Louisville Process Theology Network

Evolution's Invisible Hand II

Aug 17, 2009

From Page 297: ?“For the sake of balance, it should be noted that there are people ?– smart people ?– who think science does indeed offer evidence of our significance. They believe that the sheer elegance of natural selection, the logical beauty that enraptured the young E.O. Wilson (biologist and author), implies superhuman design; that only a vast intelligence could invent a process of such power and simplicity that it creates beings able to understand the way it works, but at a loss to explain exactly how they work.

There is no denying the empirical core of this claim ?– the potent grace with which natural selection has translated the occasionally erroneous replication of molecular information into ever larger examples of order and, moreover, complexity.

At various levels of organization, evolution?’s invisible hand has forged an ironic equation between unyielding self-interest --- whether of genes, cells, or multi-celled organisms ?– and collective harmony.?”


From Page 302: ?“What does it mean that some fairly reasonable (as these thing go) attempts to extract purpose and meaning from evolution bear results remarkably like longstanding doctrine of the world?’s great religions? Is it just coincidence? ?….Personally, I don?’t know what to think. But I think about it often.?”