The turn of the 21st century saw the publications of several works that challenged the theoretical basis of Darwin’s theory, notably Darwin’s Black Box (1996), by Michael Behe, and The Design Inference (1998) and No Free Lunch (2001) by William Dembski. The books were generally ignored or disparaged in the evolutionary biology community. Yet around that time (no doubt by coincidence) the search began for a “grand unified theory” of evolution, that would provide “some single principle or some small set of principles” to explain the tendency of life to become more complex. 

Of course, “natural selection and random variation” was supposed to be that single principle. But unofficially, Darwin’s unifying theory had been deemed inadequate, and the quest was on for something that actually worked. 

Evolutionary biologist Peter Corning seems to be rather annoyed by this quest. After giving a summary of the state of things (including the quotes above), Corning writes that there already is such a unifying theory, and he invented it.¹ It was proposed decades ago in his 1983 book The Synergism Hypothesis: A Theory of Progressive Evolution. 

This is how Corning explains his theory:

Synergistic selection refers to the many contexts in nature where two or more genes/genomes/individuals have a shared fate; their combined effects are functionally interdependent…Although it may seem like backwards logic, the thesis is that functional synergy is the cause of cooperation and complexity in living systems, not the other way around.

The idea is that pre-existing systems combine to make more complex systems, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Examples of synergy cited by Corning include: self-replicating molecules enclosed in cell walls; chromosomes linking those self-replicating molecules together relationally; the genetic code connecting RNA, DNA, and proteins; eukaryotes created by the absorption of one prokaryote into another; multicellularity; sexual reproduction; emperor penguins huddling together for warmth. 

Foresight, or Synergy? 

If you survey this list, you may notice something. Most of the examples are used by ID proponents, but for a different purpose — to point to the principle of planning or foresight in living systems. When a system requires many complex interworking parts to function, this can’t be explained by minor innovations building up over time, except perhaps by an insanely lucky fluke; another principle besides Darwin’s mechanism is needed, and that principle is design. 

Or perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps it’s “synergy”?

Corning believes that this principle explains the complex interdependency of living systems, without the need for a designer. He sees his model as a Darwinian theory. It’s not that Darwinism needed replacing: it was just missing an ingredient, and synergy is that ingredient. 

Solving the Problem, or Just Describing It?

Okay, that’s a theory… or is it? Is synergy an explanation, or merely a description? The term “synergy” points to the reality that organisms are wholes much greater than the sum of their parts, with the parts working together in a symphony of complex relationships. It does not, in and of itself, explain how that came to be. The final cause is left unspecified. 

You can see this in the fact that Corning mixes up cases of synergy that are clearly caused by an identifiable intelligent mind (e.g., emperor penguins huddling together for warmth) with cases where no such mind is apparent (e.g., the appearance of chromosomes to connect genes together). In the case of the emperor penguins, penguin intelligence is the explanation for the penguin huddle. The synergy happens because they decide they want it to happen, using their intelligence. Can RNA, DNA, proteins, and cell membranes do the same? 

Yes or no? Neither answer helps Darwinian evolution out much. If the answer is yes, that’s truly remarkable, and itself requires intelligent design, since all the usual design arguments would apply to this undoubtedly complex (though apparently hidden) molecular intellect. If the answer is no, Corning has done nothing but describe the situation. He has not explained it. Yes — RNA, DNA, proteins, and cell membranes work together in beautiful synchronization to create a system greater than the sum of its parts — well and good, but how did this come to be?

Without foresight, why should two complex, compatible systems be sitting there, ready-made and waiting to be combined in intricate ways to form something greater? There is no reason implicit in the laws of nature why they should be. And the odds of it happening by chance, through a single random variation at a time, are not likely to be any better than the odds of simply building the whole system that way. If, on the other hand, the systems are not designed to be compatible, how are they to come together? How could evolution do the necessary random tinkering, a vast amount of it, without destroying the functionality of one or both systems?

If you doubt the difficulty of this, take a couple of man-made machines and try to combine them, preserving function in every step of the process. It’s not easy, even though you are using intelligent design to do it — unless the two machines were intentionally designed to be compatible.  

The funny thing is, these are the standard arguments for intelligent design in biology. Corning only calls attention to the problem. He does not solve it, because in the end his explanation just backs the question. He deals with the improbability of design by explaining it through synergy, not caring that this synergy is itself a design marvel in need of explanation. And why should he care? No doubt that design marvel can be explained by synergy, too — and on and on, back into the misty dawn of life where nothing is visible and therefore nothing needs to be explained.

“It’s Turtles All the Way Down”

Corning concludes his paper with a familiar story. He writes:

There is a story attributed to the famed twentieth century philosopher Bertrand Russell about a public lecture in which he discussed various properties of the Solar System. At the end of his lecture, an elderly woman in the audience approached him and told him he was wrong. The sun is held up on a turtle’s back, she said. A startled Russell responded by asking her, so what holds up the turtle? “You think you’re so clever,” she replied. “It’s turtles all the way down.” So what explains the rise of complexity in evolution? From the perspective of the Synergism Hypothesis and Synergistic Selection, it’s synergies all the way up.

Honestly, it’s a bit perplexing that he would choose such an example to sum up his views. The tone of his writing here is triumphant, but doesn’t he realize that the old woman is supposed to be either foolish, crazy, or pulling Russell’s leg?

I’m also not quite sure why he substitutes “up” for “down” in the phrase “synergies all the way up.” There is no logical reason to do so.  You can envision the process of evolution from either direction, just as you can look at a stack of turtles from either above or below. Our actual perspective, however, is from the top, and we are looking down into the past in search of the final cause of complex systems. So the original phrasing is really more fitting. 

One has to wonder if Corning changed the word due to a subconscious realization that there was a rhetorical risk in drawing attention to the parallel between himself and Russell’s crazy turtle lady. But mixing up the phrasing isn’t going to solve that problem, because the logic is the same. “Synergies all the way down” may be good enough for Corning, but some of us would like to know what it all rests on.

Notes

1. Corning, Peter A. “Teleonomy in Evolution: “The Ghost in the Machine”.” In Evolution “On Purpose”: Teleonomy in Living Systems, edited by Peter A. Corning, Stuart A. Kauffman, Denis Noble, James A. Shapiro, Richard I. Vane-Wright, and Addy Pross. 11-31. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2023.