I very much appreciate your goal here. On the surface, it seems like a simple thing to achieve, right?
The problem is that even very small, rapidly reproducing organisms are not simple. I imagine your goal is to turn one variety of bacteria into something resembling another, very different variety of bacteria?
But how many generations have those two varieties been evolving for? Let’s say it’s been two million years. And each variety has had an average population size covering one ocean (this is a rough guess, but it will do) for those two million years.
How many bacteria generations is that, and how many bacteria in each generation? How many mutations does that many bacteria allow to be tried out, rearranged, and selected for or against?
And what is the best way for a modern lab to reproduce and condense that process?
Sure, a lab can artificially increase the mutation rate. But increase it too much, and now all your bacteria are dead. It turns out that the natural mutation rate is pretty well calibrated to allow mutations at a rate that gives good chances of coming up with useful tweaks but doesn’t change so much so fast that it’s deleterious to the organism.
So increase the population size, either by volume or by number of generations. Please let me know when you figure out how to equip a lab to match the total bacterial population of the history of the earth. I await this experiment on the edge of my seat.
Do I? I’m just trying to explain why lab testing of bacteria cultures is unlikely to be able to reproduce billions of years of bacterial evolution under our microscopes. I’m not saying labs are bad or useless or can’t answer other interesting questions.
If you define evolution teleologically – evolution as leading to an end – it can be easier to test it than if you do not define it teleologically. Towards that end, may I please recommend the book The Phenomenon of Man (copyright 1959) by the noted paleontologist and member of the Society of Jesus, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin? The book is a challenge intellectually. Some young people will enjoy it and be amazed. Remember how the Bible’s wisdom literature adjures us to gain understanding? An understanding gained by reading this book allows the reader to check the validity of Teilhard’s evolutionary theory. One type of test of a theory is to determine whether predictions inherent in the theory actually happen. A test, not cited completely infrequently, is whether “noospheric” elements exist. The internet furnishes an excellent example of a noospheric element.
To show Teilhard’s relevance to BioLogos, please let me insert this quote from The Phenomenon of Man :
When, in the universe in movement to which we have just awakened, we look at the temporal and spatial series diverging and amplifying themselves around and behind us like the laminae of a cone, we are perhaps engaging in pure science. But when we turn towards the summit, towards the totality and the future, we cannot help engaging in religion.
Teilhard means here that these ‘series’ take our attention away from the study of the more real summit, by which he means the Omega of the Book of Revelations, Jesus Christ (truly God and truly man.)
Religion and science are the two conjugated faces or phases of one and the same complete act of knowledge – the only one which can embrace the past and future of evolution so as to contemplate, measure and fulfill them.
Welcome, Mike. Interesting book. I have to admit in reading the review I got to the “omega point” stuff, and was gimmaced a little to see that again. Still, some interesting thoughts.
I don’t like to think about what may have been written about the Omega point. I THINK that many writers that have written about Omega fail to understand the book, The Phenomenon of Man. It is difficult to understand, especially without youth and without faith in Jesus Christ. What Teilhard writes in PoM conflicts with what one may already think he knows. So, what Teilhard writes and means in PoM may be hard to accept.
Writers about Teilhard, or about ‘the Omega Point’, should first understand PoM. That’s because PoM is his greatest work; no other work comes close. But writers don’t necessarily understand PoM before they write about Teilhard or about ‘the Omega Point’.
Interesting words are what Teilhard chose to describe VERY interesting realities. Just seeing the words doesn’t get these realities into the reader’s mind. Neural networks need to come about, and enrich the words. Neural networks come about through reading and understanding PoM.
It should be re-asserted, however: It is really true that the thought of Teilhard de Chardin fits squarely into the topical realm of BioLogos. He writes further, in The Phenomenon of Man:
In the mutual reinforcement of these two still opposed powers, in the
conjunction of reason and mysticism, the human spirit is destined, by the very
nature of its development, to find the uttermost degree of its penetration with
the maximum of its vital force.
In part, he means that science and Christianity, in becoming one in the pursuit of truth, impelled by faith, will maximize humanity’s comprehension of reality. Once again, though, the meaning behind these words goes way beyond the words; you gain the meaning through understanding of the book.
The original text is Le Phénomènon Humain, published in the late 1950s.
An understanding of The Phenomenon of Man or Le Phénomènon Humain is essential to knowledge of Teilhard’s thought. Clearly, the only way to get that understanding is to read the book with understanding.
Young people! Want to make a difference? Do you have unused talent? Then read, in faith in Jesus and in all holiness, Le Phénomènon Humain, with understanding!
Grateful for the freedom to express these thoughts here
Mike