Truth in Science

Chaos and Life, by Northumbria University lecturer Richard Bird, is a popular work of theoretical biology, which attempts to apply 'system-organization' and 'network' thinking to the neo-Darwinian synthesis. In doing so, it serves to highlight a number of problems with the current evolutionary paradigm.

The opening chapters make for an easy and very readable account of the mathematics of chaos and complexity theory. The application of these theories to living systems has attracted a considerable research community of late, and it seems that this new research is beginning to cast doubt upon conventional evidences for evolution.

The author notes that:

'Over the last few years many cracks have appeared in the orthodox paradigm of how evolution happened'. (p 30).

Just some of these cracks include: a distinct lack of intermediary fossils, an inadequacy of selective pressure to account for species distributions, a number of awry presuppositions behind genetic algorithms, and a complete failure in Darwinian theory to explain extreme regularities in natural form. 

As one continues to read Bird, he increasingly appears to be disillusioned with the neo-Darwinian world-view. Chapters two and three of his book ('The Crisis in Biology' and 'The Origin of Species') serve to debunk some textbook evidences for evolution, such as Darwin's Finches and Peppered Moths.

Towards the end of this work, Bird develops a rather novel view of evolving complexity. He is against 'the faith' of biologists that 'events are essentially random'. Randomness, in his view, does not indicate a state of disorder, but instead, a state of infinite order. Therefore, complexity does not arise through random selection (which only tends to refine) but through the 'inter-play of chaotic systems'.

This book cannot easily be dismissed. Bird is clearly a scientist who sees deep problems within the Darwinian framework, and is trying to come up with a better alternative. It is quite telling, therefore, that in the final chapter, he simply cannot avoid the conclusion that some kind of deity must be 'working here in this world' (p 269).


Chaos and Life: complexity and order in evolution and thought

Richard J. Bird
Columbia University Press, New York Chichester, West Sussex, 2003.
ISBN 0-231-12662-X