Axiomatic Links between Evolution and Physical Science

This chapter discusses the axioms or premises of evolutionary theory and other theories of origins. However, it is not particularly concerned by the precise axioms of evolution as discussed by Darwin or by Dawkins or even with the precise premises for any theory of origins. It is concerned with the kind of premises that must be adopted by any scientific theory that can simultaneously offer a viable mechanistic theory of biological origins and be consistent with other branches of science. It will use Gödel's theorem to argue that those premises must originate in chemistry or physics but may not use concepts from unrelated fields or from biology. The improvements to the axiomatic structure of evolution offered by the principles of bioepistemic evolution are discussed.

The Axiomatic Structure of Evolutionary Theory

Axioms of Evolution

9.1       Intelligent Design (ID) and Evolution
9.2       The Unintelligent Design of Evolutionary Theory
9.3       The Intelligent Design of Evolutionary Theory
9.4       A Plague on both your Houses
Copyright Statement

9.1       Intelligent Design (ID) and Evolution

Evolutionary theory is, in a sense, two theories in one, a theory of change and a theory of origin. The first form of evolutionary theory was formally articulated by Darwin and his successors and is a theory of biological change, an explanation of how one species can gradually adapt and change into other species. Darwin's great contribution was natural selection, which is his theory of change. The second form of evolution is as a theory of the origins of life and biology. Despite the title, The Origin of Species does not give any great theory of origins, just a theory of change. Darwin's work talks of warm ponds but does not, to any significant extent or in any great depth, address the subject of biological origins.

Even so, because of the lengths of time and age of the earth implied, the theory of evolution was seen as contradicting the biblical account of creation which is, itself, a "theory" of origin. As a result, evolution was a very contentious idea, which seemingly left seven days as a grossly short time for creation and left even the biblical estimates of the total age of the earth, 6000 years, looking exceedingly short. The result is that evolution has become a de facto theory of origin, even though neither the theory itself, nor the facts that Darwin adduces, really speak to that issue. The conflict sparked the famous nineteenth century confrontation between T. H. Huxley, supporting natural selection, and Bishop Wilberforce, supporting the biblical account of creation. This debate has now cooled somewhat. Most scientists feel that the theory of biological evolution is sufficiently well-defined to make at least some testable predictions that are confirmed by the facts. Today, many members of religious communities accept that natural selection itself will occur and change species, even though they reject it as a theory of origin.

As a theory of origin, evolution remains much less clear than it is as a theory of change evolution remains contentious and opposed by religious ideas about divine creation and their dispute has continued to the present day. The people have changed and the emphasis has shifted but the essential debate remains the same with all studies into the origin of life seeming to fall onto one or other side. In truth there are grounds to doubt evolution as a theory of origin. The theory it is not well-evidenced and many of the mechanisms suggested for the early evolutionary process are chemically absurd. This essay was not conceived as a contribution to the design debate, simply as an application of bioepistemic evolution to the prebiotic situation but, nonetheless, it does intrude upon this territory and it falls clearly on the evolutionary side.

Today the biblical side of the debate is led by the theory of intelligent design which suggests that, at some point(s) in earthly history, unspecified intelligent entities intervened to initiate or guide the development of life on earth. This idea is often criticized as being equivalent to the idea that it was God who intervened, that He may have initiated and watched over the development of the human species. The advocates of intelligent design are often accused of being unconcerned by the lack of evidence for their claims and of being motivated by religious rather than scientific concerns. Religion is, after all, a matter of faith not evidence and it may be that some members of the ID movement are suggesting that it was by this intervention that God created man in His own image.

Religious ideas are usually untestable and the lack of good supportive evidence for intelligent design may stem from its inability to make testable predictions. In that sense, ID is a poor scientific theory but, nonetheless, this author feels more sympathy toward the ID movement than might be expected. As a theory of origins, most articulations of evolutionary theory palpably suffer from many of the same failings as does the ID. In these circumstances, it is hard to see why creationists should suffer so much abuse at the hands of evolutionists. Why, one might ask, is it scientifically legitimate for Francis Crick to speculate about interstellar spaceships but illegitimate to talk about God the creator? Does either idea yield testable predictions? Both are unparsimonious, vacuous and lacking in analytical base and are equally unsupported by evidence. So, why should prebiotic spaceships be part of legitimate scientific theory, while God should be banished to religion? This author, at least, has difficulty answering that question. The fact is that both these "scientific" theories demand blind faith from their acolytes and seem equally unlikely to yield any harvest of reliable knowledge.

Critics of ID presumably believe that rationalist or scientific concerns are, in some way, superior to those of religion, so it is worth reminding ourselves of the ways in which rationalism can be deemed preferable to faith. The usual and, so it seems to me, the sole argument for the superiority of rationalism is that it provides a better source of reliable knowledge than does faith. Followers of a religious faith, where faith is a commitment to a knowledge claim held regardless of evidence, might reasonably riposte that faith offers a better basis for group cohesion than does rationality.

In any event, the grounds for a belief in science and rationalism rest upon the assertion that they provide more reliable forms of knowledge than does faith. That claim is less convincing than many scientists might suppose. Most serious philosophers since Kant have been aware of the problems inherent in the idea that rationality and logic offer a secure foundation for knowledge. Even before him, Machiavelli had advanced good counterarguments which were subsequently reinforced by Adam Smith and Pareto. These thinkers pointed out that the actions and beliefs of real people are not motivated by concern for objective truth but by self-interest. In practice, most people begin by deciding what they want and that decision is a precursor to their subsequent beliefs and actions. Thus, self-interested desires come first, followed by actions that are subsequently justified with ethical or rational arguments or by assertions of religious belief. Thus argument is used to justify actions, not to determine them and, for most people, actions are determined by and reflect self-interest. The role of ethics, rationality and religious faith is to justify decisions that were taken previously and which were motivated by self-interest. This contention dates back at least to Pareto but is implicit in the entire Machiavellian tradition. It is significant here in part because it puts scientific arguments and religious beliefs into the same category, asserting that they play similar social roles, but also because Machiavellian arguments are nowadays much admired by evolutionary theorists themselves. The implications of such arguments are, therefore, hard for the evolutionary community to avoid.

And yet, such thought, when applied to the social structure from which evolutionary science emerged, can leave one with serious doubts about some of the claims this community make. To put it bluntly, the practical manifestations of their supposedly rational, scientific debate often seem uncomfortably similar to those that are motivated by faith alone or even by plain self-interest. So serious is this problem that it is apparent even in the structure of evolutionary theory itself which, in a number of respects, is far from being a rational, objectively defensible construct. The result is that, far too often, advocates of intelligent design make fair points when they criticize evolutionary theory and accuse scientists of following an "evolutionary faith."

Let us examine some of those criticisms, drawn from Darwin on Trial by PhillipJohnson (1991). First, says Johnson, evolutionary theory gives tautological definitions and, in part at least, he is right - a "fit" species will reproduce, where "fitness" is defined as survival to reproduce. This is a fair criticism but there seems nothing wrong with either fitness or reproduction as concepts. As Haldane says, quoted by Johnson, "There is no harm in saying the same truth in two different ways." That is true, provided that these two ways only clarify one another and are not treated as two separate concepts. A more important and related criticism is that evolutionary theory fails to provide definitions of many of its key terms that are rooted in something more than folklore; concepts such as gene, species and organism, for example. Johnson failed to mention that problem, possibly because he would not wish to define the characteristics of the intelligent designer. Nonetheless, it is not comforting to see followers of ID and followers of evolutionary theory exhibiting a shared reluctance, or shared inability, to define their terms. This may suggest that common motives lead to their ideas and underlie their assertions.

Second, argues Johnson, evolutionary theory is vacuous, and can never make testable predictions because it is consistent with virtually any observation. Despite the contrary protestations of the scientific community, this is largely right - conventional expressions of evolutionary theory are largely vacuous. Evolutionary predictions are very limited and mostly concern relatedness between species; they say little or nothing about the properties of individual organisms. Not only is Johnson's charge of vacuity fair, it is hard to see how any theory so dependant on ill-defined terms could be anything but vacuous.

Third, says Johnson, evolutionary theory has no deductive power and, again, the charge is fair. Evolutionary theorists cannot predict the pathway down which any one species will evolve and, even if they could, they could not wait around for their predictions to be tested by practice.

In short, evolutionary theory can "explain" everything we see in real organisms and in fossils but, on the face of it, seems equally capable of "explaining" many things that we don't see. Evolutionary theory rarely guides us in finding anything new, fails to tell us what we do not expect to find, does not account for otherwise unexpected observations and does not suggest experiments that might lead to the kind of surprising results that would compel acceptance of the theory. In short, even as a theory of change, evolutionary theory is a weak theory, as a theory of origin it is virtually non-existent.

9.2       The Unintelligent Design of Evolutionary Theory

Finally, Johnson adds the critique that natural selection is a philosophical necessity and again his "criticism" is fair but, in this case, it is hard to see why he sees it as a criticism. Philosophical necessity amounts to the assertion that natural selection is a very parsimonious theory, which seems more a strength than a weakness. In essence, the philosophical necessity of the occurrence of natural selection is the reason why, despite the weaknesses of evolution as a theory of origins, one is obliged to accept natural selection and why a burden of proof, or more exactly a burden of disproof, rests upon the shoulders of those who challenge its role. In the end, the philosophical necessity of natural selection is a primary reason why one must explore its limits and consequences as an evolutionary process. Scientists pursuing their own truth should certainly feel such an obligation but religious believers too might wish to do so - if only to discover what, if anything, might exist beyond the limits of the necessary process that is evolution by natural selection.

At present, advocates of intelligent design have failed to demonstrate irreducible complexity or to give other compelling evidence for design. However, while ID might seem to fail, any such failure should not be hailed as a success for evolutionary theory. Natural selection was not disputed by that part of the ID community who accepted its philosophical necessity. In the meantime, evolutionary theory must face up to its own burden of evidence and the fact is that evolutionary theory, with natural selection at its core, and hailed as the fundamental science of biology, still predicts almost nothing about living things and can be validly criticized by dissenters, such as Johnson, who have almost no training in the field. If that is triumph, one can only wonder what failure must look like.

In 1987, according to Johnson's account, the US Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana state law requiring balanced treatment for creation science and evolution in the teaching of biology in schools; two members of the court, including Justice Antonin Scalia, saw fit to dissent from that judgment. Shortly afterwards, Stephen Jay Gould (1987) expressed himself baffled at Scalia's minority opinion. Evolution, Gould argued, is not a theory of life's origin, it is a theory of biological change. Thus, biological textbooks do not teach a theory of biological origin, only a theory of biological change. Well, we are all entitled to our own opinion, but many people may feel that Scalia was expressing the general position, while Gould was dancing on the head of a pin. Schools do teach Darwinism as a theory of origin and why should they not, if Darwin himself can use that word in his own title? If evolution is not a theory of origin why, exactly, do scientists become so concerned about creation science or intelligent design?

The episode shows that science needs to decide, is evolution a theory of biology, concerned purely with the processes that change and reshape the properties of organisms that have already been created, or is evolution also a theory for the origin of life? For most lay people and for most scientists evolution is not just a theory of biological change it is also a theory of biological origin. As Gould's comments imply, these issues are technically separable but, nonetheless, how evolution could lead to life is a matter of scientific discussion and conferences regularly debate the issue from a Darwinian, evolutionary perspective. Today, evolution and population genetics together offer a fairly successful theory of biological change but that methodology is inapplicable to evolution as a theory of origins because there can have been no genes during prebiosis.

This does not mean that Darwinism or natural selection fail as theories of origin - the present study argues that they succeed - the failure is in the genetic approach to natural selection, which does not produce a successful theory of origins. This failure is at a fundamental level and cannot be solved by tinkering. It cannot be overstressed that genetics and genes can never be the basis for an evolutionary theory of the origins of biology. It is pointless to try to shoehorn an evolutionary theory of origins into the same population genetic mould that led to natural selection as a theory of change. Such attempts are an unintelligent way of designing evolutionary theory.

Much of the problem facing evolutionary theory is the complexity, the apparent, irreducible complexity, of living things themselves and their most important components. More than any other objects, it is genes, cells and organisms that give the appearance of irreducible complexity and one should not cite any object that appears so complex within the axioms of any serious evolutionary theory of biological origin. The core problem of a theory of origins might be rewritten as, "how might entities, that gives the appearance of having been designed, arise from selective processes and from materials that do not give that appearance?" Phrased that way, we can see that it is wrong to base evolutionary theories of origins on cells or on genes, replicators, ribozymes or hypercycles. Such theories merely dodge the issue but, unfortunately, very many evolutionary theories of origin have been unintelligently designed in this way.

Only by rebuilding evolutionary theory from the ground up can it become not just a theory of change but also a serious theory of biological origins. To properly construct an evolutionary theory of origins, one should move out of biology altogether and develop our ideas using concepts drawn from chemistry, physics and IT. Then the aim should be to show how concepts drawn from those fields can lead to evolution and hence to biology.

9.3       The Intelligent Design of Evolutionary Theory

The scientific problem of the origin of life is, "How did living things emerge from simple chemicals?" To many people, it may seem obvious, a matter of simple logic, that one cannot "explain" biology with biology so this question of the origin of life is, in essence, a problem in chemistry and physics, rather than a problem in biology. This is another way of saying that an acceptable answer should be based on premises drawn from chemistry and physics, that they should not be drawn from biology itself nor from any unrelated system of ideas. Nonetheless, it is instructive to make this point in a more formal way using a well-known result in mathematical logic called Gödel's theorem. Note, however, that no attempt will be made here to give rigorous derivations.

A meaningful axiomatic system cannot be shown to be both consistent and complete except by using axioms from outside that system. Those additional axioms must come from a system that logically encompasses the system under study.

Although it first emerged from mathematics, Gödel's theorem, does not apply to any particular branch of that subject, such as arithmetic, geometry or trigonometry. Rather, it applies to the properties of different systems of mathematics and to the logical relationships between them. The theorem is rigorous and applies not just mathematics but to any axiomatically structured system of logic, such as the algorithms that run on computer systems or to any scientific theories that have a formal axiomatic structure. Since scientific theories can be, ideally should be, expressed as axiomatic systems, we can use this theorem to discuss the relationships between different scientific theories. The aim here is to use it to consider the place of evolutionary theory in the greater scheme of science. This will begin with a clarification of our use of the word "system" then give a simple description of what Gödel's theorem actually means.

In the field of information technology, a "system" is a data system, such as a computer system. IT systems are characterized by their data inputs, their data processes and their data outputs. A system may be conceived in a quite abstract way, in terms of software, or it may be considered more concretely in terms of the hardware on which the software runs, which is the better approach here, for understanding biology. This essay is very concerned by hardware systems since bioepistemic evolution treats organisms as evolving data systems. However, an "axiomatic system," as the term is used in Gödel's theorem, is not a hardware system, even though it has a very closely related meaning. An axiomatic system can be written as the instruction set, the set of algorithms or software that might run on a data system so that an axiomatic system is, so to speak, a data system shorn of the physical entity within which the software finds expression. In order to avoid any confusion, this section will use the full term "axiomatic system" for this context and will reserve the word system for a data system that has a physical existence.

To understand the meaning of Gödel's theorem, consider Figure 9.1. This diagram shows the relationships between various axiomatic systems, their axioms and a logician, a logical observer L, contemplating one of those axiomatic systems. The logician is a data system and may be a living thinker or an IT data system - either can input axioms and use them to process data according to the rules those axioms prescribe.

The logician, L, observes and studies axiomatic system X. In order to give a complete description of system X, that is to gain a consistent and complete understanding of that axiomatic system, the logician must utilize every single one of the axioms x_i that make up axiomatic system X. However, the logician needs other axioms besides x_i these will be the extra axioms used in building the model or picture of axiomatic system X that will embody its consistent and complete operation. These extra axioms are not needed for the operation of axiomatic system X, only for creating the logical model of it that will manifest the logician's full understanding. Thus, the axioms used by a logician L, in contemplating axiomatic system X, must use some other axiomatic system of logic which we will call Y. We can see by inspection that all the axioms x_i are included in axiomatic system Y. Hence Y must be a superset of X. The logician will use all of x_i as well as some or all of the remaining axioms of axiomatic system Y. Therefore, axiomatic system Y contains or implies all of x_i plus that number of the axioms of Y, y_i,l, that are used by the logician in considering system X. The logician, or at least the axioms that he uses, may be thought of as sitting within axiomatic system Y and encompassing axiomatic system X.

The above is, in essence but without rigour, one way to describe the rationale behind Gödel's theorem and the ways in which systems of ideas can be nested within one another. A famous example concerned attempts to show the consistency and completeness of simple arithmetic which, in this attempt, performed the role of axiomatic system X. Gödel's theorem showed that to prove arithmetic one must turn to one of the higher abstractions of arithmetic to perform the role of axiomatic system Y. Russell demonstrated the consistency and completeness of arithmetic using axioms from set theory as the higher logical structure. The need for this step was the famous shock to the mathematical psyche that made Gödel's theorem famous because, of course, this proof of arithmetic then depended on some higher proof of set theory, which proof would require a still higher axiomatic system etc. The overall conclusion is that one could never fully prove arithmetic and thus, at the hands of Gödel, mathematicians suffered the same fate that Heisenberg and Popper inflicted upon the scientific community, the knowledge that, in some sense, all their most basic ideas are uncertain.

Three strategies have been used in attempts to circumvent this conclusion and attach certainty to systems of ideas.

1. The first strategy is to try to find some axiomatic systems that can be proved using only their own axioms. Surprisingly, this can work for "finite" axiomatic systems, by which we mean axiomatic systems that contain a finite number of axioms and can generate only a finite number of theorems. An extreme example is an axiomatic system that contains just one axiom which is tautological, merely repeats its own meaning. An example would be the axiom that, "if grass is green, then grass is green;" undeniably, this axiomatic system can prove its own truth and axiomatic systems that operate in loops can prove themselves. In general, provided an axiomatic system is finite, it may be possible to prove its truth by examining every one of its theorems in turn, so that it begins to operate in loops. The results can be of scientific value, for example in studies of symmetry. However, all significant scientific theories must be expressible as infinite axiomatic systems because they must be applicable to an infinite number of possible situations. Therefore, the useful scientific theories cannot be proved by examining every possible theorem that can be derived from them.
2. The strategy of proof, pursued prior to Gödel, was that of trying to prove an infinite axiomatic system (infinite in the sense of generating an infinite number of theorems but finite in being based on a finite number of axioms) using just its own finite set of axioms. Logic, pure reason, is an important example of such an axiomatic system and Kant applied this strategy in his "Critique of Pure Reason," which ultimately failed - almost through tedium; it was also Russell's approach in trying to find a proof of arithmetic via a proof of set theory, which fell to Wittgenstein's counterexample and the infinite loops of regression he pointed out. In general, attempting to prove an infinite axiomatic system using just its own axioms always fails. It always leads to infinite regress, a reasoning process that simply goes round in an infinite loop. When implemented on computer, such strategies cause the system to hang and need to be corrected by operator intervention.
3. The third strategy is to construct experimental or observational tests. For example, mathematicians and computer scientists often check their reasoning by determining whether a complicated equation or program actually produces the expected output when test data is input. This is the experimental scientific method and is what concerns us here. Popper described its philosophy but he also emphasized that this approach cannot lead to absolute proof or certainty.
      Probably because the axiomatic method cannot give them certainty, scientists rarely worry about the detailed axiomatic structure of their theories; instead scientists seek validation in observation, rather than higher theories. That strategy seems perfectly reasonable in observational fields but this article is about the "origin of life," an area in which observational evidence is largely absent. As a theory of biological origins, evolution has no serious observational support and, in those circumstances, one really should seek to construct evolutionary theories of origins in such a way as to retain the validation that comes from being based on higher scientific theories. So, we can now ask, "What axioms should one design into an evolutionary theory of the origin of life?" This discussion requires that one should design that theory in such a way as to exclude biological concepts or see the theory lead to the same infinite loops of regression that plagued mathematicians prior to Gödel. Theories for the origin of life should allow only chemical and physical concepts. Only then can evolution as a theory of origin draw axiomatic validation from the empirical bases of chemistry and physics.

As said before, some of these comments seem intuitively obvious and one does not really need to start with Gödel to recognize them. Sad to say, however, most thought about evolutionary theory, including even theories of origins, pay no attention to such principles. A glance through the theories described in section 7 shows that many of them are self-referencing, are based on biology itself, and brush aside the implications of those theories when considered in terms of higher fields.

Even as a theory of biological change, evolutionary theory is so basic and so important that it deserves the effort needed to give it the best possible and most correct axiomatic structure. In other words, and as far as possible, evolution as a theory of biological change should refer to inputs from higher fields, particularly chemistry, physics and IT; even as a theory of change, evolution should try to minimize the self-reference arising from using biological terms and should, whenever possible, refer only to entities that can defined be defined in terms of higher theory. Thus evolution as a theory of change should be designed to minimize the number of its biological premises and one should try to define all basic biological concepts in terms of chemistry and physics.

We can now say these same things again using diagrams and, perhaps, make the points a little more clearly. The axiomatic system that is biological science may be perceived as containing three components, chemistry, physics and design. Evolution as a theory of biological change adds a feedback loop, arising from self-reproduction, that feeds back only into the design component. Since all organisms comply with the same rules of chemistry and physics, it is only the additional axioms arising from design that become changed during biological evolution. We could replace the word "design" with other words or phrases, for example, "data," "knowledge," "complexity" or "order" but such changes would not alter the point being made here. The word "design" is useful, since the concept is generally recognized as separating biology from chemistry and is pivotal in disputes about the origin of life. The word "design" is both noun and verb and has both meanings in evolutionary theory. Design as a verb, is a generational process expressed within the design feedback loop. Design as a noun is the accumulating product of the design process and becomes manifest in the accumulating complexity of organisms themselves.

Armed with this simple description, Fig. 9.2 now shows an axiomatically acceptable model of evolution as a theory of biological change. The axioms of physics and chemistry input directly and do not change. On the other hand, the axioms of evolutionary design operate successively and cumulatively over the generations. In evolution as a theory of change, each generation takes the accumulated design from the previous generations and then alters it during reproduction and selection.

The same description of biology can be modified to produce a similar diagram of an axiomatically acceptable model of evolution as a theory of biological origin. It is very similar to the previous diagram, with the exception that the accumulated design is omitted, which means that there can be no feedback of accumulated design. There can be no feedback from any of the ideas that distinguish biology from chemistry and physics, since all biological ideas contain axioms implying accumulated design. Hence, in building a theory of biological origins, we cannot use any axiom or concept from biology. If we attempt to introduce such an axiom, our theory will fail and we will be unable to arrive at a successful theory of origin. That theory will flounder within the infinite loops that bedevilled mathematicians and logicians prior to Gödel.

However, an evolutionary theory of origins can, and in fact must, incorporate a process of design that will produce the first accumulating design pool that will feed that design from the first to subsequent generations. It is the task of the theoretician to identify that process and to do so using axioms that come only from chemistry and physics.

9.4       A Plague on both your Houses

Attempting to incorporate axioms from biology into a theory of origins is just as serious an error as attempting to incorporate axioms from branches of thought that have no provable link to biology. Neither can lead to a successful theory of origin. If biology is to be explained, then that explanation can no more begin with biology than it can begin with ideas that have no provable, observational bearing on its origins, such as religion. Since much debate in the origin of life field consists of arguments between these two errors, it is instructive to examine their respective consequences.

Now, refer back to Fig. 9.1. One might add the universal axiomatic system U, the set of all the axioms that can describe all the realities with consequences that man might observe in this universe. There may be other truths and realities whose nature is such that mankind cannot observe them. God, if He exists, may have access to such extra axioms and realities, over and beyond those contained in U but mankind, by definition, cannot know those realities or divine the extra axioms that underlie them. Humans can never observe them become manifest as consequences within our universe.

Gödel's theorem shows that we cannot think about the universal set (U) we can only think within it. By definition, we can theorize about U only with axioms contained in U. We can never think outside of it and, therefore, can never prove U itself. In consequence, humans can never know ultimate, universal truth in its entirety. All our valid thoughts about universal truth are bound to use the axioms of universal truth, to be self-referencing and to lead to cyclic reasoning. Because universal truth is omniscient and universal, we cannot step outside it into any larger reality from which to examine its nature. In other words, even if God did intervene in the processes that created man, we still live in the reality that He created and cannot use that reality to understand His mind. Man can understand only what he can perceive. All scientists can do, all any human can do, is examine those parts of reality that are accessible to man and to build our human understandings from there.

So, creationist explanations, religious explanations, not acceptable as scientific theories of life. They are an evasion of the problem and a deflection of debate into cycles. Although we cannot say with any certainty how life arose, that inability stems from our own limits and does not necessarily mean that any supernatural agency intervened to create it. It is the essence of science that its theories should emerge from the observable world. Creationist theories just shift the platform of dialogue and transform it into a perpetual, sterile cycle that endlessly debates the nature of the supernatural.

Unfortunately, mainstream biologists have proved no better than the creationist community when it comes to designing theories of biological origin, producing theories that are no more logically acceptable than are creationist theories. Instead of proposing evolutionary mechanisms for the origin of lfe from chemistry and physics, which must be the ultimate foundation of any such a theory, evolutionary theorists create their own endless cycles and propose that genes arose from "replicators," which is little more than another name for organism and adds nothing in the way of predictive or explanatory power. "Replicator" and "organism" have very similar meanings. Indeed, the only replicators known on this planet are organisms, and that attribution is questionable. Thus these two words, organism and replicator, form a tautological pair that just refers debate about evolutionary origins back to biology. Such theories fail to improve the axiomatic structure of evolutionary theory and the "theories" of origins that emerge are worthless. Like theories based on intelligent design, such theorizing transforms the platform of dialogue and leads debate into perpetual, sterile cycles about the nature of undefined entities - entities that may be irrelevant or that may never have existed. The debates about genes, replicators, ribozymes and autocatalytic hypercycles all seem good examples of such thinking. Such self-referencing theories are easy to construct; it is easy to "theorize" that life emerged from life-like things but one can no more "explain" evolution with replicators than one can explain that grass is green because grass is green. All these theories are unparsimonious and weakly constructed. Measured by their ability to confer certitude onto their predictions, they are no better than the idea of intelligent design by a supernatural creator.

Such axiomatic weakness would matter little in a subject where experimental tests could impose the discipline of reality upon the minds of theoreticians. However, experimental tests are not available in the "origin of life" field. It is, therefore, cause for serious concern that inadequate theorizing, using self-referencing concepts drawn from biology or religion, have come to dominate thought about the origin of life and the processes of evolution. "A plague on both your houses," scientist should cry out in protest and, borrowing from Wittgenstein's last comment in Tractatus,should suggest that, "whereof one cannot speak, thereof it would be best to talk quietly." Too much of modern evolutionary theory amounts to little more than casual intellectual meanderings around the loops created by such empty theorizing.

Evolutionary theory is too important for such work to be taken seriously and such empty approaches should be sidelined. They should be replaced with intelligently designed theories that have been given reasonable axiomatic structures that explicitly draw on and utilize the well-evidenced, underpinning sciences of chemistry, physics and IT. The evolution of prebiotic oscillations and its parent, bioepistemic evolution, are examples of such axiomatically stronger approaches. They should be explored and the development of similarly strong alternatives encouraged.

Copyright Statement

© John A Hewitt MA PhD (Cantab.)
The work described here was performed as an independent investigation by John A Hewitt who asserts the right to be recognized as its author and as the originator of the novel ideas presented here. The topics to which this claim applies include, but are not limited to, the application of bioepistemic evolution to the prebiotic situation, the discussion of the sun as a data and power source for prebiotic evolving systems, the recognition of sun-induced chemical oscillations as information carriers subject to evolutionary selection and to the theories for the origin of biochemical pathways and self-oscillatory, allosteric and cyclic biochemistry that result.
This study is a greatly extended version of a poster originally presented at the Royal Society meeting on conditions for the emergence of life on the early earth, London, 13 & 14 February, 2006. This internet version was made available on 6 September, 2006. Comments and criticism are solicited - see the "contact & copyright" link for contact details.