Thinking about Evolution & Economics and Some Notes on the Evolution of Ideas

Part 10 - Science & Religion - in the Kelsall Pulpit - some notes for a sermon concerning six strange words and six illusions associated with Universal Darwinism.

There is no conflict - an all powerful God would never expose the poorest and weakest souls to the horrific consequences of a Christmas tsunami?

Now God said, and I agree with him, 'beware of false prophets, they come in sheep's clothing yet inwardly they are ravening wolves ...'

1. Adaptation = 'all things bright and beautiful' are constructed 'as if' by purposeful design in a hostile environment but in reality they are the result of a blind copy/vary/select algorithm. Driven by energy streams and the 2nd law of thermodynamics, structures emerge, 'tricks' are discovered and accumulated by replication of variants which differentially survive.

The illusion of design is the process of evolution, A process which explains everything we see, hear, taste, smell and feel. Science explains more and more by destroying plausible illusions of magic, myth and the supernatural.

Evidence comes from observation, mathematical theory, testable hypotheses, experimental validation, peer review.

Understanding comes from the falsification of untruths not from the design of truths. Short necked giraffes died out.

'God' and science are not alternatives. Thomas Aquinas resolved the faith versus reason debate. Luther's 'Wittenbergh Interpretation' of Copernicus and Calvin's 'Geneva Accommodation' established the Bible stories are not the literal truth. The 'miracles' of science and evolution maybe the way of 'God' but they are not supernatural magic. Science and evolution are 'works in progress', today nobody believes in Phlogiston, and soon few will believe in a supernatural 'God of the gaps'.

2. Anthropomorphism = 'man in the image of God' is an arrogance of our fuzzy perception, giraffes and man are part of nature, and giraffes and folk are ignorant of what it is they do not know.

The illusion of intelligent design is a process of neural adaptation. Knee jerk hysteria is the process by which large numbers of people become convinced of things that are not scientifically true.

All survival decisions are perceived 'as if' purposefully intentional but the emergence of conscious freewill and giraffes are adaptations.

Biology, behaviour, immune systems, symbolic language and human cultural artefacts are the results of small innovative improvements over time to things that already exist. A continuum, from an instinctive start, we learn by experience, by our own experiments and by learning from others (most of them long dead). We are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants and there is always a better alternative to be discovered.

'God' is not a designer. St. Augustine resolved the debate about an interventionist 'God'. There are tempting anthropomorphic myths but there is no conflict between evolutionary chemistry and belief. Tsunamis are not supernatural acts of 'God' and neither is the Rev. Paley's watch nor the Boeing 747. Darwin did not challenge the existence of God but he did acknowledge that natural selection was an awful stretcher.

3. Immanent & Transcendent = 'deep down in the individual skull' real immanent and transcendent universal moral emotions emerge from the evolutionary process mediating all our decisions.

The illusion of selfish individualism ignores the potent survival value of cooperative synergies.

Cooperation tends to beat cheating for survival value because of the potential for positive sum synergies, 2 + 2 = 5.

Cooperation, by definition, cannot be designed and imposed by Bishops, Princes, Generals nor Bureaucratic majorities, the process is mediated deep down in individual skulls and order emerges and grows in the population as uncooperative folk tend to die out.

'God' is both immanent and transcendent. Don't look for God in the wrong place, not 'up there' but 'deep down' in individual skulls. John Robinson (Bishop of Woolwich), Arthur Peacocke (Dean of Clare College, Cambridge) and Bishop Spong (Harvard Divinity School), are just three who taught that there is no conflict between science, evolution and God.

Faith and reason are an evolutionary continuum, deep down in the skull instinctive emotions which we call faith mediate decisions but they are inaccessible to reason. Man became domesticated and moral instincts necessarily coevolved with cooperative group behaviour. Much later in evolutionary time self consciousness and reason emerged. There is an evolutionary explanation for faith and reason – the survival advantages of large group morality – it is not supernatural!

A real moral urgency really exists and is immanent in the laws of nature, enabling transcendent cooperative behaviour to emerge. There is a transcendent moral logic to evolution, a universal orderliness emerges. Faith is not unreasonable, it is a rational emergent property of moral individuals, stripped of supernatural myth and magic 'mumbo jumbo', it becomes a potent and compelling survival aid – it is not supernatural!

NB An innate moral sense developed over aeons of evolutionary time (long before we were human), an emotion which is necessary for survival in cooperative social groups. 'Do unto others as you would be done by' is a universal behavioural trend necessary for all communal life.

4. Visceral Diversity = 'human sanctity', it is all very very very personal, deep down in individual skulls, but different innovative behaviours, gut responses without plan or forethought feed evolutionary learning through the process of diversity and differential survival, this alone ensures brain models become better and better adapted.

The illusion of society misunderstands Darwin's emergent population thinking, Darwin's 'strange inversion of reason'. Society can't think only individual brains can think. There is no such 'thing' as society, only a tapestry of individual behaviours and beliefs interacting and changing in population frequency, from which cohesive cooperative rules of thumb about rights and obligations emerge.

The good news - we're all different enabling cooperative behaviour to grow in communities because of synergies.

The bad news - cooperation grows by the failure of less viable alternatives and requires trust which provides a niche for parasites and predators. Defence systems must always co-evolve with cooperative systems.

'God's' laws evolve. There are no tablets of stone from above. Morality is not imposed, tort law evolves to protect cooperative synergies by enforcing remedies against legal harms as an alternative to violence. Cooperation evolves and grows but must be protected from parasites and predators, evil exists and must be confronted. The 'just war' and forgiveness are part of the 'tit for tat' route to cooperation. Remember usury was outlawed by the Bishops in 1571 but inlawed by The Act of Usury 1624 ... a mere 50 years later.

5. Satisficing = 'the work ethic', fulfil your full potential, confront life's exigencies, contribute by actively building on inherited success, choosing between available options, experimenting to discover, cooperating with others, defending synergies from parasites and predators and learning from outcomes to pass on to future generations.

The illusion of helplessness is a cop out there is work to be done, think of it as speeding up evolution, discovering & accumulating new synergies and confronting parasites & predators.

Generate and test in the certain knowledge that there are better alternatives to discover but nobody knows where the next good idea is coming from. The dilemma is how to choose the better fork in the road when the log normal distribution of 'wealth' is the result of those choices. But poverty cannot be solved by 'money' or 'design' it just crops up somewhere else like 'the many-headed monster'.

Welfare is found in synergistic activity within the evolved institutions of global Tort Law, specialised Trade and innovative Technology.

Supply & Demand = 'as if' by design economic activity is co-ordinated. Adam Smith's invisible hand demonstrated how supply and demand co-ordinates economic activity.

Comparative advantage = everybody has different opportunity costs and different specialisations. David Ricardo's comparative advantage demonstrated opportunities for everyone by exploiting specialisation and scale.

Total Factor Productivity = output growth not accounted for by the growth in inputs, synergies from trade in technological and institutional 'know how' which define the value of 'resources'. Robert Solow and Paul Romer demonstrated how technological and institutional 'know how' drives economic growth and how real wages are determined by productivity.

'God' is not a comforter nor a rescuer. The 'story' of the incarnation is that it is the here and now in individual brains that matters - 'nobody knows where the next good idea is coming from' - 'excellence comes by toil' - 'use your imagination'!

6. Public Choice = 'the enabling state' helps you to contribute, the credibility of a command and control, tax and spend 'designer' state died with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the abandonment of Clause 4. Elites can't cope with the inevitable unexpected responses and unintended consequence, elites don't possess any infallible 'know how', nobody knows where the next good idea is coming from, and power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The illusion of state benevolence is buttressed by the idea of 'intelligent design' and the stability of the 'pecking order' but it is incompatible with the ideas of constitutional and liberal democracy where the State is a servant of the people -

Historical evidence from English history, Michael Wood -

'Understand more about the whole story of the Iron Age farmers of the Berkshire Downs, their tale is important because the history of this small island off the shore of Europe became World history, its speech became world speech, and, perhaps more important, its social and economic experience also became that of the rest of the world’.

Political success = economic success = social justice = social cohesion = real jobs = state enabling of global capitalism = freedom & democracy = speeding up 'The Giraffe Effect' - think Darwin think more survival value for the cost incurred than competing alternatives for everyone in the long term - not tax & spend & red tape regulation.

Law and Order = evolved law of the UDHR, Zero Tolerance and Colonisation = rights based international tort law. The Rice Doctrine -

Wealth = universal benefits.

Defence = pre-emptive response to threats.

Remedies = help for aspirants.

Welfare = Education = Health = Congestion = Pollution - adaptation requires diversity & choice, discovery & accumulation from differential survival through individual choice in competitive markets, parent choice, pupil choice, patient choice, purchaser choice, polluter choice -

Enabling markets = internalise full costs and torts with distortion free poll tax assisted vouchers

Individual Contributions = satisficing = diverse jobs and real wages with 'a leg up not a hand out'

Private Family Savings Accounts = self help = Frank Field - thinking the unthinkable - honesty, thrift and hard work.

Competitive Business = only the most profitable providers of goods and services grow and prosper = real jobs (for suppliers, employees, bystanders) and real wealth (for customers, shareholders, lenders).

Competitive Public Sector = diversity, choice & competition in public goods (for parents, pupils, patients, purchasers, polluters).

'God' is continuously active mediating your individual decisions. God is in your emotions, have faith and go for it!

In a garden of forking paths do you go left or right? Nobody, Bishops, Princes, Generals nor Bureaucratic majorities can see round the corner, it is your decision.

But learn from outcomes, the giraffe's long neck or a similar miracle will emerge - it is adaptation!

Science illuminates but spin is a con-trick … confront the arrogance of power ... Gordon Brown (budget speech 2006) - 'I could, of course, afford to cut your taxes, but I say I will invest in ... '

john p birchall

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