Evolutionary Science, Fundamentally Confused?

In the introductory text of a recent Integral Naked audio, a talk between Ken Wilber and Rupert Sheldrake ("Integral Evolutionary Biology"), this astonishing statement can be read:

There is perhaps no field of human inquiry more fundamentally confused than evolutionary science—especially given its monumental task of trying to essentially account for the entire history of the manifest world, from the Big Bang to this present moment in time, along with every mutation, deviation, and transformation in between.

After Wilber has himself given such a thoroughly confused presentation of the status of evolutionary theory (see "The Wilberian Evolution Report"), he still has the guts to present his own theory as a revelation:

It is an extraordinary science that requires an equally extraordinary framework, comprehensive enough to make sense of the entire spectrum of evolutionary emergence—especially as it becomes increasingly necessary to explain things like consciousness, hermeneutics, and spirituality in evolutionary terms.

The talk with Sheldrake, predictably, barely touches on the subject of evolutionary biology, or any of the topics which are debated in this field of science. It is a long monologue of Wilber, endured politely by Sheldrake, trying to convince Sheldrake of his particular take on holons, going back to the old legends of how he discovered his holonic model by comparing all existing evolutionary models.

Talking about confusion. On the vexed question whether natural evolution can produce eyes and wings on its own (i.e. without the assistence of some higher Force, Spirit, Eros, God), Wilber has subsequently stated:

• "Absolutely not - absolutely nobody believes this anymore."
• "Evolution can't explain shit, deal with it".
• "Give me a break on this, I know the subject inside out."
• "Well, biologists may still believe it, but I know what they are really thinking."
• "Well, eyes and wings are perhaps possible, but the immune system is not".
• "Anyways, whatever materialistic biology comes up with, we will include it in our system."
• "I never meant that statement about eyes and wings to be taken literally, it was just a metaphor for the complexity of evolution."

Yeah, right. And it is precisely this complexity that evolutionary theory tries to unravel, in its own careful way. With metaphors, if necessary, but never with "bad poetry" (see: Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow), which only misleads the reader into thinking that science has found no way of explaining the evolution of eyes and wings. Which is patently false.

An "integral evolutionary biology" could mean so much more: a careful positioning of the various authors (Dawkins, Gould, Mayr, Lewontin, Kaufman, even Sheldrake, etc.) within the landscape of biology. But that requires a lot more then saying: evolutionary biology belongs to the Lower-Right quadrant, so we will include it, but without the reductionism. Bla, bla, bla...

One of Wilber's main poins of criticism is that evolutionary biology (and materialistic science in general) excludes, or explains away, interiority. In this audio, Wilber again makes his habitual statement that transcendental reality should no longer be seen as something that is beyond matter, but as "something within" (which is the hallmark of Wilber-5, his current phase of thinking).

Unfortunately, he has never, in his recent online and published writings, fleshed out this statement, though his very post-metaphysical turn depends on it. If metaphysics speaks of transcendental realities, and post-metaphysics (as generally understood) denies them, where exactly does Wilber's integral post-metaphysics stand? It denies them, but not entirely? Not beyond, but within? Isn't that just a semantic manoeuvre?

Again, bad poetry which deludes the reader into thinking that something has been explained.

Some Convenient Truths

Al Gore's documentary about global warming "An Inconvenient Truth" had a clear message to the world: our continued use of fossil fuels will spell disaster for our immediate future. So we have a responsibility to restrain ourselves, cut back on our systematic waste of energy, and turn the tide if at all possible. Some have pointed to exaggerations or factual errors in Gore's presentation. Wilber has devoted an Integral Naked session with best seller author Michael Crichton (of Jurassic Park) on the topic framing this anti-warming crusade as a green-religious effort, that is supposed to make us feel guilty about how we degrade Mother Earth. Now, isn't this a very convenient truth? So we can go on burning up our resources?

Take the Middle East. The received view is that the Israeli people settled in a land largely empty of inhabitants, upon which they were attacked by all their neighbours, and are justified in claiming more and more fruitful land, for their growing population, to this very day. Backed up by huge financial and military US support. Again, a very convenient truth. Don't mention the fact that in a period of sixty years three million refugees have been put in refugee camps, whose future fate even today is barely a topic of negotiation. And in the meantime, Israel is taking more and more land, keeping Palestinians into some kind of reservation area in Gaza and the West Bank. Where one casualty on the side of Israel justifies killing 150 Palestinians in revenge. And only Libya, of all countries, had the nerve to point this out in a recent Security Council meeting.

Take Iraq, again. Yesterday on Dutch television there was a documentary about how the US has "sold" the Iraq war to the world, and how many (though not as many as they wanted) "bought" it. How Colin Powell, whose credibility was only slightly less then Mother Teresa at that time, had to tell a pack of lies to the UN, even to the point of waving a tube of Antrax before the audience (which contains talk powder). Or a major press conference, in which a Dutch and Danish army officer were standing right behind the US speaker, signalling to the audience the large "coalitionof the willing", while none of these countries were involved in the war efforts at that time. Isn't it ironic that the country which has the largest number of weapons of mass destriuction invades a country which is supposed to have these weapons, which turns out not to be true, but then it invades it anyway, because of connections with Al-Qaeda, which turn out to be non-existent.... Is there any reality check here other then: we have to grab the oil before it's too late? Wilber's take on the Iraq war has more or less been: even if one doesn't agree fully with Bush, it takes a Blue Bush to smash a Red dictator like Saddam in the face. Not to mention other dictators in the word, past or present, who have been left alone or have even been actively supported by the US, when it served their interests.

Or take the vexed topic of Wilber criticism. The received view in the Integral scene is that most critics misrepresent or misunderstand (or both) Wilber, so they can be safely ignored. Or they are "bad critics" because they don't have the right "altitude" to understand his lofty visions. Or,... well you get the picture. Enough to stifle a debate from the start. Another very convenient truth. So let's just promote Wilber's next, next views, and ignore any of his critics. What's their problem? It's echoes the feeling many in the US had after the 9/11 attacks: "why does the world hate us?". Integral Ideology is it's proper name. Criticism is well... inconvenient.

I personally would like to hear more about Integral views on these topics which really take a look at these convenient truths.

Wilber Assessment vs. Advertising

The Integral Vision, the latest product of the Integral marketing machine, is a rehash of material from Integral Spirituality, most notably its Introduction. It would have been fine to warn readers that they bought nothing new, except a lot of flashy techno-erotic illustrations, and a couple of "1-minute excercises" included in Integral Life Practice. The overall tone is: we are an organization that has truth on its side, has a method that is the most effective, and above all: you can join us. Not a shadow of doubt falls over these pages. Marketing has won over arguments. Advertising has won over assessment.

Very few people seem to be interested in Wilber assessment. Just how strong is the evidence Wilber claims for his theories? "Staggering" as he claims, or debatable, even shaky? How trustworthy is he when he reports about science, be it evolutionary theory, cultural studies or psychology?

Two recent publications on Integral World raise pertinent questions. Jim Chamberlains long awaited analysis of Wilber's statements regarding science, "Whither Ken Wilber", is worthy of close reading. Where does Wilber actually stand in debates about science and religion?

"My interest in getting a clearer sense of Ken Wilber's philosophical stance on certain open questions about the origin and evolution of life, the relationship between psychological events and physical events, and the relation of science and religion was piqued when I began to notice that more than a few Wilberians seemed to use terms such as "flatland materialism," "quadrant absolutism," and "gross reductionism" to characterize and thereby dismiss from serious consideration just about anything they didn't happen to agree with."

Recenty another critical piece has been added: a review of Integral Spirituality by Jaap Schaveling, a Dutch programme manager of the prestigious Nyenrode Business University, who has a deep interest in spirituality and psychotherapy. He writes about Wilber's inadequate referencing of scientific research:

"Occasionally the book refers readers to www.kenwilber.com for additional footnotes, but it is impossible to locate them in the site. An investigative email message to the publisher received no reply. His literature references and research bases contain barely any new material in comparison with his previous books. His references are far too general and a bit too thin on the ground. This makes it very difficult to check whether one of his propositions has indeed been properly supported by good research." One of his conclusions: "AQAL is a Story, No More, No Less. It is a pity that Wilber seems to have lost the ability to keep that perspective himself."

These sober and sobering assessments of Wilber's latest writings are few and far between. I ended my review of Integral Spirituality a few months ago by expressing the wish "Hopefully other critical assessments of the merits of this book will be written, for it will most likely remain Wilber's take on spirituality for years to come." This invitations still stands!

Integral Politics

In a recent Integral Naked dialogue, "Escaping Flatland, Part II", Wilber discusses the contours of Integral Politics as he sees it. He gives a good summary of the points he has made in the three chapters published so far of his The Many Faces of Terrorism manuscript. These chapters, unfortunately, lack focus. If this, after all those years, is Wilber's choice of genre for conveying his vision of integral politics, we're really lost.

Wilber's conclusion and implicit advice to presidential candidates of the Democratic Party: if Green attacks Orange, Blue wins. Decrypted into normal political language: if left-wing politicians alienate the rationalist, industrialist, secular sections of society by their anti-America rethoric, they will turn to the Republicans and cause them to win the elections. Or as Wilber says it in his usual caricaturistic way: You can't win the elections by saying "I hate my country, vote for me".

However, with all its claim to universality, it is still very much directed at the context of US politics, which has a two-party system of Liberals/Democrats and Republicans. It's high time to turn to other countries for a wider view. In the Netherlands, for example, the liberals are on the right-hand side of the political spectrum, and usually conservative. On the left-hand side we have, of course, the socialists (and even communists). And in the middle, we have the Christian party. Currently we have a Christian-Left government.

A few years back, we had a "purple" cabinet, which was a joining of both left (red) and right wing (blue) parties (our socialists and conervatives) -- integral politics in action! Its architect was a very small party called Democrats '66, which, led by the charismatic Hans van Mierlo, had starting arguing in favor of such a venture since the sixties). It lasted for 2 terms, until the Dutch population got tired of the rationality of the whole construction (yes, half-truths generate more passion!). When the death of Pim Fortuyn occurred, the Christian party took hold of the vacuum and presided over 4 terms.

So integral political analysis has to move from a US based 2-party to 3-party or multi-party analysis. It also seems to have no realistic idea of Left Wing politics. Does the US really have a Left? The democratic party would still count as conservative over here (and the Republicans as ultra-conservative). And as to the US situation, a bigger problem seems to me that, given the 50/50 nature of the division between Democrats and Republicans, as evidenced by the last election, any third party arriving on the scene wil only weaken the one closest to it, and so give victory to the opposition (e.g. a really Left wing party will weaken the Democrats, by stealing their votes). Same story on the Right wing of the spectrum (who remembers Ross Perot?).

And please, please, please, when can we finally read about these parts of integral theory WITHOUT having to wade through adolescent prose, giggling dialogues, and self-congratulatory praise ("we are decades ahead of everybody")? Can this be fleshed out in a serious way, that attracts the attention of those who really know about politics, both in theory and in practice? Without the AQAL jargon, endlessly discussed, summarized and explained, the color coding terminology, which doesn't make sense to and even offends outsiders, and the inside jokes?

Eros or Oops?

On the first page of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995) Wilber sets the stage for what is to come by comparing his philosophy to the prevailing scientific outlook.

To Schelling's burning question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?," there have always been two general answers. The first might be called the philosophy of "oops." The universe just occurs, there is nothing behind it, it's all ultimately accidental or random, it just is, it just happens--oops! The philosophy of oops, no matter how sophisticated and adult it may on occasion appear--its modern names and numbers are legion, from positivism, to scientific materialism, to linguistic analysis to historical materialism, from naturalism to empiricism--always comes down to the same basic answer, "Don't ask."

On wonders, isn't the very nature of science to continue to ask and investigate how things have happened and evolved? Wilber continues:

The question itself (Why is anything at all happening? Why am I here?)--the question itself is said to be confused, pathological, nonsensical, or infantile. To stop asking such a silly or confused question is, they all maintain, the mark of maturity, the sign of growing up in this cosmos. I don't think so. I think the "answer" these "modern and mature" disciplines give--namely oops! (and therefore "Don't ask!")--is about as infantile a response as the human condition could possibly offer.

Or, is science just saying that it is fine to ask such questions, but that it is not within the competence of science to answer them? Note the strong emotional tone of Wilber's comparison of the two viewpoints. Meyerhoff's psychological analysis of this key passage is illuminating.
Wilber continues:

The other broad answer that has been tendered is that something else is going on: behind the happenstance drama is a deeper or higher or wider pattern, or order, or intelligence.... Something else is going on, something quite other than oops…. This book is about all of that "something other than oops.

Throughout his subsequent works, Wilber will refer to that mysterious force that turns atoms into molecules, molecules into cells and cells into organism as Eros. For example, in his recent book Integral Spirituality (2006), giving his current take on neo-Darwinian evolution (and Intelligent Design), Wilber writes:

That drive—Eros by any other name—seems a perfectly realistic conclusion, given the facts of evolution as we understand them. Let's just say there is plenty of room for a Kosmos of Eros.

But does Wilber really understand the facts of evolution? First read Lane, "Wilber and the Misunderstanding of Evolution", again Lane,"Wilber on Evolution Revisited", Chamberlain, "Wilber on Evolution" and Falk, "The Age of Wilberius".

Isn't the proposition of a Kosmic force which magically accomplishes everthything that asks for explanation, as much, if not more, a philosophy of Oops? Of not asking and investigating further? I believe the answer to this question determines one's outlook on life.

As Richard Dawkins has reminded his audience on many public occasions when science and religion are compared, and religious objections to the coldness of science were raised, the question to ask is not "Does it appeal to me?" or "Is it comforting?" but "Is it true?"

Integral Design

In The Oxford Handbook of Science and Religion (Oxford University Press, 2006), edited by Philip Clayton and Zachary Simpson, there's an integral chapter written by Sean Hargens and Ken Wilber, called "Toward a Comprehensive Integration of Science and Religion: A Post-Metaphyhsical Approach". The chapter concludes the methodological Part IV of the book, which contains contributions by Owen Flanagan, David Ray Griffin and others.

In itself, this is a milestone. At least the integral view is on record in some of the major handbooks. But note, this handbook is part of the series Oxford Handbooks in Religion and Theology. In Part V of the tome, the major theoretical debates are listed, among others the controversy over Intelligent Design.

As to the chapter on the integral approach, one should further keep in mind that an integration of religion and science is not the same as an integration of the various scientific approaches of religion, let alone the mere classification of these approaches into 4, 8 or more categories. The chapter relies heavily on the eight primordial perspectives spelled out in Wilber's latest work. It would have been interesting to have Wilber contribute to the science and religion debate itself. After all, he authored a separate volume on precisely this topic: The Marriage of Sense and Soul: The Integration of Science and Religion (1998), which doesn't seem to have stirred a theological debate.

Intelligent Design, which seems to point to an overlap between the two fields, is a case in point. Are biological organisms too complex to have been evolved by natural selection, as Wilber and ID authors suggest? Yes or no? Unfortunately, Wilber has devoted very few comments to this topics, and then only in angry blog postings directed at his critics or hasty footnotes in a book. Someone of his stature should take the time to clarify his position on this hotly debated issue.

A further complication would be that Wilber has compromised himself by grossly misrepresenting the status of evolutionary biology, in his infamous statements about eyes and wings in A Brief History of Everything, when in the very same year that book came out Richard Dawkins spelled out the mechanisms by which eyes and wings could have evolved (in his Climbing Mount Improbable - both books were published in 1996).

That reiterates the point brought up by Geoffrey Falk several times in his critical contributions: what's the point of a supposed integration of religion and science if science is misrepresented in the process? Doesn't Wilber violate his own principles of Integral Methodological Pluralism, if the field in question, i.e. evolutionary biology, isn't done justice, but is crammed into a pre-conceived system of "integration"? Even the Intelligent Design folks are caricatured by him as Jehova believers, where leading ID authors have much more sophistication.

But still, it would be interesting to read about what "Integral Design" would look like.

Integral Idols

On Ken Wilber's blog I found the following "call for papers", titled: You're Going to Be a Star: Post Your AQAL Essays on This Site. It starts:

"I have some really good news and a little bit of bad news. The really good news is that you might become famous, right here. If you've got any truly Integrally (i.e.,"AQAL-ly") informed article, essay, review of any sort, or any other communication that is truly AQAL-energized, I will post it on this website where thousands and thousands of people will see it. [What is AQAL? See "IOS Basic and the AQAL Map."] "

Sounds like the Integral Institute is now getting down to the level of American Idol (as the famous dutch TV program Idols is called in the US). You too can become famous! If you can't sing, doesn't matter. Here's a link where you can learn how to sing!

"It can be an essay on any topic, from psychology to economics to art to religion. It can be the review of a current (or past) movie, whether it's attempting to be integral or not; or of a CD, in terms of the actual lyrics or the states that are evoked. It can be a defense of my work, where somebody has criticized my work without fully understanding it, or where their view understood it well enough but can be easily responded to and outcontextualized by a truly AQAL response. It can be a critical essay on a past theorist or writer, showing how they can be AQALly transcended and included. And so forth."

No mention here of possible valid critiques of the AQAL model, it is just a one-way street here. We have the Truth on our side, critics are always wrong, they can and should be exposed. What about Derrida? Evolutionary theory? The states of consciousness debate?

"If you have a website, we will link to that and give it significantly increased traffic, and where, on your site, you might wish to engage in online responses and discussions of your piece, whether friendly or more like blog wars."

In the past decade, Wilber has never taken the trouble to link to Integral World, where over 200 hundred essays on integral matters have been written and the authors have engaged in sustained and well referenced debates. That's basically not Wilber's interest. He is just interested in promoting his ideas. We can leave that to Wilber - validating his ideas is an entirely different matter. That requires a critical distance, lacking in the integral scene.

The bad news mentioned by Wilber, by the way, is that, due to shortage of resources at Integral Institute, you shouldn't expect any feedback on your submissions, and just have to wait and see if it gets posted. But IF it gets posted, that's your road to immediate fame.

This really can only be done in America. Over in Europe, that cultural component is found to be tasteless.

Fame! - I'm gonna live forever!