THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIOUSNESS [PART I]Bert Thompson, Ph.D. and Brad Harrub, Ph.D.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In the January and Febru-ary issues of Reason & Revelation, we ran thefirst in a multi-part series of articles dealingwith the topics of the origin of the brain andmind, and the origin of human consciousness.Those two installments examined the insu-perable problem that every materialistic theoryof origins faces when attempting to explain—by purely natural causes—how something ascomplex as the brain and mind came to be.The April and May issues are devoted to theeven more difficult problem of the origin ofconsciousness. The late evolutionist of Har-vard, Stephen Jay Gould, candidly admittedthat “consciousness, vouchsafed only to ourspecies in the history of life on earth, is themost god-awfully potent evolutionary in-vention ever developed” (1997, p. ix).

But how did it develop? The answer to thatquestion has eluded, and continues to elude,materialistic researchers in every discipline—from science to philosophy. Valiant (and re-peated!) attempts to explain consciousness havebeen made, to be sure. But all have fallen farshort of the mark. Tufts University philoso-pher Daniel Dennett was even so bold as to au-thor a book with the self-congratulatory title,Consciousness Explained—which promptly wasdubbed by his fellow materialists as Con-sciousness Ignored, because it failed so mis-erably in its quest.

Rarely is a topic of such profound significancethat I authorize a special double issue of Rea-son & Revelation to deal with it. But on occa-sion (such as in the May and June 2003 issuesdealing with the Big Bang), the subject mat-ter is simply so critically important, and sourgent in its implications, that I feel a dou-ble issue is justified. This is one such occasion.As Dr. Harrub and I observed in our two-part

series on the origin of gender and reproduction(see Reason & Revelation, October and Novem-ber 2002), evolutionists refer to the origin ofsex as “the queen of problems.” If that is thecase, then surely the origin of consciousnessqualifies as “the king of problems.” I inviteyou to join us on what I believe you will findis an absolutely fascinating journey into theorigin of the unique aspect of humanity thatmakes it possible for you to understand whatyou are reading—consciousness.]

When speaking of consciousness(also referred to in the litera-ture as “self-awareness”), evo-

lutionists freely admit that, from their van-tage point at least, “consciousness is one’smost precious possession” (Elbert, 2000,p. 231). David MacKay of the Universityof Keele in England wrote: “[Conscious-ness is] for us, the most important aspectof all” (1965, p. 498). Renowned paleoan-thropologist Richard Leakey stated the is-sue like this: “The sense of self-awarenesswe each experience is so brilliant it illumi-nates everything we think and do…” (1994,p. 139).

In their book, Evolution, the late ge-neticistTheodosiusDobzhanskyandhisco-authors wrote: “In point of fact, self-awareness is the most immediate andincontrovertible of all realities.With-out doubt, the human mind sets our spe-cies apart fromnonhumananimals” (Dob-zhansky, et al., 1977, p. 453, emp. added).Ervin Laszlo, in his volume, Evolution: TheGrandSynthesis , commented:

The phenomenon of mind is per-haps themost remarkable of all thephenomena of the lived and expe-riencedworld. Itsexplanationbelongsto a grand tradition of philosophy—to theperennial “greatquestions” thateach generation of thinkers answersanew…or despairs of answering at all(1987, p. 116, ellipsis inorig., emp. add-ed).ThelateRobertWesson,whowasamuch-

respected Hoover Institution Senior Re-search Fellow, observed in his book, Be-yondNatural Selection:

APRIL 2004

ARTICLES

The Origin of Consciousness [Part I]Bert Thompson & Brad Harrub . . . . . . 25

DEPARTMENTS

Speaking Schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Note from the EditorIntroducing Our New GeneralManager—Tommy HatfieldBert Thompson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

RESOURCES

What About Animal Consciousness? . . . . 13-R

Question & Answer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-R

In the News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-R

CONTENTS

Life has a dual nature: its material ba-sis and the essence of functionalityand responsiveness that distinguishesliving things and flourishes at higherlevels of evolution. The material andthe mental are both real, just as arecausation and will. The mind derivesrichness fromthese twosides, like feel-ing and bodily function, love and sex,the spiritual and the carnal, the joyof creation and the satisfaction of bod-ilywants (1997,p. 278, emp. added).

Or, asphilosopherMichaelRuse remarked:“The important thing fromourperspec-tive is that consciousness is a real thing.Wearesentientbeings” (2001b,p.200,emp.added). Sir Cyril Hinshelwood, professorofchemistryat theImperialCollege inLon-don, commented: “I almosthesitate to saythis in a scientific gathering; but one doesjust wonder what would be the point orpurpose of anything at all if there werenotconsciousnessanywhere?”(1965,p.500,emp. added).

And creationists certainly agree. In hiswork, Understanding the Present: Science andthe Soul ofModernMan, theistBryanApple-yardobserved:

Light, gravity, even thewholebiolog-ical realm are related to us only in themost superficialway:we reflect light,if droppedwe fall andwehave abodysystem roughly comparable to a largenumber of animals. All of which istrivial compared with the one attri-butewehave that isdenied to therestofnature—consciousness (1992,pp.193-194, emp. added).

Yes, consciousness is a “real thing.” Butwhy is it an “important thing”? StephenJayGouldconcluded:

Consciousness, vouchsafed only toour species in the history of life onearth, is themost god-awfullypotentevolutionary invention ever developed.Although accidental and unpredict-able, ithasgivenHomo sapiensunprec-edented power both over the historyof our own species and the life of theentire contemporarybiosphere (1997,p. ix).With consciousness has come the abil-

ity tocontrol—well—almost everything!Butwith that “unprecedented power” has comeunprecedented responsibilitybecause, aseven evolutionists are wont to admit, ac-tions have consequences. Well-known evo-lutionist Donald Griffin, in the 2001 re-vised edition of his classic text, AnimalMinds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness,admittedasmuchwhenhewrote:

It is self-evident that we are aware ofat least some of what goes on aroundus and that we think about our situa-tion and about the probable resultsof various actions that we might take.This sort of conscious subjectivemental experience is significant anduseful because it often helps us se-lectappropriatebehavior (p. ix, emp.added).“Selecting appropriate behavior” (or,

as the case may be, not selecting appro-priate behavior) becomes a key point inthis discussion. As evolutionists John Ec-clesandDanielRobinsoncorrectlyobserved

in The Wonder of Being Human: Our Brainand Our Mind: “Whether one takes humanbeings to be ‘children of God,’ ‘tools ofproduction,’ ‘matter inmotion,’ or ‘a spe-cies of primate’ has consequences” (1984,p.1).Yes, aswewill show, it certainlydoes.

THE “MYSTERY” OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

Consciousness is undeniably real. Andit does have consequences—some-

thing that practically every rationalhumanfreely acknowledges. But admitting all ofthat turns out to be the easy part. The dif-ficulty arises in explaining why—why con-sciousness exists; why it is real; why it worksthe way it does; why it “has consequences.”When it comes to explaining the origin ofconsciousness, evolutionists concede (touse their exact words): “Clearly, we are indeep trouble” (Eccles and Robinson, 1984,p. 17). Just how “deep” that “trouble” reallyis, appears to be one of the most widelyknown—yet best-kept—secrets in science.In a chapter (“The Human Brain and theHumanPerson”)he authored for thebook,Mind and Brain: The Many-faceted Problems ,Eccles wrote:

The emergence and development ofself-consciousness…is an utterly mys-terious process…. The coming-to-beof self-consciousness is a mystery thatconcernseachpersonwith its consciousanduniqueselfhood(1982,pp.85,97).

Or, as British physicist John Polkinghorneput it: “Thehumanpsychehas revealed itsshadowyandelusivedepths” (1986,p. 5).

Consider the following admissions fromthosewithintheevolutionarycommunity,and as you do, notice the descriptive terms(“problem,” “mystery,” “puzzle,” “riddle,”“challenge,” etc.) thatgenerallyare employedinanydiscussionofconsciousness.

Consciousness is the highest man-ifestation of life, but as to its ori-gin,destiny,andthenatureofitscon-nection with the physical body andbrain—these are as yetunsolvedmet-aphysical questions, the answer towhich can only be found by contin-ued research in thedirectionofhigh-erphysical andpsychical science (Car-rington,1923,p. 54, emp. added).

Nobody has the slightest idea howanything material could be con-scious. Nobody even knows what itwould be like to have the slightest ideaabouthowanythingmaterial couldbeconscious (Fodor, 1992,p. 5, emp. add-ed).

We need to close the gap between thephysical and subjective realms of thistopic before we can hope to reach an

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understanding of consciousness. Un-til then it remains, according to Sci-entific American, “biology’s most pro-foundriddle” (JohansonandEdgar,1996,p. 107, emp. added).

The problem of consciousness tendsto embarrass biologists. Taking it tobe anaspect of living things, they feelthey should know about it and be ableto tell physicists about it, whereas theyhave nothing relevant to say (Wald,1994,p. 129, emp. added).

Webelieve that theemergenceof con-sciousnessis a skeleton in theclosetof orthodox evolutionism…. It re-mains just as enigmatic as it is to anorthodox evolutionist as long as it isregarded as an exclusively natural pro-cess inanexclusivelymaterialistworld(Eccles and Robinson, 1984, pp. 17,18,emp. added).

What the connection,or the relation-ship, is between what goes on men-tally in the mind and what goes onphysically in thebrain, nobodyknows.Perhapswe shallneverknow.Theso-called mind/brain problem hasproved so elusive,manyhave cometoregard it as amysteryofultimatesignificance….Unlike less-complicatedphysical structures, the brain is ac-companied by consciousness. As wesaidearlier,wedonotknowwhythisshouldbe. For the timebeingat least,wemust simply accept it as abrute fact(Stannard, 2000, pp. 41-42,44, emp. add-ed).

Theemergenceof full consciousness…is indeed one of the greatest ofmiracles (Popper andEccles, 1977, p.129, emp. added).

CONSCIOUSNESS DEFINED

The past three decades have witnesseda serious and noticeable increase in

interest in the subject of consciousness,accompanied by a surge of publications,new scientific and/or philosophical jour-nals, and scientificmeetings (for exampleswithin the last few years see: Greenfield,2002; Tolson, 2002; Lemonick, 2003a,2003b; Pinker, 2003).

One would think that since so muchhasbeenwrittenon the topicof conscious-ness, surely the definition of this oft’-dis-cussed issue would be a straightforward,simple matter. Think again! [One dictio-naryonpsychologyhad the following en-tryunder “consciousness”: “Conscious-ness is a fascinating but elusive phenom-enon; it is impossible to specifywhat it is,what it does or why it evolved. Nothingworth readinghasbeenwritten about it”

(Sutherland, 1989).] Scientists and philos-ophers cannotevenagreeonthedefinitionof the term, much less on the origin ofthatwhich theyare attempting todefine.

Our English word “consciousness” hasits roots in theLatin conscio, formedby thecoalescence of cum (meaning “with”) andscio (meaning “know”). In its original Lat-insense, tobeconsciousof somethingwasto share knowledge of it, with someoneelse, or with oneself. As English scholarC.S.Lewisnoted inhisStudies inWords:

A “weakened” sense of conscientia co-existed inLatinwiththestrongersense,which implies shared knowledge: inthis weak sense conscientiawas, simply,knowledge. All three senses (knowl-edge shared with another, knowledgesharedwithoneselfand,simply,knowl-edge) entered the English languagewith “conscience,” the first equivalentof conscientia. The words “conscious”and “consciousness” firstappear earlyin the 17th century, rapidly followedby “self-conscious” and “self-conscious-ness”(1960).

Consciousness, however, has becomea rather ambiguous term in its everydayusage. It can refer to: (1) a waking state;(2) experience; and (3) the possession ofany mental state. It may be helpful to thereader to provide an example of each ofthese three usages: (1) the injured workerlapsed intounconsciousness; (2) thecrim-inal became conscious of a terrible senseof dread at the thought of being appre-hended; and (3) I am conscious of the factthat sometimes I get on your nerves. An-thonyO’Hear suggested:

In being conscious of myself as my-self, I see myself as separate from whatis not myself. In being conscious, abeing reacts to theworldwith feeling,with pleasure and pain, and respondsonthebasisoffeltneeds….Conscious-ness involves reacting to stimuli andfeeling stimuli (1997,pp.22,38).Thephrase“self-consciousness,”attimes,

can be equally ambiguous, as it may in-clude: (1) proneness to embarrassment insocial settings; (2) the ability to detect ourown sensations and recall our recent ac-tions; (3) self-recognition; (4) the aware-ness of awareness; and (5) self-knowledgein thebroadest sense (seeZeman,2001, 124:1264).O’Hearwenton to suggest:

A self-conscious person, then, doesnot simplyhavebeliefsordispositions,does not simply engage in practices ofvarious sorts, does not just respondto or suffer the world. He or she isaware that he or she has beliefs, prac-tices, dispositions, and the rest. It isthis awareness of myself as a subject ofexperience, as a holder of beliefs, andanengager inpractices,whichconsti-tutes my self-consciousness. A con-scious animal might be a knower, andwemight extend the epithet “knower”to machines if they receive informa-tion from the world and modify theirresponsesaccordingly.Butonlyaself-conscious being knows that he is aknower(pp. 23-24, emp. added).

Neurobiologist Antonio Damasio be-lieves that consciousness comes in twodif-ferent forms.First is “coreconsciousness,”which is limited to the here and now, andiswhatwe sharewithotherhigherprimates.

The second, which is the ingredient hu-manspossess thatmakesusunique,hehaslabeled as “extended consciousness.” Thistype of consciousness adds awareness ofpast and future to the mix (see Tattersall,2002, p. 73). Nobel laureate Gerald Edel-man, director of neurosciences and chair-man of the department of neurobiologyat theScrippsResearch Institute (1992,pp.117-123), believes we should distinguish be-tween what he calls “primary conscious-ness” (equivalent to Damasio’s “core con-sciousness”) and “higher-order conscious-ness” (equivalent to Damasio’s “extendedconsciousness”). [Stanford University bi-ologist Paul Ehrlich prefers the terms “con-sciousness” and “intense consciousness”(2000,pp.110-112).]

What is involved in the transition fromprimary to higher consciousness is thatthe subject of the consciousness does notmerely “have” experiences, but is able, overand above that, to refine, alter, and reportitsexperiences.Primaryconsciousnesslacksanynotionofanexperienceor self. Inotherwords, a “non-self-conscious” creature isawareofand/orabletoreact tostimuli.Buthigher-order consciousness represents anawarenessof theplans, ideas, andconceptsbywhichonemakesone’swayintheworld.

Ian Tattersall commented: “…[I]f con-sciousnesswere somethingmore suscepti-ble to scientific analysis than it is,wewouldcertainlyknowa lotmoreabout itbynowthanwedo—which isvery little indeed” (p.59). Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar,in their book, From Lucy to Language, ad-mitted that “consciousness, being inher-ently singular and subjective, is a trickyprospect for objective scientific analysis…”(1996, p. 107). True enough. But, as it turnsout, defining it is no less of a “tricky pros-pect.” Nobel laureate Sir Francis Crick wasnot evenwilling togive it a try. Inhisbook,TheAstonishingHypothesis:TheScientificSearchfor the Soul, he lamented:

Everyone has a rough idea of what ismeant by consciousness. It is betterto avoid a precise definition of con-sciousness because of the dangers ofprematuredefinitions.Until theprob-lem is understood much better, anyattempt at a formaldefinition is like-ly to be either misleading or overlyrestrictive or both. If this seems likecheating, trydefining forme thewordgene (1994,p. 20, emp. inorig.).

RichardLeakey,ontheotherhand,wasat least willing to inquire: “What is con-sciousness? More specifically, what is it for?What is its function? Such questions mayseemodd,giventhateachofusexperiences

life through the medium of consciousness,or self-awareness” (1994, p. 139, emp. inorig.).Indeed, such questions do seem a bit odd,consideringall the“press”given to the sub-ject of consciousness over the past manyyears. But, as Adam Zeman wrote in theextensive review of consciousness he pre-pared for the July 2001 issue of the scien-tific journal, Brain: “Whether scientificobservation and theory will yield a com-plete accountof consciousness remains alive issue” (124:1264).A“live issue” indeed!Just getting scientists andphilosophers toagree on a standard, coherent definitionseems to be an almost impossible task. In

his 1997 volume, The Large, the Small andthe Human Brain, British mathematicalphysicist SirRogerPenrose asked: “Whatis consciousness? Well, I don’t know howto define it. I think this is notthe mo-ment to attempt todefine consciousness,sincewedonotknowwhat it is…” (p. 98,emp.added;Penrose’s central thesis is thatconsciousness must be “something outsideof knownphysics,”p. 102).

But the fact that “wedonot knowwhatit is” has not prevented people from offering a variety of definitions for “our mostpreciouspossession,”consciousness. Johan-sonandEdgarwenton to say:

First, what is consciousness? No sin-gle definition may suffice for suchan elusive concept, but we can de-scribe consciousness as self-awarenessand self-reflection, the ability to feelpain or pleasure, the sensation of be-ing alive and of being us, the sum ofwhatever passes through themind (p.107, emp. added).

Their suggestion that “nosingledefini-tion may suffice for such an elusive con-cept” has been echoed by several otherswhohavebroachedthepuzzleofconscious-ness. Inhis2001book,AMindSoRare,Ca-nadianpsychologistMerlinDonaldcom-mented:

[W]emustmindourdefinitionof con-sciousness. It isnotreallyaunitaryphe-nomenon, and allows more than onedefinition. In fact, it encompasses atleast three classes of definition. Thefirst is the definition of consciousnessas a state…. A second class of func-tional definition takes an architectu-ral approach,whereby consciousnessisdefinedas aplace in themind….Thethird definition of consciousness takesa franklyhuman-centeredviewofcog-nition and has more to do with en-lightenment, or illumination, thanwith mere attention. This is the rep-resentational approach… (pp. 118,119,120, emp. inorig.).For University of Washington neuro-

biologist William Calvin, consciousnessconsists of “contemplating the past andforecasting the future, planning what todo tomorrow, feeling dismay when seeinga tragedy unfold, and narrating our lifestory.”ForCambridgeUniversitypsychol-ogistNicholasHumphrey, an essential partof consciousness is “raw sensation.” Ac-cording to Steven Harnad, editor of therespected journal,Behavioral andBrain Sci -ences, “consciousness is just the capacity tohave experiences” (for documentation ofstatements byCalvin,Humphrey, andHar-nad, seeLewin, 1992,pp.153-154).And, eventhough Roger Penrose started out by ad-mitting, “I don’t know how to define it; Ithink this is not the moment to attemptto define consciousness, since we do notknowwhat it is,” thatdidnotpreventhimfromofferinguphisownsetofdefinitionsfor consciousness.

It seems to me that there are at leasttwo different aspects to consciousness.On the one hand, there are passivemanifestationsofconsciousness,whichinvolve awareness. I use this categoryto include things like perceptions ofcolour,ofharmonies, theuseofmem-ory, and so on. On the other hand,there are its active manifestations,which involve concepts like free willand thecarryingoutof actionsunderour free will (1997, pp. 98-99, emp. inorig.).Notice how often “consciousness” seems

tobe tied to“awareness” (or“self-conscious-ness” to “self-awareness”)? There’s a reasonfor that: the two frequently are used in-terchangeably in the scientific andphilo-

sophical literature.Ecclesnoted: “Onecanalso use the term self-awareness instead ofself-consciousness, but I prefer self-con-sciousness because it relates directly to theself-conscious mind” (1992, p. 3). The lateevolutionistofHarvard,KirtleyF.Math-er, offered his personal opinion when hesaid: “[A]wareness is a term that I prefertoconsciousness”(1986,p.126). Inhisbook,The Evolution of Consciousness , Stanford Uni-versitybiologistRobertOrnsteinsuggested:“Being conscious is being aware of be-ing aware. It is one step removed fromtheraw experience of seeing, smelling, acting,moving, and reacting” (1991, pp. 225-226,emp. added).

Paul Ehrlich, in his 2000 text, HumanNatures:Genes,Cultures,andtheHumanPros -pect, also addressed the intriguing conceptof “self ” consciousness.

We have a continuous sense of “self ”—of a little individual sitting betweenour ears—and, perhaps equally impor-tant, a sense of the threat of death, ofthepotential for that individual—ourself—to cease to exist. I call all of thissortof awareness“intenseconscious-ness”; it is central tohumannaturesand isperhaps the least understoodaspectof thosenatures (p. 110, emp.added).And, last but not least, of course, let it

be noted that even though certain scien-tists and philosophers do not know whatconsciousness is, they do know what it isnot. As evolutionary humanist Jerome W.Elbert put it in his 2000 book, Are SoulsReal?:

Wecandefine consciousness aswhatit is like tobeapersonwho is awakeor dreaming and has a normallyfunctioning brain…. By our defini-tion, consciousness is interrupted bydreamless sleep, and it returns whenweawakenorhave adream.Byalmostanyone’s definition, consciousnessleaves when a person is under generalanestheticduringsurgery.The fact thatconsciousness can be halted and re-started is evidence that it is due to theoperationofaprocess, rather than thepresenceof a spiritual entity. This isconsistentwith the view that conscious-nessarises fromadynamicprocesswith-in thebrain, rather thanfromthepre-sumable continuous indwelling of asoul (p. 223, emp. inorig.).Or, to quote Roger Penrose: “I am sug-

gesting that there are not mental objectsfloating around out there which are notbased in physicality” (1997, p. 97, emp.added). So much, then, for the idea thatself-consciousness or self-awareness has any“spiritual”originor significance.

WHY—AND HOW—DID CONSCIOUSNESS ARISE?

WhenSirKarl Popper andSir JohnEccles stated in their classic text,

The Self and Its Brain, that “the emergenceof full consciousness…is indeed one ofthe greatest of miracles ,” they did notoverstate the case (1977, p. 129). Be sure tonotice their use of the word “emergence.”The “miracle” of the “emergence” of con-sciousness has to do with two things: (1)the reason for its existence; and (2) thefact of its existence. In other words, whydid consciousness arise, and how did it doso?

Why Did Consciousness Arise?

From the outset, let us state what is ac-cepted as common knowledge (and whatis just as readily admitted) within the sci-entific community: evolutionary theorycannot begin to explain why conscious-ness arose. In our estimation, one of themost fascinating books published withinthe last thirty yearswas a volumewith theseemingly unprofessional title, The Ency-clopaedia of Ignorance (seeDuncanandWes-ton-Smith, 1977). But, although the titlemay appear somewhat whimsical, the con-tentof the volume is anythingbut. In chap-ter after chapter, distinguished, award-win-ningscientists (suchasNobel laureate SirFrancis Crick and two-time Nobel laureateLinus Pauling) enunciated and explainedsome of the most important things in theworld—things of which science is com-pletely ignorant. Interestingly, one of thechapters in the book, written by RichardGregory (professor of neuropsychologyand director of the brain and perceptionlaboratory at the University of Bristol inEngland), was “Consciousness.” Inhis dis-cussion,Dr.Gregoryasked:

Why, then,doweneedconsciousness?What does consciousness have that theneural signals (and physical brain ac-tivity)donothave?Here there is some-thingofaparadox, for if theawarenessof consciousnessdoesnothave any ef-fect—if consciousness is not a causalagent—then it seems useless, and soshould not have developed by evolu-tionarypressure. If, on theotherhand,it is useful, it must be a causal agent:but thenphysiological description intermsofneuralactivitycannotbecom-plete.Worse,weareonthis alternativestuck with mentalistic explanations,which seem outside science (1977, p.277, parenthetical item and emp. inorig.).

In this brief assessment, Gregory hasisolated several keypoints. First, what doesconsciousness have that the braindoesnot?Second, if consciousnessdoesnothave some“real function,” then, obviously, naturewould have “selected against” it—and it nev-er would have appeared in the first place.Third, if consciousness does indeed havesome function, in lightofourknowledgeabouthow theneural networkof the brainoperates, what is that function? And ifthere is beneficial function, why haven’tthe brains of animals selected for it? ToechoGregory’s question, “Whydoweneedconsciousness?”

Good question. Philosopher MichaelRuse noted some of the major hurdles in-volvedin“nature”beingable to“select”forconsciousnesswhenheasked:

Even if one agrees that consciousnessis in some sense connected toor emer-gent from the brain—and how couldone deny this?—consciousness musthave some biological standing in itsown right…. But what is conscious-ness, andwhat functiondoes it serve?Why should not an unconscious ma-chine do everything that we can do?(2001a,p. 72, emp. added).

Some materialists, of course, have sug-gested that amachine cando“everythingwe can do.” The eminent British physiol-ogist Lord E.D. Adrian, in the chapter heauthoredon“Consciousness” for thebook,BrainandConsciousExperience, concluded:“As far as ourpublic behavior is concerned,there is nothing that could not be cop-iedbymachinery, nothing therefore thatcouldnotbebroughtwithin the frame-work of physical science” (1965, p. 240,emp. added). [LordAdrian’s remarksweremade at a scientific symposium held at theVaticanduring theweekofSeptember28-October 4, 1964. Followinghis speech, theseminarparticipants engaged ina round-tablediscussion that centeredonAdrian’slecture. One of those in attendance wasWilderPenfield, the renownedCanadianneurosurgeon,whodryly responded toLordAdrian: “I had in mind to ask whether therobot could, in any conceivable way, see ajoke. I think not. Sense of humor would,I suspect, be the last thing that a machinewould have” (as quoted in Eccles, 1966, p.248). Brilliant stroke! So much for a ma-chinebeingable todoeverythinghumanscando.]

Evolutionary theory has no adequateanswer to the questionofhowconscious-ness arose, as evolutionistsEccles andRob-insonadmitted.

[A]ll materialist theories of the mindare in conflict with biological evolu-tion….Evolutionary theoryholds thatonly those structures andprocesses thatsignificantly aid in survival are devel-oped in natural selection. If conscious-ness is causally impotent, its devel-opment cannot be accounted for byevolutionarytheory(1984,p.37,emp.added).

Or, as Gregory had noted years earlier:If the brain was developed by Natu-ral Selection, we might well supposethat consciousness has survival value.But for this itmust, surely, have causaleffects.Butwhateffects couldaware-ness, or consciousness, have? (1977,p. 276, emp. added).Evolutionistsmaynotbe able to explain

what causal effect(s) consciousness mightpossibly have that would endow it with a“survival value” significant enoughfor“na-ture” to “select,” but one thing is certain:mostof themarenotwilling togo so far asto suggest that consciousness does not ex-ist, or that it is unimportant to humanity.AsRuseput it:

Theaverage evolutionist, however, par-ticularly the average Darwinian, feelsextremely uncomfortable with suchadismissive attitude.Consciousnessseemsa very important aspect ofhu-mannature.Whatever itmaybe, con-sciousness is somuchapartofwhat itis to be human that Darwinians areloath to say thatnatural selectionhadnoor little role in its production andmaintenance (2001b, pp. 197, emp. add-ed).While the “average Darwinian” may in-

deed be “extremely uncomfortable” withthe suggestion that natural selection had

“no or little role in the production andmaintenanceofconsciousness,” the truthof thematter is thatnoDarwinian can ex-plainwhy, orhow, natural selectioncouldhave played any part whatsoever in such aprocess. Yet, as Richard Heinberg observedinhis book,Cloning theBuddha: TheMoralImpact of Biotechnology:

Since no better material explanationis apparently available, it is assumedthatwhatever explanation is at hand—however obvious its shortcomings—must be true. Natural selection thusbecomes an inscrutable, godlike agencycapable of producing miracles (1999,p. 71, emp. inorig.).From an evolutionary viewpoint, con-

sciousness doesn’tdo anything. It doesn’t“help” the neural circuits in the brain. Itapparentlydoesn’thaveany“greatbiolog-ical significance,” and it doesn’t seem tobestow any innate “survival benefit” onits possessor. We ask, then, what is left?Or, to repeatGregory’s question: “Whydoweneed consciousness?”

Why Do We Need Consciousness?From an evolutionary viewpoint, may-

bewe don’t. W.H. Thorpe, in his chapter,“Ethology and Consciousness,” for thebook, Brain and Conscious Experience, askedregardingconsciousness: “Is there a goodselective reason for it, or is there just noreason at all why the animal should nothave got on quite as well without havingdeveloped this apparently strange and newfaculty?” (1965, p. 497). Perhaps, amidst alltheother “happenstances” resulting frombillions of years of evolution, conscious-

ness is, to put it bluntly, a “quirky acci-dent.” Ironically (ormaybenot), those arethe exact words the late evolutionist Ste-phen Jay Gould used to describe the originof consciousnesswhenhe said:

The not-so-hidden agenda in all thisis a concern with human conscious-ness. You can’t blameus for being fas-cinatedwithconsciousness; it’s anenor-mous punctuation in the history oflife. I view it as aquirkyaccident (asquotedinLewin,1992,pp.145-146,emp.added).

Or, as Sir Fred Hoyle observed of Gould’sreference to consciousness being “an enor-mouspunctuation in the history of life”:“ProfessorGould acceptshumanconscious-nessasanexceptiontohisgeneral thesis; itis aphenomenonsudden in its appearanceandexceptional in itsnature” (Hoyle andWickramasinghe, 1993, p. 177). Theodos-iusDobzhansky suggested:

Self-awareness is, then, one of the fun-damental,andpossibly themost fun-damental, characteristic of the humanspecies.This characteristic is an evo-lutionarynovelty; the biological spe-cies fromwhichmankindhasdescend-ed had only rudiments of self-aware-ness, or perhaps lacked it altogether(1967,p. 68).

An “exceptional evolutionary novelty?”Truthbe told, it is so exceptional that someevolutionistshavegivenupaltogether try-ing to figure out why consciousness existsin the first place.One suchprominent fig-ure in the field isBritishphilosopherCol-in McGinn. In speaking about McGinn’sviewsonour inability to explain theoriginof consciousness, JamesTrefil wrote inhisbook,AreWeUnique?:

Others have suggested more esotericarguments about the fundamental un-knowabilityof consciousness. For ex-ample, philosopher Colin McGinnof Rutgers University has suggested,on thebasis of an argument fromevo-lutionary theory, that thehumanmindis simply not equipped to deal withthisparticularproblem.Hisbasic ar-gument is thatnothing inevolutionhas ever required thehumanmindtobeable todealwith theoperationofthehumanbrain (1997,p.186,emp.added).

In his 2000 volume, Human Natures:Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect , PaulEhrlich discussed this particular situationas well when he remarked that McGinndoubts

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…that we will ever understand how apattern of electrochemical impulsesin our nervous systems is translatedinto the rich experience of, say, watch-ing an opera or flying an airplane.He believes that our minds did notevolve in such a way as to enable usto answer thatquestion,whichmaybe fated to remain unanswered fora very long time, if not forever (p.112).Some evolutionists, however, are not

quite ready to throw in the towel just yet.Rather thanadmitdefeat, theyhaveoptedto defend the view that the “why” of con-sciousness has something to do with thebrain—although they admittedly arenot atall sure what or how. Stephen Jay Gouldbelieved that the brain evolved, got bigger,and somehow produced consciousness asan “exaptation.” What, exactly, is an exap-tation? Let Gould explain.

[W]hat shall we call structuresthat contribute to fitness, butevolved forother reasons, andwere later co-opted for their cur-rent role? They have no nameat present, and [Elisabeth] Vrbaand I suggest that theybe called“exaptations” (1984, p. 66; forVrba reference, see Gould andVrba, 1982).

Inotherwords, a big braindidnotevolve in order to “produce con-sciousness.” If you will pardon theunintended truism, it had otherthings “on itsmind.” Instead, foronereasonoranother (thatnooneseems quite able to explain), con-sciousness“justhappened”asa for-tuitous andunexpectedby-product.Gould discussed human conscious-ness as oneof the brain’s “exaptivepossibilities”whenhewrote:

Anarmbuilt foronethingcandooth-ers (I amnowtypingwith fingers builtfor other purposes). But a brain builtfor some functions can do orders ofmagnitude more simply by virtue ofits basic construction as a flexible com-puter.Neverinbiologicalhistoryhasevolution built a structure with suchan enormous and ramifying set ofexaptive possibilities. The basis ofhuman flexibility lies in theunselectedcapacitiesofour largebrain (1984,pp.67-68,parenthetical iteminorig., emp.added).

One thing remains certain: consciousnessdoes appear tobe connected to the brain.Yet that causesasmanyproblemsas itdoessolutions, asGregoryobserved:

We believe that consciousness is tiedto livingorganisms: especiallyhumanbeings, andmoreparticularly to spe-cific regions of the human brain….

This in turn generates the question:“What is the relation between con-sciousness and thematter or functionsof thebrain?”…One trouble about con-sciousness is that it cannot be (or hasnot yet been) isolated from brains, tostudy it in different contexts (1977, pp.274,276,parenthetical iteminorig.).

RichardLeakeychimed in toagree:Themost obvious change in thehom-inid brain in its evolutionary trajec-tory was, as noted, a tripling of size.Sizewasnot theonlychange,however;theoverallorganizationchanged, too....This difference in organizationpresumably underlies in some waythegenerationof thehumanmindasopposed to theapemind. Ifweknewwhen thechange inconfigurationoc-curredinhumanprehistory,wewouldhaveaclueabout theemergenceofhu-man mind (1994, pp. 145, emp. add-ed).

Onewidelyheldviewregarding the jumpfrom the three pounds of matter inside ahuman skull being “just” a brain, to thetype of complex brain that permits and/orproduces consciousness, appears tobethat once thebrain reacheda certain size,consciousness more or less just “taggedalong for the ride.” Or, as Ruse hypothe-sized:

Generalopinion (myopinion!) is thatsomehow,asbrainsgotbiggerandbet-terduringanimalevolution,conscious-ness started to emerge in a primitivesort of way. Brains developed for cal-culatingpurposes and consciousnessemergedand,as itwere, gotdraggedalong. Most Darwinians think thatat some point, consciousness cameinto itsownright (2001b,pp.197-198,parenthetical item in orig., emp. add-ed).

There are, however, a number of “al-ternative explanations” for why the brainultimately developed consciousness. Greg-ory listed just a few (out of a sizable num-ber)whenhewrote:

It has been suggested that: (1) mindand brain are not connected (epiphe-nomenalism);or (2) that thebraingen-erates consciousness; or (3) that con-sciousnessdrives thebrain;or (4) thattheybothwork inparallel (like apairof identical clocks)withoutcausal con-nection (1977, p. 279, parenthetical itemsinorig.).

Thenagain, there are thosewhoarenotquite so ecstatic about the concept of in-creased brain size being solely responsiblefor something as important and quixoticas consciousness. For example, in his book,Complexity: Life at theEdge of Chaos ,RogerLewinobserved:

I foundmanybiologistsdistinctlyuncomfortablewithtalkingaboutincrease in brain size as a meas-ure of complexity. “I’m hostile toall sorts of mystical urges towardgreat complexity,” said RichardDawkinswhenIaskedhimwheth-er an increase in computationalcomplexity might be consideredan inevitable part of the evolution-ary process. “You’d like to thinkthat being able to solveproblemscontributes toDarwinianfitness,wouldn’t you?,” said John May-nard Smith. “But it’s hard to re-late increasedbrain size to fitness.After all, bacteria are fit” (1992,p.146).

StevenPinker, the eminentpsy-chologist fromMIT, isnohappierwith the idea that “a big brain ex-plains it all” than some of the rest

ofhis evolutionarycolleagues. InTheLan-guage Instinct, he lamented:

Alarge-brainedcreature is sentencedto a life that combines all the dis-advantagesofbalancingawatermel-on onabroomstick, running inplaceinadownjacket,andforwomen,pas-sing a large kidney stone every fewyears. Any selection on brain sizeitselfwouldsurelyhave favored thepinhead. Selection formorepowerfulcomputational abilities (language, per-ception, reasoning, and so on) musthave given us a big brain as a by-prod-uct—not theotherway around! (1994,pp.374-375,parenthetical itemsinorig.,emp. added).

Furthermore, “brain size,” as it turnsout, doesnot live up to its vaunted reputa-tion.Brainsizeand intellect among livingpeople have been thoroughly explored by,

Scale of intelligence according to brain size

amongothers, suchscientists as evolution-istW.LeGrosClark,whoreportedthat skullsfromhumansofnormal intelligence varyin cranial capacity anywhere from 900ccto2,300cc. In fact,Dr.Clarkdiscussedonecompletely normal human being whosebrainsizewasamere720cc (seeClark,1958,pp.357-360,Howe,1971,p. 213).

If natural selection did not “choose”consciousness (because it hasno“causaleffects”), if (from an evolutionary pointofview)consciousnesshasnoknownfunc-tion , and if “evolvingabigbrain” isnotanadequate explanation for consciousness—then, to repeat our original question, whydid consciousness arise in the first place?Whatdoes itdo?

Some evolutionists have suggested thatconsciousness arose “so that people couldprocess language.”But, asWrightnoted:

People who claim to have a scientificanswer usually turn out to have mis-understood the question. For exam-ple, some people say that conscious-ness arose so that people could pro-cess language….But,whatever itmayfeel like, the (often unspoken) prem-ise of modern behavioral science isthatwhenyouare in conversationwithsomeone, all the causing happens ata physical level. That someone flapshis or her tongue, generating physi-cal soundwaves that enter your ear, trig-gering a sequence of physical processesin yourbrain thatultimately result inthe flappingof yourown tongue, andsoon. In short: the experienceof as-similating someone’s words and for-mulating a reply is superfluous to theassimilation and the reply, both ofwhichare just intricatemechanicalpro-cesses (2000, p. 307, parenthetical itemandemp. inorig.).

PeterWilsonasked:But how is self-consciousness possi-ble?...We might choose to cite certainsuggestions that language is the pre-requisite, for it is only with the aid oflanguage that we can find the way togive reality, by articulation to the in-choate intuition of the divided self.But language may play this role onlyin a mechanical sense, by providing ameans of expressing and symboliz-ingconsciousness (1980,pp.85-86,emp.inorig.).

“Expressing” and “symbolizing” conscious-ness,however,arenot thesameas“explain-ing”consciousness.

Alwyn Scott, in his book, Stairway tothe Mind: The Controversial New Science ofConsciousness, suggested that “consciousnessgives an evolutionary advantage to the spe-cies thatdevelops it” (1995,p.162).Butwhat,specifically,might that advantage be?W.H.Thorpe chose the simplest option of all:

“Theproductionofconsciousnessmayhavebeenanevolutionarynecessity, in that itmay have been the only way in which high-lycomplex livingorganismscouldbecomefully viable” (1965, p. 493). Adam Zeman,in the review of the subject of conscious-ness that he wrote for the journal, Brain,chose a different tact: “[I]t can be argued,at a conceptual level, that the concept ofone’s own mind presupposes the conceptofotherminds” (2001, 124:1281). Inanar-ticle he wrote for New Scientist titled “Na-ture’sPsychologists”(and, later, inhisbook,A History of the Mind), Nicholas Humph-rey seizedon that thought toprovideoneexample of the type of theories that havebeenproposed toexplain the“evolution-ary advantage” of consciousness. He sug-gested that the purpose of consciousnessis to allow “social animals” to model an-other’s behavior on the basis of their in-sight into another creature’s psychologicalmotivation. Inotherwords, our knowledgeof our own mental states supplies us withinsight into the mental states underlyingthe actions of others—which then: (a) pro-videsuswiththeabilitytopredictwhatsome-one else is likely to do; and (b) thereby be-comesamajordeterminantofourownbi-ological success (1978).Or, asPaulEhrlichasked:

What couldhavebeen the selective ad-vantage that led to the evolution ofintense consciousness? This type ofconsciousness helps us to maneuverin a complicated societyofother in-dividuals, each of whom is also in-tensely conscious. Intense conscious-ness alsoallowsus toplaywithoutact-ingout theplans and to consider thatother individuals probably also areplanning (2000,p. 113).Not tobeoutdone,MerlinDonald, in

A Mind So Rare, offered up his own sup-position. “Conscious capacity,” he wrote,“maybeseenasanevolutionaryadaptationin its own right, whose various functionshave evolved tooptimizeorboost cognitiveprocessing” (2001,p. 131). [Ah, yes—“opti-mizing cognitive processing.” And exactlyhowwould consciousness (which, asDr.Eccles admitted, is “causally impotent”)accomplish that?] Then, last, but certainlynot least,Ruseweighed inwithhis guess.

Slowly but positively, brain scientistsdo feel that they are groping towardsome understanding of the virtues ofconsciousness, over andabove theop-erationofblindautomata. It is felt thatconsciousness may act as a kind offilterandguide—coordinatingall theinformation thrownupby thebrain.Consciousness helps to prevent thebrain fromgettingoverloaded, ashap-pensall toooftenwithcomputers.Con-

sciousness regulates experience, siftingthrough the input, using some andrejecting some and storing some…(2001b,p. 198, emp. added).Thus, consciousness, sowe are told: (a)

acts a filter or guide to coordinate all theinformation thrown up by the brain; (b)prevents thebrain fromgettingoverloaded;(c) regulates experience; (d) sifts throughinput into the brain; and (d) rejects someexperience and stores others. Pretty impres-sive achievement, wouldn’t you say, for thenebulous “something” referred to as con-sciousness that, supposedly, “natural se-lection had no or little role in producing”(Ruse), “is causally impotent” (Eccles), “isfundamentally unknowable” (McGinn),and “is not a causal agent” (Gregory). Andthat, inturn,bringsustoournextquestion.

How Did Consciousness Arise?It is not enough to ask why conscious-

nessarose.Onealsomust inquireas tohowconsciousness originated. In Man: The Prom-isingPrimate,Wilsonasked:

[H]ow is it possible for one species,thehuman, todevelopconsciousness,and particular self-consciousness, tosuch a degree that it becomes of criti-cal importance for the individual’ssanity and survival? And what is themeaningof this development in andforhumanevolution? (1980,p. 84).Human consciousness is so pervasive,

andsoundeniable, that themechanismofits existence must be explained. But how?Onepractically can envisionStephen JayGould shrugging his shoulders in exasper-ation, and sighing in frustration, as he ad-mitted: “…[W]emust view the evolutionof human consciousness as a lucky acci-dent that occurred only by the fortunate(for us) concatenation of numerous im-probabilities” (1984, p. 64, parentheticalitem in orig.). Five years later, he contin-ued in the same vein: “Homo sapiens mayform only a twig, but if life moves, evenfitfully, towardgreatercomplexityandhigh-er mental powers, then the eventual ori-gin of self-conscious intelligence may beimplicit inall thatcamebefore” (1989,p.45).Afteranotherfiveyearshadpassed,hewrote:

Homo sapiens did not appear on theearth, just a geologic second ago, be-causeevolutionarytheorypredictssuchanoutcomebasedon themesofprog-ressandincreasingneural complexity.Humans arose, rather, as a fortuitousandcontingentoutcomeof thousandsoflinkedevents,anyoneofwhichcouldhaveoccurreddifferently andsenthis-tory on an alternative pathway thatwould not have led to consciousness(1994, 271[4]:86).

Then, two years later, in his book, FullHouse: The Spread of Excellence from Plato toDarwin,Dr.Gouldconcluded:

If a large extraterrestrialobject—theul-timate random bolt from the blue—had not triggered the extinction of di-nosaurs 65 million years ago, mam-mals would still be small creatures,confined to the nooks and cranniesof a dinosaur’s world, and incapableof evolving the larger size thatbrainsbig enough for self-consciousness re-quire. If a small and tenuouspopula-tionofprotohumanshadnotsurviveda hundred slings and arrows of out-rageous fortune (andpotential extinc-tion) on the savannas of Africa, thenHomosapienswouldneverhave emergedto spread throughout the globe. Weare glorious accidents of an unpre-dictableprocesswithnodrivetocom-plexity, not the expected results ofevolutionaryprinciples that yearntoproduceacreaturecapableofun-derstandingthemodeof itsownnec-essaryconstruction(1996,p.216,par-enthetical iteminorig.,emp. added).

While it is convenient to surmise that con-sciousness is the resultof a “contingentout-comeof thousandsof linked events,” or a“glorious accident,” such speculationdoesnot explain how consciousness arose. Sohowdid it arise?

On occasion (quite often, in fact), evo-lutionists have been known to criticize cre-ationists for their relianceonwhat the evo-lutionists see as “just-so” stories (a phrasefrom Rudyard Kipling’s children’s bookof the same title, in which fanciful expla-nations are offered for adaptations, suchas the elephant’s trunk). But, as the oldadage suggests, “the sauce that is good forthe goose also is good for the gander.”Or,toput it anotherway, evolutionists arenotabove weaving their own “just-so” stories—when it suits theirpurpose.

Stephen Jay Gould—effective popular-izer of evolution that he was—spun a fas-cinating tale of howhe thought conscious-nessevolved.Byhisbestguess,humancon-sciousness is rooted in the destructionof the dinosaurs 65-70 million years agoas the result of a giant asteroidhitting theEarthanddriving themtoextinction (1996,p. 216).

Does this strike you as a bit odd? Doesit leave youwondering exactlyhow thedi-nosaurs’ demise could possibly accountfor, of all things, human consciousness?Little wonder, then, that Dr. Gould con-cludedinanarticle (“TheEvolutionofLifeon the Earth”) he wrote for the October1994 issue of Scientific American:“H. sapiens

is but a tiny, late-arising twig on life’s enor-mouslyarborescentbush—asmallbudthatwould almost surely not appear a secondtime if we could replant the bush fromseedand let it growagain” (271[4]:91).

As far as Gould and many of his col-leagues are concerned, Homo sapiens maybe nothing but a “tiny twig” or a “smallbud.” But human consciousness (“our mostpreciouspossession,” “the greatest ofmir-acles”) has defied every attempt by evolu-tionists to explain either the reason for itsexistenceor themechanism leading to itsdevelopment. Further complicating mat-ters is theobvious andundeniable fact thatour consciousness/self-awareness allowsustoexperience(andexpress!)whatRogerPen-rose has referred to as “non-computable el-ements”—things like compassion, moral-ity, andmanyothers—thatmereneural ac-tivity is extremelyhardpressed toexplain.AsDr.Penroseput it:

There are some types of words whichwould seem to involve non-comput-ableelements—forexample, judgement,commonsense, insight, aesthetic sen-sibility, compassion, morality…. Theseseemtome tobe thingswhicharenotjust features of computations…. If thereindeed exists some sort of contact withPlatonic absolutes which our awarenessenables us to achieve, and which can-not be explained in terms of compu-tational behaviour, then that seemsto me to be an important issue (1997,p. 125, first ellipsis inorig., secondel-lipsis andemp. added).

An important issue? Talk about under-statement! It is difficult enough to try toinvent“just-so” stories toexplainwhycon-sciousness arose in the first place, and thento explain how it did so. But to try to ex-plain the role that consciousness plays insuch “important issues” within human-ityascommonsense, judgment,aesthetics,

compassion, and morality—well, let’s justsay that Michael Ruse had it right whenheobserved: “I hardlyneed say that all ofthese suggestions raise as many ques-tions andproblemsas theyanswer. Phi-losophers and scientists are working hardtoward answers and resolutions” (2001b,pp. 199-200, emp. added).AnthonyO’Hear,in his book, Beyond Evolution: Human Na-ture and the Limits of Evolutionary Explana-tion, remarked: “What is crucially at issuehere isnothowhumanself-consciousnessmighthavecomeabout,butwhat its signif-icance is once it has come about” (1997, p.22).

In a special April 10, 2000 issue of Timemagazinedevoted to the subjectof“Visionsof Space and Science,” Steven Pinker, pro-fessor of brain and cognitive sciences atMIT and author of How the Mind Works,producedanarticle titled“Will theMindFigureOutHowtheBrainWorks?,”inwhichheconcluded:

Will we ever understand the brain aswell as we understand the heart, say,or the kidney? Will mad scientists ordictators have the means to controlour thoughts? Will neurologists scanour brains down to the last synapseand duplicate the wiring in a siliconchip, givingourminds eternal life?

Noonecansay.Thehumanbrainisthemost complex object in the knownuniverse, with billions of chatteringneurons connectedby trillions of syn-apses. No scientific problem comparesto it. (The Human Genome Project,which is trying to read a long molec-ular sentence composed of billions ofletters, is simple by comparison.) ….Onechallengeisthatwearestillclue-lessabouthow thebrain representsthecontentofour thoughtsandfeel-ings (2000, 155[4]:91, parentheticaliteminorig., emp. added).

Or, as brain scientist John Beloff admittedin an article titled “The Mind-Brain Prob-lem”: “The fact is that, leaving aside myth-ical and religious cosmologies, the posi-tion of mind in nature remains a totalmystery….Atpresent there isnoagreementeven as to what would count here as deci-sive evidence” (1994, emp. added).

We would like to close this discussionabout how consciousness arose with thefollowing statements from Bryan Apple-yard.

Hard science will fight back at thispoint by attempting to deny this is aproblem at all. Self-consciousness ismerely a by-product of evolutionarycomplexity. Animals develop largerbrains as survival mechanisms. Overmillions of years these brains attainawesome levels of miniaturization andorganization; indeed, they become themost complicated things in theuni-verse.Then,oneday, this complexitygives rise to somethingutterlyunprec-edented.… The reason such explana-tions feel inadequate, even though, aschildren of the scientific age, we prob-ably accept them at the back of ourminds, is thattheyareincoherent.Theydo not explain self-consciousness,theyexplaincomplexity.Of course, the hard evolutionist maystill respond by claiming that this isa by-product of complexity. The elab-orationsandanomaliesofourlanguageandourawareness aremerely akindofsurplus capacity to idle thathappenstooccur in thebrain.... In reality, theyare trivial—in the words of Peter At-kins they are “special but not signifi-cant.”But, again, this is incoherent.Howcanit be “not significant” that we are abletouse andunderstand thewords “notsignificant”? What meaning can theword “significant” have in such a con-text?Significant towhat? If self-con-sciousness is “not significant,” thenwhere on earth is significance to befound? (1992,pp.194,195-196,emp.add-ed).Wecouldnothave said it anybetterour-

selves. If human consciousness does notrankasbeing“significant,”whatdoes?

EVOLUTIONARY BIAS AND THEORIGIN OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

Bias is a difficult thing to admit. It alsois adifficult thing toovercome. Some

would even say impossible. Donald Johan-son, in his book, Lucy: The Beginnings ofHumankind (which discusses Australopith-ecus afarensis, arguably thebest-known“hom-inid” fossil in the world), addressed thisissue in anadmirably candidmannerwhen

he wrote: “There is no such thing as a totallack of bias. I have it; everybody has it.”But Dr. Johanson did not stop there. Hewent on to note: “The insidious thingabout bias is that it does make one deafto the cries of other evidence” (Johan-son and Edey, 1981, p. 277, emp. added).

Oh, how true. And the veracity of thisassessment is especially evident when thebias involves an intractable determinationto livewithoutGod.WillDurantwasa self-proclaimedhumanist andavowedatheist,yetheneverthelesswrote:“Thegreatestques-tionof our time is not communismvs. in-dividualism, not Europe vs. America, noteven theEast vs. theWest; it iswhethermencanbear to livewithoutGod”(1932,p.23).

The steely resolve “to livewithoutGod”hasbecome themantraofmany scientistsand philosophers. Sir Julian Huxley, him-self an atheist, compared God to the dis-appearingactperformedby theCheshirecat inAlice’sAdventures inWonderlandwhenhe wrote: “The supernatural is being sweptout of the universe.... God is beginningto resemblenot a ruler, but the last fadingsmileofacosmicCheshirecat” (1957,p.59).To Huxley, and thousands of others likehim, “the God argument” has been effec-tively routed.

Disbelief in God, though, is an a prioridecision that is not based on evidence!Timeandagain, eminent atheists, agnos-tics, skeptics, and infidelshavemade theirpositions in this regard crystal clear. Thewidelypublishedcommentsof the latebio-chemist and sciencewriter, IsaacAsimov,are an excellent example. In a thought-pro-voking interview by the editor of The Hu-manist, PaulKurtz,Dr.Asimovwas askedhow he would classify himself. He respond-ed: “Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don’thave the evidence toprove thatGoddoesn’texist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’tthat I don’t want to waste my time” (Asi-mov,1982,2[2]:9).

Once a person comes to the decisionthathe“strongly suspects” thatGoddoesnot exist, where does that leave him? WithGod out of the picture, two facts becomeprominent—and problematic—very quickly.First, anaturalistic systemoforigins (i.e.,organic evolution)mustbe invoked toex-plain, not just man’s origin, but every-thing!AsHuxleywentontosay threeyearsafter he made the above statement: “Theearthwasnot created; it evolved. Sodid allthe animals and plants that inhabit it, in-cluding our human selves, mind and soulas well as brain and body. So did religion”(1960,pp.252-253).

George Gaylord Simpson of Harvardwrote that evolution “achieves the aspectof purpose without the intervention of apurposer, and has produced a vast planwithout the action of a planner” (1947, p.489). In a strictly reductionist scheme, theidea thatorganismsdeliberatelypursuegoalsmust be rejected, since “purpose” cannotbe reduced to the laws of physics. BiologistAlexNovikoffwrote: “Onlywhenpurposewas excluded from descriptions of all bi-ological activity…could biological prob-lemsbeproperly formulated and analyzed”(1945,101:212-213).

Another scientist fromHarvard,E.O.Wilson (who is acknowledged as the “fa-ther of sociobiology”), weighed in on thissame theme inhisbook,OnHumanNature,whenhecommentedonthevery firstpage:“If humankind evolved by Darwinian nat-ural selection, genetic chance and environ-mental necessity, not God, made the spe-cies” (1978, p. 1). Or, as Brown Universityevolutionist Kenneth Miller put it in his1999volume,FindingDarwin’sGod:

Myparticular religiousbeliefs or yoursnotwithstanding, it is a fact that inthescientificworldof the late twen-tieth century, the displacement ofGodbyDarwinian forces is almostcomplete. This view is not always ar-ticulated openly, perhaps for fear ofoffending the faithful, but the litera-ture of science is not a good place tokeep secrets. Scientific writing, espe-cially on evolution, shows this displace-mentclearly (p. 15, emp. added).

Second,withGodseeminglyhavingbeen“displaced,” like it or not, man is on hisown. Simpson remarked in his book, Lifeof thePast :

Man stands alone in the universe,a unique product of a long, uncon-scious, impersonal material processwith unique understanding and po-tentialities. These he owes to no onebut himself, and it is to himself thathe is responsible. He is not the crea-ture of uncontrollable and undeter-minable forces, but is his own mas-ter.Hecanandmustdecide andman-agehisowndestiny (1953,p. 155, emp.added).

Nobel laureate Jacques Monod, in hisdismally depressing magnum opus, ChanceandNecessity, concluded: “Manat leastknowshe is alone in the unfeeling immensity ofthe universe, out of which he has emergedonly by chance” (1971, p. 180). ButMonod’scomments are “lighthearted” compared tothose of another Nobel laureate. StevenWeinberg, inhisbookabouttheoriginandfateof theUniverse,TheFirst ThreeMinutes,

pennedwhatmanybelieveare someof themost seriously disheartening words imag-inable.Read themandweep.

As I write this I happen to be in anairplane at 30,000 feet, flyingoverWy-oming en routehome fromSanFran-cisco to Boston. Below, the earth looksvery soft andcomfortable—fluffy cloudshere and there, snow turning pink asthe sun sets, roads stretching straightacross the country from one town toanother. It is veryhardtorealize thatthis all is just a tiny part of an over-whelminglyhostileuniverse. It is evenharder to realize that this presentuni-verse has evolved from an unspeak-ably unfamiliar early condition, andfacesa futureextinctionofendlesscoldor intolerable heat. The more the uni-verseseemscomprehensible, themoreit also seems pointless (1977, pp. 154-155, emp. added).

Alas, then,asRichardLeakeyandRogerLewin put it in their book, Origins: “Thereis no law that declares the human animalto be different, as seen in this broad bio-logical perspective, from any other ani-mal” (1977, p. 256). A bleak thought, to besure—but from an evolutionist’s self-im-posedview, inescapably truenevertheless.

Perhapsnow is the time to ask: Wheredoes all of this inevitably lead?Actionshave consequences, and beliefs have im-plications. In a chapter titled “ScientificHumanism” inhis book,TheHumanistAl-ternative,PaulKurtz concluded:

To adopt such a scientific approachunreservedly is to accept asultimatein all matters of fact and real exis-tence the appeal to the evidence ofexperiencealone—acourt subordi-nate to no higher authority, to beover-riddenbynoprejudicehowevercomfortable (1973,p.109,emp.added).

That “higher authority” must be avoided atall cost.Herman J. Eckelmann, in anarti-cle titled“SomeConcludingThoughtsonEvolutionaryBelief,” echoedan interest-ing refrain when he asked: “Is it possible

that one canhave toohighan emotionalstake in wanting to have a God-less uni-verse?” (1991,p.345).That“emotionalstake”is a driving force behind the refusal to sub-mit to that “higher authority.” If youdoubtthat, then listen to the admission of Har-vardgeneticistRichardLewontin.

We take the side of science in spite ofthepatent absurdityof someof its con-structs, in spite of its failure to fulfillmany of its extravagant promises ofhealth and life, in spiteof the toleranceof the scientific community for un-substantiated just-so stories, becausewehaveapriorcommitment,acom-mitment tonaturalism. It isnot thatthemethodsandinstitutionsofsci-ence somehow compel us to accepta material explanation of the phe-nomenal world, but, on the con-trary, thatwe are forcedbyourapri-ori adherence to material causes tocreate an apparatus of investigationanda setof concepts thatproducema-terial explanations, no matter howcounter-intuitive, nomatterhowmys-tifying to the uninitiated. Moreover,that materialism is absolute, for wecannot allow a Divine Foot in thedoor (1997, p. 31, italics in orig., emp.added).

Or, asAlwynScott confessed:In the realm of science, one’s atti-tude toward what Karl Popper cal-led “the great tradition of materi-alism” is often used as an index ofrespectability. Thosewho turnawayfrom this tradition to consider the na-ture of consciousness run the risk ofbeingmarkedas flakeswhomightalsobelieve in psychokinesis (spoon bend-ing), mental telepathy, clairvoyance,precognition, andthe like.Thesafestcourse—especially for the young sci-entist—is to shunsuch temptationsand concentrate on the data froma particular level of the hierarchy(1995, p. 167, parenthetical item in orig.,emp. added).

Materialism in Light ofHuman Consciousness

Once the scientists and philosophershave admitted their bias againstGodandthe supernatural, and therefore have lim-ited themselves to the purely naturalisticexplanationsofferedbyorganicevolution,they are severely constrained in regard tohow they can explainhumanconscious-ness—what Popper and Eccles called “thegreatest of miracles.” These individuals des-perately desire—indeed, must have—evolu-tion as an explanation for “whatever ex-ists” (and that certainly includes humanconsciousness). As Sir Francis Crick put it:

“The ultimate aim of the modern move-ment inbiology is in fact to explainallofbiology intermsofphysicsandchemistry”(1966, p. 10, emp. added). Emil du-Bois-Reymand (1818-1896), the founder of elec-trochemistry, and Hermann von Helm-holtz (1812- 1894), the famedGermanphys-iologist and physicist who was the first tomeasure thespeedofnerve impulses, agreed:“All the activities of living material, in-cluding consciousness, are ultimately tobeexplained in termsofphysics andchem-istry” (as quoted in Leake, 1964, sec. 4, pp.5-6,emp.added).RichardLeakeyobserved:

This is one of the paradoxes of Homosapiens: we experience the unity anddiversity of a mind shaped by eons oflifeashunter-gatherers.Weexperienceits unity in the common possessionof an awareness of self and a sense ofawe at the miracle of life. And we ex-perience its diversity in the differentcultures—expressed in language, cus-toms, andreligions—thatwecreateandthat create us. We should rejoice atsowondrousaproductof evolution(1994,p. 157, emp. added).

Robert Ornstein wrote in The Evolutionof Consciousness:

Our mind did not spring from a de-signer, nor froma set of ideal and ide-alized programs…. Instead, it evolvedon the sameadaptivebasis as the restof biological evolution, using thepro-cesses of random generation and se-lectionofwhat is so generated….Thestory of the mind lies in many acci-dents andmany changes of function(1991,pp.4-5, emp. added).

Ornsteinwenton to say:Working in such boundless time, allevolution needs is a tiny and consis-tentadvantageat anypoint for thingsto addup…. Inmillionsof years, andwith a generation time of five years,there is an immense time for adapta-tions to tally up in prehumans. And,in living beings who reproduce quick-ly (in animals, generation times areonly three or four years, and in bac-teria, almostno time),major changescanoccur inonlyafewthousandyears.E. coli, thebacteriumof choice for re-search, has a generation cycle of hours.Granted so much time, and selectionforadvantages, all thebiologicalmir-acles have had plenty of time andplenty of chance to have happened(p. 28, parenthetical item and italicsinorig., emp. added).

AlanDresslerdrylycommented inhisbook,Voyage to theGreatAttractor: “Theuniversehas invented a way to know itself ” (1994,p. 335).

Picture taken in 2004 by the Hubble spacetelescope of the structure and organizationof a portion of the Universe.

Orhas it?Can“biologicalmiracles”oc-cur just because there is supposed to havebeen“plentyof timeandplentyofchance?”Monodwistfullywrote: “Chancealone isthe source of every innovation, of all cre-ation in the biosphere.… All forms of lifeare the product of chance...” (1972, pp.110,167). Suchaview,however, ascribes to“chance” properties that it does not, andcannot,possess.Sproul,Gerstner,andLinds-leyaddressed this logical fallacy and con-cluded: “Chance is incapable of creatinga single molecule, let alone an entire uni-verse. Why not? Chance is no thing. It isnot an entity. It has no being, no power,no force. It can effect nothing for it hasnocausalpowerwithin it” (1984,p. 118).

One of the twentieth century’s mosteminent evolutionists was French zoolo-gist Pierre-Paul Grassé, “whose knowledgeof the living world,” according to evolu-tionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhan-sky, “was encyclopedic” (1975, 29:376). Inhis classic tome, Evolution of Living Orga -nisms, Dr. Grassé candidly addressed theidea of chance being responsible for evo-lutionwhenhewrote: “To insist...that lifeappeared quite by chance and evolvedin this fashion is an unfounded suppo-sition which I believe to be wrong andnot in accordance with the facts” (1977,p. 107, emp. added).

Grassé alsoaddressed, asdidOrnsteinin his quote above, bacterial generationtimesand their relevance toevolution. Infact, Dr. Grassé discussed the very micro-organism, Escherichia coli, that Ornsteinmentioned—yet drew an entirely differentconclusion.

Bacteria, the studyofwhichhas formeda great part of the foundation of ge-netics andmolecular biology, are theorganisms which, because of their hugenumbers,produce themostmutations....[B]acteria, despite their great produc-tion of intraspecific varieties, exhibitagreat fidelity to their species.Theba-cillus Escherichia coli, whose mutantshave been studied very carefully, is thebest example.The readerwill agree thatit is surprising, to say the least, towant to prove evolution and to dis-cover its mechanisms and then tochoose as a material for this studyabeingwhichpractically stabilizedabillionyearsago(p.87,emp.added).

In spite of all this, numerous scientistsand philosophers exhibit a dogged deter-mination to explain the incredible natureofhumanconsciousness—adeterminationthat, if we may kindly say so, is itself in-credible! And they arenot the least bit shy

about admitting their built-in bias. ColinMcGinnput thematter inperspectivequitewell when he said:

Resolutely shunning the supernat-ural, I think it is undeniable that itmustbe invirtueof somenaturalprop-erty of the brain that organisms areconscious. There just has to be someexplanation forhowbrains [interactwith]minds (1993, p. 6, italics inorig.,emp. added).

Inotherwords,nowthat ithasbeende-clared (bywhat almost amounts todivinefiat) thatGoddidnotdo it, then it’s obvi-ous that “something else”must have. Therejust has to be some naturalistic explana-tion for how brains interact with minds!AsGordonAllport summarizedtheprob-lem: “For two generations, psychologistshave triedeveryconceivablewayofaccount-ing for the integration, organization andstriving of the human person without hav-ing recourse to thepostulate of a self ” (1955,p. 37).

Whatever that explanationmaybe, andwherever that “self ”mayhave come from,there is one thing evolutionists know it isnot—Godandthesupernatural. IanGlynn,in his book, An Anatomy of Thought: TheOrigin and Machinery of the Mind , admittedasmuchwhenhewrote:

Myown startingposition canbe sum-medup in three statements: first, thattheonlymindswhose existencewe canbeconfidentofareassociatedwithcom-plexbrainsofhumans and someoth-er animals; second, that we (and otheranimals with minds) are the productof evolutionbynatural selection; and,third, that neither in the origin oflife nor in its subsequent evolutionhas therebeenany supernatural in-terference—that is, anythinghappen-ing contrary to the laws of physics....If theoriginof life canbeexplainedwithout invokinganysupernaturalprocesses, it seemsmoreprofitableto lookelsewhereforclues toanun-derstanding of the mind (1999, p. 5,emp. added).

Scott addressed this sameconcept.What, then, is theessenceofconscious-ness? An answer to this question re-quires the specification of an “extraingredient”beyondmeremechanism.Traditionally this ingredient has beencalled the soul, althoughthebehavior-istsdealtwith thehardproblembyde-nyingit.Fromtheperspectiveofnat-uralscience,bothoftheseapproachesare unacceptable (1995, p. 172, italicsinorig., emp. added).

Crickwrote:

The idea that man has a disembodiedsoul is as unnecessary as the old ideathat there was a Life Force. This is inhead-oncontradictiontothereligiousbeliefs of billions of human beingsalive today. How will such a radicalchangebe received? (1994,p. 261).The commitment to materialism and

naturalism evinced by such statements isoverwhelming. Claude Bernard, the pro-genitorofmodernphysiology,believedthatthe cause of all phenomena is matter, andthatdeterminismis“the foundationofallscientific progress and criticism” (as quotedin Kety, 1960, 132:1863). Thomas Huxleyreflected this positionwhenheobserved:“Thoughts are the expressionofmolecularchanges in the matter of life, which is thesourceofourother vitalphenomena” (1870b,p.152).Huxleyalsosaid:“Mindisafunctionofmatter,when thatmatterhas attainedacertain degree of organization” (1871, p.464). He therefore concluded: “Thought isasmuchafunctionofmatterasmotion is”(1870a,p. 371).

Radical Materialism—A “Fishy” Theory

These strained machinations—each ofwhich is invoked todenyanyplace toGodand the supernatural—remind us of thenow-famous story told by Sir Arthur Ed-dington inhis book,ThePhilosophy of Phys-ical Science, about the ichthyologist and his“special”net for catching fish.

Let us suppose that an ichthyologistis exploring the life of the ocean. Hecasts a net into the water and bringsup a fishy assortment. Surveying hiscatch, he proceeds in the usual man-ner of a scientist to systematise whatit reveals. He arrives at two generali-sations: (1) No sea-creature is less thantwo inches long. (2) All sea-creatureshave gills. These are both true of hiscatch,andheassumes tentatively thatthey will remain true however often herepeats it. Inapplying this analogy, thecatchstands for thebodyofknowledgewhichconstitutesphysical science,andthenet for thesensoryandintellectualequipment which we use in obtainingit. The casting of the net correspondsto observation; for knowledge whichhasnotbeenorcouldnotbeobtainedbyobservation isnot admitted intophysical science. An onlooker mayobject that the first generalisation iswrong. “There areplentyof sea-crea-turesunder two inches long, only yournet isnot adapted tocatch them.”Theichthyologist dismisses this objectioncontemptuously. “Anything uncatch-able by my net is ipso facto outside thescope of ichthyological knowledge.In short, “whatmynet can’t catch isn’t

fish.” Or—to translate the analogy—If you are not simply guessing, youare claiming a knowledge of the phys-ical universediscovered in someotherway than by the methods of physicalscience, and admittedly unverifiableby such methods. You are a metaphy-sician (1958,p. 16).In November 1982, at the Isthmus In-

stitute inDallas,Texas, fourrenownedevo-lutionists who were Nobel laureates—SirJohn Eccles, Ilya Prigogine, Roger Sperry,andBrian Josephson—tookpart ina seriesofvery frankdiscussionsnarratedbyNor-manCousins, thehighly esteemed editorof theSaturdayReviewformore thanaquar-ter of a century. Three years later, in 1985,the fourNobel laureates releasedanabso-lutely amazingbook,NobelPrizeConversa-tions , containing the entire text of thosediscussions, along with Mr. Cousins’ nar-rative comments. In his “Prelude,” Cous-inswrote:

Althougheach representedadifferentscientificdiscipline theyhadone thingincommon:eachhadreceivedtheNo-bel Prize, each had used the gifts ofintelligence they had received in ser-viceofhumanlife.…

Another element also unites the fourNobelLaureates.Eachof themiscon-cerned about the relation betweenthehumanmindandhumanbrain,about the roleofhumanconscious-ness inanevolvinguniverse, abouttheinterplaybetweentimeandmind,about the world as a “work of art”which cannot simply be reduced toneural eventswithin thebrainor toimmutable mechanisms measuredby quantum analysis (pp. 4-5, emp.added).

In his book, The Wonder of Being Human:OurBrainandOurMind,Dr.Eccleswrote:

Whensuchtroublesarise inthehistoryof thought, it is usual to adopt somebelief that “saves” the day. For exam-ple, the denial of the reality of men-tal events, as in radical materialism,is aneasy cop-out….Radicalmateri-alismshouldhaveaprominentplacein thehistoryofhumansilliness (Ec-cles and Robinson, 1984, p. 17, emp.added).Weagreewholeheartedly! It is comfort-

ing to know that there are men of scienceas esteemedasSir JohnEccleswhoarewill-ing to admit asmuch. It also is comfortingto know that there are other individuals ofthe samestature in sciencewhoarewillingtostepforwardandsayessentially thesamething. Consider, as just one example, theinformation that follows in the conclu-sion to thisportionofourdiscussion.

CONCLUSION

A s we bring Part I of this series to aclose, we would like to leave you with

the thought-provoking comments of Nobellaureate Brian Josephson. But before we do,we would like to offer Mr. Cousins’ assess-mentof what you are about to read.

Dr. Josephsonhasproposed that theinclusionofGodorMindinscienceis not only plausible, but may evenbenecessary if science is ever to ful-lyunderstandNatureortoovercomeits difficulties in explaining phenom-ena like evolution and creativity (p.95, emp. added).

Now, Josephson’s remarks:Firstly, science casts the spotlight whichit uses to search for knowledge veryselectively; in other words what scien-tists choose to look at, to try to ex-plain in scientific terms, is ratherrestricted,ratherbiased.Andthecon-tent of science is biased in a mate-rialisticdirection....An alternative approach for the sci-entist is to say, Let’s investigate theopposite view, i.e., that perhaps weshould be taking God or Mind intoaccount in science; whatwoulda sci-ence look like which had God in thereplaying a part, accounting thereby forparticularphenomena?Therearevar-ious ways into this problem, and theway I’m going to take is to say that ifwe want to put God or Mind intoscience, then the primary feature ofMind, the one which is most closelyconnectedwiththesciencewe’vegot,is intelligence (as quoted in Cousins,1985, pp. 91,92-93,94, parenthetical iteminorig., emp.added).How very refreshing! And the fact that

such statements comefromaNobel laure-atewho is an admitted evolutionist, is, tosay the very least, surprising. But Dr. Jo-sephson isnot alone in such thinking.TheeminentBritish theoretical physicist (andformer Master of Queen’s College, Cam-bridge) JohnPolkinghorneexpressedsim-ilar thoughts in anarticle hewrote in2001(“Understanding theUniverse”) forpub-lication in theAnnals of theNewYorkAcad-emyof Sciences.

Those of us privileged to be scientistsare so excited by the quest to under-stand the workings of the physicalworld that we seldom stop to ask our-selves why we are so fortunate. Hu-manpowersof rational comprehen-sion vastly exceed anything thatcouldbe simplyanevolutionaryne-cessity for survival, or plausibly con-struedassomesortofcollateral spin-off from such a necessity….

I believe that science is possible be-cause thephysicalworld is a creationandweare, touseanancientandpow-erful phrase, creatures “made in theimage” of the Creator…. With, for ex-ample,PaulDaviesinhisbookTheMindofGod, I cannot regard thisdawningof consciousness as being just a for-tunate accident in the course of anessentiallymeaningless cosmichis-tory….What Ihave sought to show is that re-ligiousbelieverswhoseeadivineMindand Purpose behind the universe arenot shutting their eyes and irrationallybelieve impossible things. We havereasonforourbeliefs. Theyhave cometousthroughthatsearchformotivatedunderstanding that is so congenial tothe scientist (950:177,178,179,182, emp.added).Humanpowersof rational comprehen-

siondo indeed “vastly exceed anything thatcouldbe simply an evolutionarynecessity.”The primary feature of mind, it seems, isintelligence—whichwe see all aroundus.Perhaps that is what drove Eddington tosay, shortly before he died: “The idea of auniversalmind,orLogos,wouldbe, I think,a fairly plausible inference from the pres-ent stateof scientific theory” (asquoted inHeeren, 1995, p. 233). Or, as John Beloffput it in his article on “The Mind-BrainProblem”:

…[T]he position of mind in natureremainsa totalmystery. It couldbethat there exists some sort of a cos-mic mind, perhaps co-equal with thematerial universe itself, from whicheachofour individualminds stemsandtowhicheachultimately returns.Allwecansay is that it looksas if a frag-ment of mind-stuff becomes attachedtoan individualorganism, atornearbirth, and thereafter persists with thissymbiotic relationship until that or-ganismperishes (1994, emp. added).

Again,we say,howvery refreshing.Materialism certainly has not disproved

theexistenceofouroh-so-vital“innerself.”Nor will it ever. Steven Goldberg, in hisbook, Seduced by Science,was correct whenheexplained:

Modern science certainly does notclaim that it can prove the nonex-istenceof the soul.Onthecontrary,the dominant philosophical assump-tionofmost twentieth-century scien-tists has been precisely the opposite:sciencedealswith falsifiableproposi-tions, that is, propositions that canbedemonstrated wrong in an empiricaltest…. [S]cience simply does not speakto the validity of other systems, suchas metaphysics, pure mathematics, orlogic (1999,p. 18).

Eccleswarned inhisGiffordLectures(presentedat theUniversityofEdinburghin1977-1978):

Wemustnot claimtobe self-sufficient.If we espouse the philosophy of mo-nist-materialism, there isnobaseonwhich we can build a meaning forlife or for the values. We would becreatures of chance andcircumstance.Allwouldbedeterminedbyour inher-itanceandourconditioning.Ourfeel-ing of freedom and of responsibilitywould be but an illusion. As againstthat Iwillpresentmybelief that thereis a great mystery in our existenceand in our experiences of life thatisnot explicable inmaterialist terms(1979,p. 10, emp. added).

After one has rightly rejected monisticmaterialism,what, then, is left?Eccles andRobinsonobserved:

We reject materialism because, as wehave seen, it doesn’t explain our con-ceptsbutdenies them. It is at thispointthat we, as noble and rational beings,can give vent to the urgings of faith;not faith as the veil of ignorance, sloth,or fear, but faith as a state of mindvindicated by the efforts of reason andcommonsense (1984,p. 173, emp. add-ed).

It is invigoratingtoseeamanof thestat-ureof Sir John Eccles speak of faith being“vindicated by the efforts of reason andcommon sense.” Roger Sperry went on tosay: “More thanever there isneed today toraiseour sights tohigher values above thoseof material self-interest, economic gain,politics, productionpower, dailyneeds forpersonal subsistence, etc, to higher, morelong term,moregod-likepriorities” (asquot-edinCousins, 1985, pp. 158-159).GermanphysicistMaxPlanck, inhisScientificAuto-biographyandOtherPapers (1950),wrote:

Religion and natural science do notexclude eachother, asmany contem-poraries of ours would have us believeor fear; theymutually supplement andcondition each other. The most im-mediate proof of the compatibilityof religion and natural science, evenunder themost thoroughcritical scru-tiny, is the historic fact that the verygreatest natural scientists of all times—mensuchasKepler,Newton,Leibniz—were permeated by a most profoundreligious attitude. Religion and natu-ral science are fighting a joint battleinan incessant,never relaxingcrusadeagainst skepticism and against dog-matism, against disbelief and againstsuperstition, and the rallying cry inthis crusade has always been, and al-ways will be: “On to God!” (as quotedinEccles, 1992,p. 247).

Sadly,however, theperceptionpersists that“faith”has somehow“lost out” to science—an idea thatDr.Ecclesworked feverishlyduring his lifetime to dispel. In the end,Eccleswascompelled toadmit:

Wehave tobeopen to somedeepdra-matic significance in this earthly lifeof ours that may be revealed after thetransformation of death. We can ask:Whatdoes this lifemean?Wefindour-selves here in thiswonderfully rich andvivid conscious experience and it goeson through life; but is that the end?This self-consciousmindofourshasthis mysterious relationship with thebrainandasaconsequenceachievesex-periences of human love and friend-ship, of the wonderful natural beau-ties andof the intellectual excitementand joygivenbyappreciationandun-derstandingofour culturalheritages.Is this present life all to finish indeathor can we have hope that there will befurther meaning to be discovered?…(1992,p. 251).Twenty-five years earlier, Dr. Eccles had

been evenmore specific.Hewrote, incred-ibly:

The arguments presented by [Ameri-can biologist H.S.] Jennings precludeme from believing that my experi-encing self has an existence thatmerely is derivative from my brainwith its biological origin, andwith itsdevelopment under instructions de-rived from my genetic inheritance. Ifwe follow Jennings, as I do, in his ar-guments and inferences,wecome tothereligiousconceptof thesoulandits special creationbyGod….I cannot believe that this wonderfuldivine gift of a conscious existence hasno further future, no possibility ofanother existenceunder someother,unimaginable conditions (1967, p. 24,emp. added).

Neither canwe![to be continued]

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INTRODUCING OUR NEW GENERAL MANAGER—TOMMY HATFIELDIn my “Note from the Editor” in the January issue of Rea-

son & Revelation, I mentioned to you that this year—2004—represents our twenty-fifth anniversary. From its inceptionin 1979 to this very day, I have been quietly positioning Apol-ogetics Press todo exactlywhat itwas designed aquarter of acentury ago to do—produce biblically sound, scientificallyaccurate, affordablematerials,while simultaneously servingas a “clearinghouse” to anyone and everyone who needs an-swers toquestions that are vital tobuilding, sus-taining,anddefendingabiblicallybasedfaith.

Across that quarter of a century, the workhas experienced a growth that is as incredible asit is exciting.Fromaseemingly insignificantbe-ginningwith a staff of two, it has emerged intoamajor force inApologetics that is recognizedaround the globe.And that tiny staff of twohasmorphed intoa staffof twelve.

No, make that thirteen. It is with a greatdeal ofpleasure andpride that I announce theadditiontomystaffof theyoungmanwhohasaccepted my offer to serve as our new generalmanager, Tommy Hatfield. In 1998, I hiredJim Estabrook to fill this same position. Andhe has done so with great distinction—so muchso that asof thismonth, Ihavepromotedhimto the new position of Production Adminis-trator. Inhis newassignment, Jimwill be in charge of our en-tire in-house computer/information technology system (whichis state-of-the-art, extensive, andcomplex, and includes all ofour wireless and T-1 Internet technology). In addition, he willbe fully responsible for all ofour typesettingoperations, andwillwork sideby sidewithCharlesMcCowntoproduce all ofourwritten, audio, andvideomaterials. [Charles alsohasbeenpromotedasof thismonth to thepositionofProductionAd-ministrator, which will place him in charge of: (a) our entire

graphics design department (including both a scientific illus-trator and a graphics design artist): (b) the production andpublication of all A.P. journals, books and, other publica-tions; and (c) themaintenanceofourvariousWebsites.]

Tommy (who has completed two years toward his bacca-laureate degree in math at Faulkner University in Montgom-ery, Alabama) is an incredibly ingenious, resourceful, and tal-ented young man, and is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever

had the pleasure of knowing. Give him an as-signment, then turn him loose. An hour or solater (or less!), and it’s completed—to perfec-tion! [Andthis is the rule,not the exception.]

I had known Tommy personally for quitesome time, and had seen his character shinethrough on numerous occasions. So when itcame time for me to hire someone to replaceJimas generalmanager (afterhispromotion),the choicewasobvious. Ineeded someonewhois a dedicated Christian, honest, articulate, self-motivated, and diligent to a fault. In Tommy,I got all of this—and much, much more. He al-readyhasendearedhimself to eachmemberofmy staff, not just by his actions, but by his at-titude. He has an extraordinarily keen intellect,a terrific senseofhumor, andanamazingwork

ethic that is one of the most exceptional I’ve ever seen in some-onehis age. [He’s22,by theway, andonJune21,2003,marriedhis high school sweetheart, Carol Leah Kelly— whose familyI’veknownformore thanadecadeandahalf .]

Tommy and Carol Leah are now a full-fledged part of whatwe routinely refer to as the “A.P. Family,” andall of us atApolo-getics Press are extremely proud tohave them inourmidst asourcoworkers. I invite you to joinus inwelcoming them.

Bert Thompson

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