ABSTRACT: First of all, the concept of embryonic, rudimentary intelligence is presented. Such sensory input-output response appears not only in animals, but in some plants as well. The example of a Venus flytrap is presented. Secondly, the fact that the fossil record shows compelling evidence that intelligence and complexity have increased in a curvilinear fashion over time is discussed. The branching in Darwin's tree of life is likened to seasonal renewal in flowering plant life. Assuming intelligence is behind the process, could it be a seasonal growth-life cycle with rather broad systems output implications? This is contrasted with the more mechanical process of soil accumulation and development mixed with times of erosion and decay, an alternative analogy. Thirdly, evolutionary discussions are likened to a granular view of matter and ID views to a systems-functional one. The possibility that intelligence exists more generally in nature than is commonly believed is also raised. Intelligence of some form is clearly behind the actions of organisms active in the environment. Could there also be a general targeting system in nature, propelling biological and physical structures (planets, for instance)upward towards more general and higher levels of operation? That is, could intelligence be an active agent itself to affect selection and change? If not, it is its conspicuous absence that should be a matter for great concern, because this is otherwise incongruous with most of what we know about cause in physical world phenomena. Upward bias and intelligent functions certainly exist in nature. Can we find their antecedants in more than simple statistical descriptions of genes making up things? Intelligence at the source of the domestication of plants and animals is cited as one example.
Rudimentary intelligence has been independently produced several times on this planet. In addition, its sequential and repeated enhancement has occurred many more times, and there is strong evidence of this in the tree of life, the fossil record. Relative brain-body ratio and associated intelligence do not appear to have gone down with new speciation typically; if anything, they have increased overall in a successive, relentless, systems-enhancing manner!
Although evolutionists bring up a very few analogies of complex systems like tornadoes and hurricanes to explain cascading unintelligent systems, such weather system models are too basic and short-lived to explain the course and progression of planet life. Although evolutionists have been looking for such explanatory models of progressively complex phenomena to replace intelligent causal ones for more than a century, they are still hard put to find any useful analogies in the task. Nature's logic may be pitted against it. Evolution thus remains weak in terms of its explanatory power. It remains at the descriptive and simple suggestive levels.
A more fitting weather analogy to use to explain the systems connection to the evolutionary tree of life would be crop circles. Crop circles approach the intricate and elaborate character of intelligently derived systems. Surprisingly, however, evolutionists shy away from such models. Any model that can be linked to the paranormal or to intelligent behavior is generally considered out-of-bounds by them. Still and by far, the largest number of explanations and analogies in nature for complex systems are best explained using direct cause, intelligent-control, or stimulus-response models. The aggregate-summative chaos model of mutation combined with reproduction-only controlled selection is simply a wrong choice for framing the evolution of life.
In terms of developmental transitions, the branches in the tree of life look more like graphic illustrations with time on the X axis of seasonal seeding-sprouting cycles than of seasons of soil accumulation and development mixed with times of erosion and decay! Both views of the evolutionary process are actually useful. They are helpful analogies at the level of description. Actually, the analogies are descriptions of farming cycles, though each one is different in terms of its basic scope and focus: the first attempts to trace systems history; the second, particle history. The two views are valid, though not equal in import. Of course, the first one is my own view of epoch-length biological/structural progress. It is an analogy about renewal in flowering plant life. It refers to a seasonal growth-life cycle with rather broad systems output implications. This former model also adds a goal-oriented perspective on to the process. The second view, on the other hand, is a simple mechanical description based on soil (particle) analysis. It is a comparative tracing of a field's soil deposition, composition and development. Later on, I may go into greater depth in discussing this topic if it finds an interested audience, or an interesting audience.
Evolutionary/ID discussions often trace along similar fossil record lines. However, discussions of process remain at different levels: the granular view versus the systems-functional one. Neither view provides immediate empirical insights on cause, either deductively or implicitly. Genetic treatments of evolution are the particle physics view of genomes taken almost to the extreme analogy of a perpetual motion machine. ID treatments are the itinerant, indefatigable, mistake-prone, although ultimately successful inventor view of organisms (referring back to Thomas Edison's style of invention during his early years). Now, enough of what might turn out to be purely esoteric musings and surreal over-descriptions of the two main parties involved in the current national origins debate! More barbs will follow, at the price of listening to my harping on the need for more independent thinkers in theoretical science. However, these are rooted in my view of the current status of theoretical explanations as used by traditional evolution versus the established ID model.
Views are not perfect. And neither is science perfect--ever. But many people want and need them to be perfect. We have a whole host of perfectionists parading around America and on the Internet,'a'-plying a utopian-like vision. That is, they are pining over what all of us including the intellectuals or pundits should be singing (in unison, of course)! They'd love to hold the position of trade-show host or tour guide for the rest of us! But any perfectionist (or dogmatist for that matter) cannot end up being the best analyst or scientist as a matter of principle. This is because such people frequently overstate the facts supporting their own positions and understate any opposition's. It is a personality trait antithetical to science. Look for this telltale sign or activist's trademark, as it reveals a character trait that is fundamentally at odds with the tenative nature of truth in science, a policy that every scientist is supposed to ingrained with when trained in the research methodology of his or her field!
Returning to more particulars: Remarkable sensory input-output response appears not only in animals, but in some plants as well. But in plants, intelligence is non-neural. Take the Venus flytrap, for instance. It sensitive 'hairs' trigger a nearby mouth to close in an instant when they are touched, and this reaction is quick enough to catch a fly. Later, the catch triggers a secretion sequence--the soft parts of the hapless creature are then digested, absorbed as nutrients that help the plant survive and reproduce. Although it has no brain or neurons as we currently conceive of them, these response systems are quite analogous to the nervous system in animals, and not unlike the control systems in computers built using sensors, triggers, and transducers in control/feedback loops. Intelligence in the most basic sensing-processing sense is at the root of the Venus flytrap's physical, targeted reactions.
We may not be giving nature proper credit for the windfalls it has been pulling off for millions of years! It generated intelligence in plants. Maybe it has done so in control genes, too. And perhaps intelligence can even be found in microbes! If so, this would go a long way towards illustrating the need for a new definition of intelligence. It would also have the effect of supporting the view that an intelligent targeting system probably exists in nature that has been steering biological progression upward in the tree of life. Something has most definitely been harmonizing the various branches of the tree of life. It could also be building to a grand finale if the underlying cause behind the process is leading to functional enhancement, and not merely function-repetitive in character!
Most geneticists appear to prefer to skirt all discussions about physical cause and effect in evolution, subordinating such discussions to the level of description governing the behavior of microscopic particles, or else they refer to a model illustrating the fortunate, advantageous rolls of the dice. I maintain that these in most cases constitute little or no explanation at all. At the most, they stand as oversimplified and crude descriptions of what happened in the processes of the tree of life. They have some merit for description, but stand as simple and far too general outlines of the processes to be of any empirical and real explanatory (natural scientific) value. They should remain mere propoganda for the masses. However, they have turned into much more!
If there is such an embryonic precusor to intelligence in plants, perhaps it exists more generally in nature, and maybe in unexpected places, too! A philosophical question thus arises: Although intelligence of some form is clearly behind the actions of organisms active in the environment, could it also be propelling biological or physical structures (such as planets and ecosystems) upward towards some general or higher level of operation? That is, is intelligence merely a dead-end result in biological procession, or can it be an active agent itself to affect selection and change? Could it be both source and goal, and purpose and product in some cases? One answer to this is immediately obvious: Intelligence is the source of domestication of plants and animals. No natural selection should be emphasized here; it is all artificial selection at work. The cause is intelligent action, usually deliberate and routine, although at other times, it is completely inadvertant and unforeseen!
It may be worth identifying more areas in which intelligent selection is the controlling influence behind genetic progression. The answer might be found in the nature of causal events themselves (Are they mental or physical concepts?) or in other logical, underlying processes to be found in the universe. Pandemic operation of intelligence throughout nature is only one possibly.
The key to finding evidence of intelligent effect in the progress of biological complexity is probably in learning how to look for it. Most definitions of intelligence are stated in terms of bigger brains or higher mental functions. These are only two aspects of intelligence. Any basic intelligence acting within nature's fundamental fabric may simply be too slow for our biological minds to fathom or even perceive, much like our difficulty in understanding human speech recorded on a cassette recorder, then played back at a much slower speed. At some point in the slowdown, words become unintelligible even though the message remains an intelligent one. I think it is quite useful hypothesis that a 'lumbering, directional, persistent intelligence' is waiting to be found in nature, one that acts on some but not all structures of the universe, prompting directional change towards increased complexity. We appear currently untrained in detecting such intelligence, but this is a moot point since we haven't even been looking for it. Most evolutionists I've talked to say there is need to do so. However, I as of yet have not heard any serious attempts to explain cause behind this graduated, tenacious phenomenon of nature--of new species climbing to/reaching ever higher levels of intelligence and biological complexity. Environmental changes are not very likely directional or tenacious enough so as to empower such an upward-development bias. Something has been causing or prompting it, and the answer is not likely to be found solely in the statistical incidences of genes or the probabilities of mutations.
We may be looking in the wrong place. Intelligence of such a rudimentary, directional sort could be as simple as a resonance in nature. Or it might impinge on different facets or be inherent in multiple levels of nature, from molecules to genes, or even in the habitual motor functions (such as the heart beat and digestive functions) of organisms. Checking for the actions of intelligence couldn't hurt. It may only impact on our current views of evolution. To those who say no evidence of intelligent selection yet exists, I can say confidently: Unidirectional change, namely, upward progress in complexity has been occuring for millions of years and continues all around us today. Open your eyes and minds to the possibility of intelligent action. Take a more functional/systematic view of physical things. Begin to attribute refined cause and directional momentum to nature, i.e., gain a real understanding of the increasing complexity of systems operating all around you--instead of being satisfied in a mere numbers game at the explanatory level of descriptive statistics.
Why ask for investigations into cause? Evolution is the final statement on biological matters, isn't it? Maybe not. It may be more a superficial description at the processual level than any type of causal explanation at all. Explaining the tree of life as a process based essentially on the accumulation of environmentally advantageous traits may be myoptic, trivial, and circular in nature, i.e., not a statement of cause at all. Do corporations report on product development and record track records by resorting to descriptions at the atomic level? Then why do we tolerate geneticists reducing biological products down to mere statements of genes? What about some explanation of cause, too? Evolution may turn out to be a dumbed-down variable and description set offered by over-indulgent fans infatuated with genetic parsimony instead of being concerned about empirically identifiable environmental causes. Even if evolution is not the latter, it cannot hurt to try and find out.
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