In Biology, Replacing Chance with Purpose Is the New Paradigm

Abraham, Aristotle, biology, Chance and Necessity, Chemistry, Christianity, Darwinism, Evolution, God Hypothesis, Intelligent Design, Jaques Monod, Kansas, laws of nature, Mariusz Tabaczek, materialism, Modern Synthesis, molecular biology, natural processes, naturalism, Neo-Darwinism, Nobel laureates, paradigm, physics, purpose, René Descartes, science of purpose, scientific atheism, scientism, St. Thomas Aquinas, teleology, telos, theistic evolution, Thomistic Aristotelianism, Thomists
In my most recent post in this series on the science of purpose, I concluded that the proper means of understanding our world requires that we include both purpose and necessity as fundamental elements of any comprehensive framework. I noted that the flagship phrase of 20th-century scientific atheism, as articulated by Nobel laureate Jaques Monod in his book Chance and Necessity, acknowledged necessity but explicitly and intentionally eliminated purpose from scientific dialogue.  Now some fifty years later we see that Monod’s paradigm has failed. And that the only possible way of understanding life on earth is to replace chance with purpose. Doing so reverses an epistemological trend stretching back almost 150 years. As such, it is incumbent that we fortify and substantiate the basis for what many would see as a revolutionary new paradigm. That is the goal of this essay. In Read More › Source
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In Search of a Unified Theory of Life

Albert Einstein, Ambrose Bierce, biology, Carl Woese, complementarity, Darwin's Black Box, dualism, dualisms, Erwin Schrödinger, Essays on Life Itself, function, gravitation, Inertia, Irreducible Complexity, Isaac Newton, language, Life Itself, Mass, Michael Behe, molecular biologists, natural selection, phenotype, Philosophy of Science, physics, randomness, René Descartes, Robert Rosen, science of purpose, scientific atheism, scientific reasoning, scientism, structure, structure-function relationships, The Devil's Dictionary, What Is Life?
It can be said that Erwin Schrödinger anticipated what Michael Behe formally articulated as irreducible complexity. Source
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From Materialist Biologists, a Profound Capitulation

"survival of the fittest", biology, cell's, Chance & Necessity, CRISPRs, Daniel Witt, Evolution “On Purpose”, Faith & Science, final causality, foxes, hares, integrons, Intelligent Design, internal regulatory control networks, James Shapiro, Jaques Monod, life, materialism, materialist paradigm, miracles, Modern Synthesis, molecules, mutations, neo-Darwinian evolution, organisms, organs, Peter Corning, Philosophy of Science, purpose, retroposons, science of purpose, teleology, teleonomy, telos, Thomism, transposons
I have warned that one of the few remaining avenues that naturalism can take to rescue its paradigm is to appropriate “purpose” within a materialist framework. Source
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My Briar Patch: Notes of a Country Doctor 

Biologic Revolution, Br'er Rabbit, Br'er Fox, briar patch, cancer, Daniel Witt, Francis Crick, geocentrism, heliocentrism, Intelligent Design, Jacques Monod, James Watson, John Searle, mechanistic consensus, Medicine, painting, piano, planets, René Descartes, science of purpose, scientific atheism, Stuart Kauffman, telos, The Song of the South, The Undying Soul, UC Berkeley, University of California at San Francisco
It took me about twenty years after medical school to break free of the intellectual "comfort" afforded by the mechanistic consensus. Source
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Theist Doctor, Materialist Doctor

algorithm, amino acids, Aristotle, chickens, Evolution, Evolution “On Purpose”, evolutionary theorists, explanations, G. K. Chesterton, human body, Intelligent Design, Kantian wholes, laws of physics, life, medical doctors, Mona Lisa, neo-Darwinian framework, oncologists, purposefulness, quantum physics, science of purpose, screwdriver, Stephen J. Iacoboni, Stuart Kauffman, supernatural, Thomas Aquinas, universe
To be a good medical doctor, you have to treat the human body as if its parts have purpose and function. There’s really no way around it. Source
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Discerning the Shape of a “New Biology”

Aristotle, Bertrand Russell, biology, Carl Woese, causation, cell, Chance and Necessity, David Hume, dispositionalism, Evolution News, final cause, Intelligent Design, intentionality, Isaac Newton, Jacques Monod, Life Sciences, Michael Behe, organelle, powers ontology, purpose, René Descartes, science of purpose, telos, The Design Inference, Walter Elsasser, William Dembski
Purpose and intentionality permeate and in fact define the living state, in contrast to the inanimate. Source
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Illuminating the Power of Life

animate realm, biosphere, conditional entailment, copper, Evolution, functional logic, inorganic realm, insulin, Intelligent Design, intentionality, intrinsic properties, Irreducible Complexity, Isaac Newton, life, Newtonian mechanics, oxygen, powers ontology, purpose, redox chain, science of purpose, serum glucose, thermodynamics
That which is unique to life alone, which offers the only valid explanation of irreducible complexity, is the manifestation of goal-directed functional logic. Source
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“All Things Are Ordered to Their End” 

Aristotle, breathing, causality, Charles Darwin, chemical reactions, Chemistry, chlorophyll, chloroplasts, earth, Faith & Science, final causality, heart, Inertia, Intelligent Design, Isaac Newton, momentum, Moon, physical constants, physics, rationality, science of purpose, teleology, telos, theologians, Thomas Aquinas
In that one simple phrase, St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest Christian theologian of all time, echoed the fundamental teaching of Aristotle. Source
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To Understand Nature’s Intentionality, We Must Go Back to the Future

"God of the gaps", Aristotle, body, causation, Christianity, DNA, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Jonathan Wells, Michael Behe, mind, Nicolaus Copernicus, Pierre-Simon Laplace, proteins, René Descartes, ribosomes, science of purpose, scientism, soul, Stephen Meyer, subject-object metaphysics, Thomas Aquinas, William Dembski
It required the truly inimitable intellect of Aquinas to Christianize and modernize what Aristotle had said 1,600 years before him. Source
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Life Without Purpose — The Fundamental Flaw

Alan Watts, Aristotle, biology, biomolecules, Charles Darwin, CHNOPS, embryogenesis, emergence, Etienne Gilson, Evolution, From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again, function, Galileo Galilei, Intelligent Design, Isaac Newton, life, Life Sciences, Nicolaus Copernicus, origin of life, parts, primordial soup, science of purpose, structure, telos, The Book, Thomas Aquinas, whole, Zen masters
The fundamental flaw in the conventional approach to understanding life is that we think we can fully understand the whole by looking at the individual parts. Source
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