Darwin's Unfinished Business [Paperback]

Like nature itself, Simon G. Powell's new paradigm of Natural Intelligence is - in a word - sensible! That his very title, "Darwin's Unfinished Business" should be provocative belies the pretense to impartiality of today's guardians of evolutionary science. In fact, Charles Darwin would surely appreciate Powell's meticulous, elegant and insightful examination of the vital role of context as the driver of Natural Selection. This is not trivial. As the reader shall discover, the delicate rebalance in our calculus of chance and necessity is the most practical and essential task for our time.

For if Darwin was a secular prophet of clarity and reason, how ironic it is that some of his most influential disciples - men like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould - have established a simplistic dogma in his name. The absurd consequence of this new reductionism, Powell patiently shows, is a sustained anthropocentric blind spot. This bias, in turn, leads directly to our ongoing degradation of Earth's magnificent biosphere. All true, and yet Powell's optimism and humor are never diminished. That is a small part of the reader's reward for a decision to cultivate conscious awareness, rather than to continue dwelling among the comfortably numb. If you harbor a floating anxiety that mankind has made a fateful wrong turn en route from Galileo to Einstein, you must agree that this book is a great place to pull over and re-calculate.

Powell neither strays from the objective nor does he apologize for the subjective. After all, he reckons, neither case has an exclusive claim on reality. So if one's intellect has been stuck between the false choices of science vs. mysticism, then the satisfaction of a fresh perspective awaits! "Darwin's Unfinished Business" is a brilliant gem of concentrated wisdom, thoughtfully crystallized for us by an original thinker who generously shares his deep scholarship and profound personal experience. Follow these 279 pages through to Powell's breathtaking conclusion, and experience an authentic renewal of human purpose that is inescapable, while at the same time, liberating.

I love this book!

The author, Simon G. Powell, has put together a well-reasoned and methodically laid-out presentation which explores the self-organizing process of evolution from a grander and more philosophical viewpoint than one generally finds. His perspective is more in tune with those of Pierre De Chardin, Brian Swimme, Goethe, Christian De Quincey, and many other philosophers, poets, and scientists who all realize that there is a larger and more dynamic aspect that is driving the process of life.

I suppose I could summarize the perspective of "Darwin's Unfinished Business" with a quote from the book:

"Whether you call it Nature, the Cosmos, or the Universe, let us admit that it
is an intelligence-driven, intelligence-wielding, and intelligence-generating system.
The bottom line is that we and all other organisms, plant or otherwise, are spun of
this intelligence..."

One key element to understanding this book is the need to open yourself to a broader definition of the word "intelligence." If you reserve the word intelligence only for humans, don't buy this book, but if you can understand intelligence as a driving and modifying "force" that builds upon itself from the smallest mote to ultimately become the human mind that is reading this review... grab a copy now.

Astrophysicist and philosopher Sir Arthur Eddington refers to "schedules of pointer readings" to describe the classical approach to scientific endeavors, but notes that "The schedule is, we agree, attached to some unknown background. Why not then attach it to something of spiritual nature of which a prominent characteristic is, 'thought'." This is precisely what Simon G. Powell does in this fascinating book. He sees intelligence in everything.

I noticed that another reviewer here gave the book a less than stellar recommendation and appears more in tune with the philosophies of Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins who take a more academic and staid approach to the same subject. Is "Darwin's Unfinished Business" the only way of looking at life? No, and perhaps the truth is an amalgam of perspectives (some as yet unvoiced). I can only repeat Einstein's declaration that "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." And, to quote Walt Whitman, "... a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels."

After reading this book, I went away feeling that, yes - indeed, everything truly is a miracle. I know whom I would want to explore a forest with or whom I would want to walk along the beach with, and it wouldn't be Dennett or Dawkins -- it would be Simon G. Powell.

Taking the perspective that life and all of its processes are intelligent, places an onus of responsibility on all of us to understand our position in life, and it opens the doors to a wondrous adventure that has been unfolding since the beginning of time.

Powell's book is a feast for readers who love books that hold gems of wisdom on every page. I finally got tired of using paper slips to mark interesting passages and reverted to making notes on page margins. Many, many pages are notated and I plan to reread major portions of this book. I gave this book five stars because I found it wondrous. Truly.

What is unfinished about Darwin's business? Evolution is generally defined as changes in gene frequency over time. In Darwin's Unfinished Business, Simon G. Powell argues that while this is of course true, if this is all we interpret evolution to be, we are missing the bigger picture.

Powell persuasively argues that evolution is indeed an intelligent process whereby the sensible laws of nature become accurately reflected in living organisms. Evolution is undoubtedly a creative force, wielding craftsmanship and technology far beyond the current capacity of human beings. No one should find contention there, but unlike the reductionists who myopically focus on the random mutation of genes, Powell recognizes the role of context in the process of natural selection and begins to sort out what relies on chance, and what is imperative.

Always with wit, Powell articulates his view with rich examples of "natural intelligence" found throughout the biosphere, from the microscopic to the ecological. Filled with thoughtful illustrations of natural intelligence or insightful criticism of the conventional rendering of evolution, every page of this book is thought-provoking and compels a paradigm shift. Let me make known, natural intelligence is not to be confused with supernatural intelligence, this is not Intelligent Design, but a very different understanding of nature, which I believe to be correct, and thus very important. What could be a more important question than "how did we get here?" If we define our ascent as merely a change in gene frequency, then we are denying a role that complexity obviously plays in our universe. Darwin's Unfinished Business begins to elucidate this vital role. Read this excellent book to gain deeper insight into nature, and of our place in it.