~C4Chaos

Will the REAL Evolution Debate Please Stand Up!

Evolution: Science vs. Spirit?

"Here, we’ve spread out the 12 schools of evolutionary thought along a spectrum from science to spirit, with scientific materialism on the far left and religious determinism on the far right."

I've finally gotten a chance to read the latest issue of What is Enlightenment magazine. This issue takes a deeper look at the The Mystery of Evolution. My favorite article is The REAL Evolution Debate wherein the WIE staff presented not just one, or two, or three, but twelve compelling theories on evolution.

"You’ve seen the headlines, you’ve read articles: Darwin vs. God. Science vs. religion. Reason vs. faith. But is that really all there is to it? Here at WIE we think not. And to prove it, we documented at least a dozen distinctly compelling theories each of which addresses the fundamental questions of creation and evolution, and we assembled them in this concise and eye-opening presentation."

Unlike the mainstream media wherein most debates seem like an all or nothing, black vs. white, science vs. religion, two-camps competition, WIE takes a fresher approach: map all the scientific and spiritual theories about evolution and everything in between, then leave it to us to see where we stand in the evolution debate, and give us the choice to dig further.

WIE created a very high altitude map which we can use to soar above the simplistic debates such as creationism vs. intelligent design, science vs. God, religion vs. atheism. The map illustrates why the evolution debate is not just between scientists vs. creationists, but that this debate is also between scientists vs. scientists, creationists vs. scientists, creationists vs. creationists, integralists vs. the fundamentalists, etc.

So whenever Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins are engaged in a boring debate, the debate is not just between evolution vs. intelligent design, it's between two of the twelve worldviews: The Neo Darwinist (Dawkins) vs. The Theistic Evolutionist (Collins). Note that both of them are scientists who support evolution but differ in their worldviews. So Francis Collins' stance is more complex than the fundamentalist believer on Intelligent Design, or God (even if Francis Collins use the word God in his arguments). And Richard Dawkins doesn't necessarily represent the entire scientific community when he argues for evolution. His scientific views on evolution is just one of the many differing scientific views about evolution out there.

So looking at the spectrum of the evolution debate map, does that mean that The Integralist view is the uber-correct view? Not necessarily, because all of the other views hold an important piece of the evolutionary puzzle. It just goes to show that the Integralist view is the most embracing view of them all. It's a view where Science and Spirit not only co-exist, but are actually inseparable. It's a view where the evolutionary world is not seen in black and white, but as a colorful evolving kaleidoscopic Kosmos of matter, body, mind, intersubjectivity, consciousness, and Spirit.

After looking at the twelve schools of evolutionary thought, I had a clearer understanding of my own stance on the evolution debate.  I'd like to think I'm a combination of Transhumanist (6) and Integralist (12), meaning: I think everyone of them has some truth to it when it comes to evolution, but I'm also for jump-starting our own evolution with the use of technology, as long as we balance it with ethics based on an integral worldview.

Kudos to WIE for creating this cool map. So check it out (note: all you need is to provide your email to access the special article) and let me know where you *really* stand on the Evolution debate :)