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A Mind/Brain Lecture and Darwin’s Embarrassment

I attended a great lecture a few days ago at my university. Stony Brook University hosts a yearly Mind/Brain Lecture Series by a prominent neurobiologist or philosopher who has done important work on the relationship between the mind and the brain. There have been some excellent lectures in the past — Patricia Churchland was here a few years ago (I disagree with her perspective, but she is certainly a prominent philosopher involved in the mind/brain issue, and her lecture was very interesting).

This year’s guest was William Bialek, a biophysicist from Princeton who presented a talk titled “Searching for Simplicity: A Physicist’s Quest for Theories of Mind and Brain.” It was a great presentation. Bialek presented research showing the astonishing and elegant precision and sensitivity of the visual system. It is a remarkable example of biological fine-tuning — light receptors in the retina respond to individual photons of light, and have in-built systems to control and even exploit noise in the visual input.

The lecture hall was packed, and at the end of the presentation, Bialek seemed a bit uncomfortable with the obvious implication of his work — that the nervous system shows the unmistakable hallmarks of purpose. The visual system is fit to its job in a way so remarkable that it’s hard to deny design.

Bialek paced as he tried to explain. He said (I paraphrase): “Some here would invoke a Creator to account for this remarkable biological system.” He seemed to dismiss this obvious inference. “But evolution by natural section must be at work — obviously an organism with an elegantly sensitive and tuned visual system would have a survival advantage in the struggle for existence. Perhaps there was strong selective pressure early in evolutionary history to evolve this elegant system.”

There was no laughter from the audience, but I certainly sensed a quiet incredulity. A fine science lecture was marred by a Darwinian just-so story. A superb scientific presentation of the elegant teleology in biology was capped by self-evident junk science.

Michael Egnor

Senior Fellow, Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence
Michael R. Egnor, MD, is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook, has served as the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and award-winning brain surgeon. He was named one of New York’s best doctors by the New York Magazine in 2005. He received his medical education at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and completed his residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital. His research on hydrocephalus has been published in journals including Journal of Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, and Cerebrospinal Fluid Research. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Hydrocephalus Association in the United States and has lectured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.

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