One of Darwin’s earliest critics noted his “strange inversion of reasoning: in order to make a perfect and beautiful machine it is not requisite to know how to make it.” This is indeed a counterintuitive idea, but it is central not just to biology but to computer science and, indeed, all of science.

Resistance to this ‘strange inversion’ is at the heart of popular discontent with both evolution by natural selection and computer models of the brain and mind. It helps to understand some of the controversies surrounding theories of consciousness to recognize that some of the participants are “mind creationists” who cannot accept Darwin’s inversion when applied to minds.

Sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the Vancouver Evolution Festival. Video filmed by the UBC Terry Project.