Part I: A Critique of River Out of Eden: Introduction

Abstract

Darwinism as generally interpreted in the modern scientific paradigm claims that chance events and rare random mutations, only a few of which bestow a survival advantage, shape the evolution of life in the biosphere. We have all experienced accidents and know that we must be careful to anticipate and avoid them if we can. We do have the intelligence to learn from past experience and behave accordingly in the present in our efforts to ensure a positive future. In this way we have an evolving capacity to span and integrate events in space and time. The Darwinian paradigm however denies that the evolutionary process possesses any capacity to adjust according to feedback from past experience. Only blind accidental mutations determine the course of evolutionary events over great spans of time, it is claimed. Only a rare few of these mutations bestow a survival advantage that select in favor of the branching limbs of the evolutionary tree. The arguments in favor of this belief as expressed by Richard Dawkins are critically assessed and shown to be lacking in supporting evidence.