Lewis is well known for being yesterday’s man. His trilemma being the greatest fallacy. Apologetics all fail. They are all stuff we make up, metaphor, theology (those are synonyms). The quote from 1942 is bizarre. And actually, of course, utterly, diametrically wrong. That our predictably irrational brains are the product of logical, reasonable physical processes is not.
There are a few additional factors to consider:
1: how many different mutations could produce a given effect: sometimes 1, (like sickle cell anemia), or sometimes hundreds (like height).
2: what type of change is it? a single-base substitution occurs in about 1 in 10^7 base copyings in vertebrates (more often in many other things).
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One of the things that helped me accept the science of evolution was something a Christian molecular biologist said to me:
“…the most common mutations, transitions, are not really ‘copying errors,’ because the keto-enol transition of the base is driving them and the polymerase is working correctly. So if you’d like, that can be seen as providence more than chance.”
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Found it. And it doesn’t look like he is talking about evolution, surprise, surprise.
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He is talking about a topic that borders on evolution, and there is no other way to interpret the phrase “irrational physical processes” than as a reference to evolution. He is talking about the intersection of the supernatural with the natural, and pointing out that human reason cannot exist without a supernatural source as irrational physical processes (evolution) cannot produce it.
The context is that the adaptation in question required the precise placement of 2 amino acids in a polypeptide chain, in the case of chloroquine resistance an entire protein. Or in the case of polypeptide chain binding, 3 amino acids would have to be placed precisely to bind two chains together, possibly on each of two polypeptide chains. If it took malaria 10^20 organisms to produce an adaptation that involved two amino acids in the same protein it would presumably take 10^20^2 organisms to produce a protein that adapted 3 amino acids and so on. Maybe I got my figures wrong at first but possibly 10^40 organisms would provide enough to make an adaptation involving 3 amino acids in one protein without being selected for by natural selection. That is the estimated number of organisms that have ever lived on this planet and there are numerous proteins that achieve their function on account of being separate bound polypeptide chains. It is so common that the research I did indicated that they don’t differentiate when talking about proteins whether it is bound polypeptide chains or a single polypeptide chain unless it is specifically relevant to the matter at hand.
Here is how I understand Lewis here: He sees “thought” as necessarily requiring something beyond purely materialistic processes, lest our “thought” be merely an inevitable chain of causality - and therefore not really thought at all (in Lewis’ view) any more than a rock could be said to intelligently rolling down a hill.
You are wanting to turn his explanation into something specifically about biological evolution - and also equating his “irrational” processes with “purposeless, random processes” that are tied to Evolutionary philosophy.
So yes - there is at least one other way to interpret Lewis here, and to my mind it’s a more plausible way, given that I don’t see any compelling logic to try to read evolution into this.
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You are missing one thing though. He doesn’t say that our thoughts cannot be a by-product of irrational physical processes, but that our brains can’t be a by-product of irrational physical processes.
I think you are missing something here, but am not knowledgeable enough to be sure. Due to neutral drift, organisms with only one amino substitution could well be a significant part of the population even if it provided no advantage in survival. The second substitution could occur in that population, and voila you have a resistant organism with enhanced survival which would become more dominant. You only have to look at the multiple strains of Covid to see how various mutations come and go with some hitting the jackpot and becoming most infectious, or more likely to evade the immune response to previous strains. No magic or intelligent design needed, only time and chance.
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And the conclusion he drew from that was that the legitimacy of our thought process would not then be trustworthy to be rational. He drew no conclusions whatsoever regarding biological evolution.
Now; it is true that Lewis almost certainly did (or would have) opposed an overarching Evolutionary Philosophy that reads “meaninglessness” and “purposelessness” into all natural processes. Most beleivers here reject that philosophic overlay as well. But again, the passage in question doesn’t appear to be about any of that at all.
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He is talking about the intersection of the supernatural with the natural, and pointing out that human reason cannot exist without a supernatural source as irrational physical processes (the way the brain is said to function) cannot produce it.
Saying it means evolution is a stretch, at least to me.
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Regarding abiogenesis: it’s not part of evolutionary theory, but it is an area of active scientific research, and has been for years.
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I don’t understand how you reach the conclusion that the quote doesn’t directly refer to biological evolution. “…and our brains a by-product of irrational physical processes.” He is clearly opposing the idea that our brains could be a “by-product of irrational physical processes”. So he is talking about irrational physical processes that some might think would produce our brains. Evolution holds that human brains evolved much greater intelligence and size since a common ancestor with other primates. What other irrational physical processes than evolution would someone think would have a by-product of producing our brains?
Here is Lewis on evolution:
To the biologist Evolution […] covers more of the facts than any other hypothesis at present on the market and is therefore to be accepted unless, or until, some new supposal can be shown to cover still more facts with even fewer assumptions.
C.S. Lewis on Science, Evolution, and Evolutionism - BioLogos
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The quote that I had of C.S. Lewis was also a genuine quote. Who knows when his mind changed or which position he held at a later time? My quote of him was one in which he kind of let the cat out of the bag, got the concept he was talking about enough exposure that, even if he didn’t like the implications, everyone would have to live with them. To me the quote succeeds where it is said that the law of entropy fails. They would both have about the same implications if the law of entropy could be said to have the implications that creationists wanted it to have. With my quote from Lewis though, can the implications be argued or is it immutable?
Some interesting words used interestingly there. But OK.
What’s this bizarre nonsense? Who’s we?
And this? Almost word salad. Gaslighting of the weirdest kind.
Again, what is not logical and reasonable about evolution? Unless Lewis means some other physical process of which our brains are a by-product. Molecular biology I suppose. Which is still perfectly logical and reasonable.
Rats are empathic. They learn from bad experience and actually try and help those in the same situation. That is the ‘mere impulse’ of empathy. Good doesn’t hurt, or stand by hurt, evil does.
Empathy is entirely natural.
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You will get farther trying to understand rather than trying to misunderstand, especially with C.S. Lewis. You can’t analyze a sentence fragment in this case in the manner you suppose. I had to read this quote 6 or 7 times before I understood it. Then it became my favorite profound quote.
Random mutation, did I say random… I meant it, and natural selection are either rational or irrational. Natural selection may be rational, but genetic mutation is not. What happens when you put an irrational step in a line of reasoning? Does it not render the result irrational? This is what Lewis was talking about.
No, it wasn’t. You inserted a word into the quote that wasn’t even there, making the quote about the nefarious “evolutionists.” I think you should drop the C.S. Lewis quote as part of your argument against evolution altogether anyways. Since… one person’s quote doesn’t make anything true or not true. Even if you could find a thousand quotes from Charles Darwin himself disavowing evolution, that wouldn’t change the fact that it’s been a very successful scientific theory both in predicting new data and in explaining the data we do have.
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I conclude that because it doesn’t appear that “biological evolution” was the subject Lewis had in mind there. His subject was human rationality and whether or not we can consider it (our rational thoughts) to be reliable arbiters of truth.
I think you may also have a misunderstanding embedded in this:
How is a “process” of itself rational or irrational? We may speak of an intelligent architect or engineer of some process to be rational or not, but we wouldn’t think of the running process (independent of any designer or supervising intent) to be rational. E.g. we can find lots of apparent randomness or chaos in human development - starting from when some random sperm out of millions gets to an egg. But we wouldn’t say that the participating fluids or gravity or intervening physiological processes were somehow themselves ‘rational’ things. Gravity is not rational. But an intelligent agent making use of any these things can be rational (or irrational).
All that is to say that I think you are speaking of something entirely different than I (and I would say Lewis) is speaking of here. You want this to be about “who or what processes made the human brain.” Whereas I think Lewis’ paragraph is about “what makes our thoughts rational - if indeed they are?”
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Your understanding isn’t mine and neither can be transferred. I understood his sentence perfectly thank you very much. Any misunderstanding is entirely yours. Whatever it is. Genetic mutation is entirely rational, i.e. based in accordance with logic, as are all random phenomena.