A Third Way by James A. Shapiro
What significance does an emerging interface between biology and information science hold for thinking about evolution? It opens up the possibility of addressing scientifically rather than ideologically the central issue so hotly contested by fundamentalists on both sides of the Creationist-Darwinist debate: Is there any guiding intelligence at work in the origin of species displaying exquisite adaptations that range from lambda prophage repression and the Krebs cycle through the mitotic apparatus and the eye to the immune system, mimicry, and social organization?
...
But the neo-Darwinian advocates claim to be scientists, and we can legitimately expect of them a more open spirit of inquiry. Instead, they assume a defensive posture of outraged orthodoxy and assert an unassailable claim to truth, which only serves to validate the Creationists' criticism that Darwinism has become more of a faith than a science.
"If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection" (Darwin, p. 164).
”Symbiotic relationships pose such a challenge to Darwin's theory, since they have animals and plants of different species cooperating for the benefit of both. For example, the dodo bird ate the seeds and leaves of a plant called calvaria major. The bird benefited from having the plant as a food source, but the plant benefited from the bird's gizzard scratching its seeds as they passed through its digestive system. When the bird became extinct, the plant nearly disappeared as well, because only if its seeds are scratched can they germinate and then grow into a mature plant.”
Cooperation or Competition: Symbiosis vs. Evolution.
Even still, the term ‘evolution’ is used for explaining how the Universe began. We all know stars and planets were formed in time, but evolution says this happened by chance and without purpose. It mocks the possibility of a Cosmic Cosmetologist.
There is obviously a universal symbiosis (do stars and planets exist for there sake alone?). And even if we take evolution out of the universal equation we are left with chance. Or are we? If we have the only intelligence why do we search the cosmos and what do we hope to find?
Let’s say we find the preverbal “watch” in space - let’s say we found it here – what then?