with these difficulties. The contention is that contemporary science has opened up an avenue of evidence that was unavailable to the classical philosophers. This evidence concerns the evolution of humankind. Clearly the existence of intelligence is unambiguous. This provides us with a starting point at the higher order of things - the conscious intelligence of humankind is a higher order phenomenon in its own right. Biological evolution causes the higher order of human intelligence to come into being. Therefore through the mechanics of biological evolution we can trace the broad outlines of the evolutionary emergence of human intelligence back in time. This generates an unbroken chain of causality back to the origin of life itself. At the origin of life I argue that an intelligence factor is required. But this factor has to operate prior to there being life at any stage in the universe. If we combine this idea with the origin of the universe, the extraordinary cosmic coincidences that empowered our universe to evolve physically and the comprehensibility of our universe we end up with an argument for an "extra universal" intelligence which of course is God.

Return to Main Page	Chapter One	Chapter Two	Chapter Three
Chapter Four	Chapter Five	Chapter Six	Chapter Seven

ORDERS
To order your copy of Evolution's Hand: Searching for the Creator in Contemporary Science, please contact Bridjette O'Shea, East End Books at venturepress@sympatico.ca.

COMMENTS
The author welcomes your views on this subject and can be contacted at cafferky@idirect.com.

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Last updated September 12, 1997