Either Modern Evolutionary Biology is Goal-Directed, or it is False!

Philosopher of biology Will Provine died recently.  Provine was an Atheist (I capitalize Atheist, because I view it as a faith based religion). Here is his own summary on evolutionary biology:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either. (Darwinism: Science or Naturalistic Philosophy April 30 1994)

Let me present my own summary as to why Provine’s statement that “There are  … no goal-directed forces of any kind.” is false, and why modern evolutionary biology must indeed be goal-directed, or it must be false.

Virtually all of life, and all of the components of life appear to be goal-directed. From the smallest component of a human life form … the cell, to the various organs contained therein, to the finished product —  all across the board we have items that achieve specific purposes, often multiple purposes.

In the case of human organs we see that each of our internal organs achieves a specific purpose:

• The heart pumps blood and life sustaining oxygen and nutrients to each part of our body, and to each cell, while also removing carbon dioxide and other wastes.
• The visual system – eyes, nerves and brain – gathers, processes and stores visual information from our external world allowing us to function smoothly in a very complex, beautiful and often threatening world.  
• The kidneys serve several essential regulatory roles in vertebrates. They remove excess organic molecules from the blood, and it is by this action that their best-known function is performed: the removal of waste products of metabolism.
•           
•          And on and on for each of our parts.

So if the evolutionary “just-so” tale is to be believed, each of these very specific and sophisticated organs arrived on the scene simultaneously by a process that had no intention to produce such intentional, purposeful and goal oriented machines. Or … they arrived on the scene by some other means.

And what of the final product – the human being? What you see in the lead-in picture above is the intentional and goal directed execution of a very complex maneuver in baseball called the double play.

Somehow, evolution which is not goal-directed has created a massively complex and synchronous machine which is – at all levels – purposeful and goal directed. Goal directed towards multitudes of goals:

 

I would dare to suggest that the false god of evolution, undirected “Deep Time”  casts a shroud over observationally obtained truth.

The high priests of this false god of “Deep Time”: Will Provine, Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Stephen Hawking and others peddle this just so tale simply because, in the words of Richard Lewontin – “ … we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. ” And they are adamant in keeping this Divine Foot out of the culture, out of education, out of science … and indeed, and perhaps most importantly, out of their own life and life style.

 

don johnson – September 2015