The Gulf Between Evolution and Intelligent Design: Lamarckianism?

I work at a library.  Almost every time I see a book by Richard Dawkins, I'm compelled to flip through the book to see what the guy is talking about.

I first saw Dawkins on Youtube ripping apart Bill O'Reilly.  I've flipped through one of O'Reilly's books, too.  It seemed to be mostly an egotistical, media-inspired endeavour in self-aggrandizement, with O'Reilly as the saviour of humanity.  Dawkins, in that Youtube video, which was part of interview done on O'Reilly's show, said to O'Reilly that he may as well worship Thor if he's going to spend his time worshiping Jesus. 

At the time, the way Dawkins made his argument appealed to me.  I thought that Dawkins argued that worship of a deity is worship of a deity, whether we call that deity Thor or Jesus.  After seeing that interview, I picked up Dawkins' The God Delusion.  I stopped reading it partway through.

Dawkins argument against paranormal, mysticism and supernatural does not map on to what I've discovered through reading about telepathy, remote viewing, influence of emotion/intent on random number generators, OBE's, etc.  Essentially, Dawkins threw all the evidence of paranormal out the window with personal anecdotes such as some campers who got scared of a bird.

His argument against paranormal is that he's explained away all anomalous explanations for phenomena; that is, because some events can be explained by birds in the darkened bush...there is no God.  It's a huge leap of logic that Dawkins seems content to thrive on.  Perhaps it's his background in evolutionary biology and his british accent that gives him insight into areas where he seems to have spent little effort interrogating.  In other words, his arguments against paranormal are about as convincing as a creationist's arguments against the punctuated equilibrium of evolutionary theory.

I'm somewhere in the middle, or beyond the spectrum, simply because I don't know.  I don't know if an intelligent designer created the abundance and variety of organisms we have on earth.  Likewise, I don't know if "random" mutations created the abundance and variety of organisms on earth.  Moreover, I don't know if "deterministic inheritance"created the abundance and variety of organisms.

What is apparent, however, is that some animals, like sharks haven't evolved or changed in millions of years and other animals, like humans seem to be relatively recent organisms.  It is said that an environmental pressure activates genetics possibilities.  For instance, the eyes of underground creatures are sometimes unlike our own, meaning they can't distinguish objects - what we call 'seeing' - but those same creatures appear to have the structure of what we would call eyes.  The argument against intelligent design is, "Why would a Creator give those underground creatures the structure of "eyes" but not the function?"  The argument for evolution is that as the function was lost, the structure simply remained.

My own argument is that perhaps the structure is there for possible future function.  Or, the return of a once-lost function.  But why would the structure remain long after the function has become unnecessary?   When does evolution stop?  Likely, it doesn't, as evolution responds to environmental pressures like, say, global cooling.  Animals that can survive the cold would be more likely to survive the cold than animals that cannot survive the cold.  But this can only be determined by surviving the cold.  This is the randomness of evolution.  It may not be the cold that an organism must survive, but extreme heat, extreme wet, lack of food, climate change, over-predation, disease, etc.

If non-human organisms lack heightened consciousness that allows the organism to "choose" to survive, ie. baboons making fire by rubbing two sticks together, then it must be luck, or randomness that allows those already-existing traits (like fur or bio-luminescence or naturally-occurring antifreeze in the blood) to be inherited by subsequent generations.

Basically, then, any trait in any organism can be passed on and can be embellished or displaced - like vestigial tails and eye-sockets.

It can be argued that humans have the ability to choose what traits we want to be expressed in future generations.  We can nurture children in such ways as to foster intelligence and physicality, for example.  But what about other animals?  Do bears teach their cubs to be brave, or is protective-aggression innate?  Going back to humans, how is it that some of us become jaded, neglectful and abusive?  What evolutionary value is there in child abuse?  or psychopathy?

In the case of psychopathy, which I'm defining very basically as a lack of emotion and empathy, why would such a trait linger in humanity into modern times?  Or are we still so new that primal traits still emerge with some frequency?  Are we perfectly suited to our environment like great white sharks apparently are to theirs?

Evolutionists seem to see parts of what they consider to be a continuum and therefore cite the parts of such as evidence for the continuum.  Much like creationists cite the same evidence for the existence of intelligent design.

Considering the changes science has undergone in the last 150 years and the changes that faith-based world views have undergone in that same time, and considering the increasing evidence for non-human intelligence/emotion, as well as parapsychological phenomena and the growing investigations into quantum reality, not to mention fringe theories like morphic resonance, it is very difficult for me to dogmatically adhere to any one paradigm.

If intent and consciousness are building blocks of quantum reality, which in turn has a role to play in macro-reality, then it stands to reason that an organisms intent to survive will become embedded in the morphic field of that organism.  If the genetic determinism of a macro organism is related to the quantum-based morphic field, then it seems that the morphic field is merely another environmental pressure acting upon the genetic blueprints of an organism.

Furthermore, if, as in string or holographic theory, a part of the whole contains the whole, and the genes for the organism are contained within the cells of that organism, and if outside pressure encourages genetic traits to surface, then could energetic pressure encourage quantum-biological traits to emerge?  In other words the energetic pressure could be the morphic field, or the morphic field could be the response to outside pressure.

It's the information that is carried within the genes that is important.  The information, within an environment, determines the "expression" of traits.  The information may still be encoded within genes, but if it is not within an environment that "determines" the "expression", then those traits remain unexpressed.

As an analogy, if quantum reality becomes manifested only when a consciousness observes that reality into fruition, than that reality remains only a probability.

In other words, the possibility for all things exists in all things, but the proper environmental clues, including observation or intention must also exist for those things to emerge from the background.  In this way, evolution and intelligent design look like they start to take a backseat to lamarckianism. 

Some research has found that intent has an effect on physical reality, random number generators and dice rolling experiments are examples.  To use scientific jargon, this may provide evidence of the anomalous interaction of consciousness and physical reality.  This potential reality provides evidence against what I've read from Dawkins.

Perhaps there is no God, but does this mean that paranormal evidence is merely human folly?  I don't think so.  As for God having a hand in every minute detail, including the non-functioning eye sockets of underground lizards, I think that that is likely far-fetched, too.

It's also fallacious, I think, to believe that evolution is a one-way street with primordial organisms "evolving" into complex life forms, like humans.  Of course, in different scientific disciplines, like paleoarcheology, archeology, etc., fossils and DNA-sequencing shows the variety of life forms on earth, most of which are suited for the environment in which they live.  Sharks have fins and gills, for instance.  Humans have opposable thumbs.  Humans also have, during the duration of embryonic development, gill-like slits.  Is there a point in shark development where something like thumbs can be seen?  At the very least there must be some gene that  when flipped allows the development of thumb-like trait expression.  If this was true, then it could be evidence against morphic resonance.  If it is true, then a holographic gene-trait-expression via environmental pressure might have some evidence to support it.

But this still doesn't look at the role of pure consciousness on physical reality, ie. manifesting physical reality through quantum interaction.  But then this line of thinking doesn't really explain australopithecus or h.erectus as being evolutionary milestones on the hominid road to humanity.  Unless there is some quantum-physical interaction that is being overlooked.

If conscious-intent manifests physicality from the quantum "ether", and the physical reality we perceive is fundamentally quantum energy, then it stands to reason that there is some means of interaction between the 'two realities'.

So, for intelligent design to be "right", then the creator has to be intricately involved into every facet of life, even the evolutionary dead-end paths that didn't lead anywhere "useful".  For deterministic inheritance to be "right" then much more evidence must be accumulated to fill  in the gaps in the evolutionary record.  For instance, upright walking, the eye, etc., have been cited as evidence for and against evolutionary theory.  While the status quo is in favour of evolution, it is nonetheless admitted that the theory has gaps; although to their credit, the gaps seem to be slowly filling in. 

But this is not to say that non-human intelligence can't have a role to play in the development of organisms.  Non-human intelligence would have to be investigated, first.  And, if evidence for that is discovered, it's influence, or lack thereof, would have to be investigated.  Third, alternative theories of evolution, adaptation and creation would likewise have to be researched.

What punctuates the equilibrium?

If intent determines genetic inheritance, then the design of living organisms is not random, not necessarily "God" given, but, strangely, remarkably Lamarckian.