INTEGRAL WORLD MAILING LIST http://www.integralworld.net Newsletter Nr. 695 Amsterdam, December 29th, 2017 WHY SELF-ORGANIZATION IS NOT A COSMIC DRIVE - Ken Wilber Fails to Understand the Basics of Evolution - FRANK VISSER A decade ago Ken Wilber published an email reply on his personal website, that aimed to counter the criticism his work had received regarding his interpretation of the doctrine of evolution. It is a unique blog post, for many reasons. It is probably the only occasion Wilber took the trouble to publicly clarify his position on evolution taking into account what critics have said about his lack of even an elementary understanding of the subject. That, in itself, is rather weird. Evolution being the central metaphor of Integral discourse, both in nature and culture, and even the cosmos at large, it would befit an author of Wilber's stature, to argue for his position in the clearest possible way, thereby taking as much as possible into account any objection that can be raised against it. As readers of Integral World know by now, this has never happened—nor will it ever happen. Wilber is content to promote a view of evolution—as "Spirit-in-action"—and to pronounce it correct by declaration. Wilber is not offering us a model to explain biological complexity: "I don't mean that as a specific model or actual example of how biological emergence works!" Instead, he postulates a quasi-physical force ("pressure") that supposedly is "operating throughout the physiosphere, the biosphere, and the noosphere", and which is responsible for "at least part of the emergence of complex forms that we see in evolution". Without any specifics about the What, How and When, he claims a "mature" answer to the Why of things. To paraprase Wilber, "no matter how sophisticated and adult it may on occasion appear", this ultimately boils down to the belief that "God/Spirit did it". In our modern times, this simply isn't good enough. Read more: http://www.integralworld.net/visser112.html