Illusion of Natural Selection

 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. Genesis 1:24

"A population of organisms, let’s say racoons, lives in an environment somewhere on Earth and eats a variety of foods. Its kind has thrived in that relatively stable environment for centuries. The weather suddenly cools for an extended period, and the creatures’

main food source diminishes. The racoons promptly respond by shifting their diet and behavior and search out more of their secondary foods. Their physiology appropriately adjusts to the change in diet. The creatures also respond to the temperature change by altering their metabolism—perhaps growing thicker coats and additional layers of fat that enable them to better cope with the cold. And the codes for these trait variations can rapidly transfer to the next generation. So, the racoons innately and quickly respond to the environmental changes in several appropriate ways.

One might claim that the environment influenced the racoons to change. Yet, the environment is only a collection of conditions to which organisms are exposed. The environment doesn’t possess any agency to make any of the changes happen. When people project human-like abilities onto nature it’s called personification. 

Q: What actually caused the creature to change? 

Q: Did nature send some sort of message to the racoons? 

Q: Did nature select for their changes and survival? 

A: No, the act of sending requires a mind and a will to determine the signal’s content as well as the power and means to send the signal. Nature possesses none of these attributes.

It’s clear the environmental conditions changed, but the change was actively detected by the creature rather than being sent to the creature. Information possessed within creatures is what specifies any given condition to be a stimulus for reaction.

We don’t observe natural selection 

“working,” “acting on,” or “favoring.” 

Applying these verbs is inaccurate and misleading. This pseudo-activity is misused by some to project agency onto nature and to view it as a substitute Creator. But all the activity—all the sensing, triggering, processing, and selecting— originated within the creature.

The creature’s body systems are specifically engineered to do all these active things: they sense changed conditions, sort the incoming data, employ the innate if-then logic built into their systems for proper response—often quickly and predictively. 

The systems then execute responses from a number of potential actionable options, enabling the creature to adjust to and thrive in its new conditions. The systems then conduct “surveillance” for the next changes. All these phenomenal attributes are innate to the creature. They were specifically designed and placed into the creature from the moment of its creation." 

CMI