Intelligent design and swarm intelligence

Intelligent design (ID) is a new theory opposing Darwin's theory of evolution. The main drawbacks of Neo-Darwinism were summarized in a previous section. In a nutshell, Neo-Darwinism applies linear arguments to explain evolution, while in reality evolution is a non-linear process. Neo-Darwinism should be regarded as a model of evolution which served its purpose for some time, and now has to be augmented. Which is virtually impossible since Neo-Darwinism attained a status of a religion which cannot be challenged.

This attitude to Neo-Darwinism is a manifestation of a new trend in science called Scientism (v. previous section), whose hallmark is the following statement by Theodosius Dobzhansky. “Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of Evolution.” Change one word and you get the ID credo: “Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of the Creator.”

Neo-Darwinists boast that among the numerous studies on Darwinism there is hardly any study refuting it. No wonder since Scientism dominates the scientific journals. For this reason scientists tend to jump on the ID band wagon hoping to topple Neo-Darwinism and pave the way for new paradigms. Indeed ID is a new paradigm, however its main drawback will be illustrated by the following example.

Collective intelligence of social insects

Ants build elaborate mounds whose size may reach several meters. Some ant societies form bridges and raid specific areas for food as a group. http://www.bylandwaterandair.com/au...dying_ant_mound
These mounds appear as if designed by an intelligent agent, yet all that is needed for building them is a collective intelligence, known also as swarm intelligence. http://www.sce.carleton.ca/netmanage/tony/swarm.html
Each ant may be regarded as an independent process interacting with other processes by chemical means like pheromones.

Evolution operates in the same way. Myriad interacting processes drive evolution to a rising complexity. Without two attributes of life a rising complexity would be impossible:
--Living organisms reproduce.
--Offspring inherits traits from it progenitors.
What actually evolves is the complexity of life together with its surroundings, collectively known as Gaia.

Such a distributed evolution can be conveniently simulated with CA.

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