Cosmic Biocomics

Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution : Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe by Seth Shostak (Foreword), James N. Gardner

This collage of theoretical explorations is as fascinating as it is (apparently) incoherent and gives a progress report on the current state of evolutionary speculation, driven by the unadmitted breakdown of the Darwinian viewpoint, a reality that can't be acknowledged in public. And that's the problem here. You can't have it both ways. It seems the ID people have Darwinists spooked and on the run, and while the elements of a new approach to evolution are certainly appearing over the horizon noone can summon up the presence of mind to ditch natural selection. Contradictory hybrids come into existence in a sort of frolic of wild notions. Now we have cosmic selection theories and Dawkins' selfish gene projected onto cosmology. Far be it from me to throw cold water on all these shenigans, especially since I find it all luridly fascinating and the book entertaining. One thing the author has done is to place the pieces of the puzzle, au courant, onto the table. Perhaps one can somehow fit them together, Darwin, selectionism, ID, anthropics, baby universes, exobilogical exhuberance, and finally a bit of Kant. I was alarmed to see the author confused by Robert Wright's directionality thesis from Non Zero with its total confusion and cooptation of Kant's essay on history. For, whatever we make of the cosmological foundations of biological theory the question of history remains inscrutable as far as current Darwinism is concerned, and Kant's essay points the way to the right question, and provides elements of the right methodology.(Cf. the reviewer's material on this issue of Kant) Current science simply cannot handle any of that,it seems. You can't hybridize Kant and Darwin. As long as the delusion persists that the descent of man was the result of natural selection the basic incoherence will persist. In fact, human history is completely beyond the reach of current science. It's not even in the right ball park and has degenerated from the insights of the Enlightenment. The result is a lot of confused physicists who are too smart to realize they are acting stupidly. All this said, I enjoyed the somewhat disordered collation of theoretical ideas. The bits and pieces keep flying out of nowhere and I couldn't quite keep track of it all, and the standard appearance of the nonsense about sociobiological ethics mars the result. The overall picture however is highly intriguing, as an idea for the revision of current views around a theme/theory of cosmic life processes. But it is difficult to proceed without a theory of the evolution of consciousness, and there current science hasn't a clue. Guess what! Modern science doesn't have a coherent theory of evolution. The author unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag. No wonder they have peer review.