One typical line of arguement from a Creationist on the need for a Creator is that intelligent design must be involved in assembling LIFE from its component parts, that it is too COMPLEX for life to assemble by itself from its component parts. The typical Creationist will always argue that LIFE is too COMPLEX to be self-assembled from its components and the probability for LIFE to self-assemble from its component parts is the probability that a strong gust of wind can assemble a car from its component parts laid out in the garage.
The word COMPLEX is a very special one to me. I introduced the term in my earlier commentary on Richard Dawkins. Studies on complexity have come along way. Basically, the idea of complexity is that simple agents obey simple rules. You can start off with many different simple agents obeying their unique rules, interacting with each other, and giving rise to an emergent phenomenon with emergent properties, which are not the properties of the simple agents themselves.
I used an earlier illustration which I would reproduce below.
A mathematician by the name of John Conway invented a game whereby cells are allowed to proliferate or die in a grid. The rules with which each cellular agent follows is simple: 1) A living cell will remain alive only if it has two or three living neighbours. It dies from exposure or loneliness if it has less than two neighbours, and from overcrowding if it has more than three neighbours. 2) A dead (or vacant) cell can come alive if it is surrounded be exactly three live cells. (One can think of this as reproduction). Thus, depending on the initial patterns of cells at Time Zero, different types of patterns will be obtained when the game begins. Types of patterns obtained include breeding or oscillating patterns. This Game of Life application is also known as cellular automata.
The complex phenomenon that emerges can be seen in this Java applet accessible at this website: http://www.collidoscope.com/cgolve/patternrakesandbreeders.html
Yet the beauty of this complex phenomenon is that it is the end product of simple agents obeying simple rules interacting with one another. Is there even a need for intelligence to be involved in order to "create" a complex phenomenon out of simple agents? As this applet has shown, we can leave simple agents to their own designs, with the caveat that each must obey the rule that it has been set out to obey, and allow the simple agents to interact with each other and giving rise to an emergent phenomenon. It isn't difficult to imagine LIFE as an emergent phenomenon, where cells can be said to be the emergent property of interacting bio molecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, lipids and carbohydrates, the tissue being the emergent phenomenon of different types of cellular agents, the organ system being the emergent phenomenon of tissue agents, and the organism itself, being the emergent phenomenon of interacting organ systems.
I would suspect when Creationists use the word COMPLEX, I surmise that they possess only layman understanding of the word, with little indepth understanding of the scientific subject of COMPLEXITY.
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6 comments:
You miss a more fundamental reason why Creationists' complexity arguments fail against evolution. This is because evolution says nothing about the origin of life from organic molecules. Evolution assumes there is already life to begin with, and derives its conclusions from there. Therefore any arguments as to whether life could have been started without supernatural intervention are irrelevant.
The Creationists have always raised the questioned of micro to macro evolution. Perhaps time for a marriage between complexity science and evolutionary-studies?
Could you elaborate? What does complexity science have to do with macroevolution versus microevolution (which I'm sure you realise is a false dichotomy)?
I would like to point you to Professor Sidney W Fox's work as an example. He discovered that UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS, amino acids could SPONTANEOUSLY form small polypeptides. He also discovered that amino acids and small peptides could form protocells, capable of growing and dividing, that was hailed as an in-betweener between organic compounds and the ancestor of genuine living cells.
For a complexity theorist, the beauty of it lies in the spontaneous emergence of the precursors of LIFE, when amino acids spontaneously formed small polypeptides, en-route to the formation of proteins. Even the formation of protocells that is capable of growing and dividing is seen as an EMERGENCE from organic compounds, the raw materials and the correct environmental conditions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_W._Fox
That has nothing to do with microevolution or macroevolution. As I said, evolution concerns only the transformation of existing lifeforms. Whether life can originate from organic compounds in the first place is a separate question.
Ooops, sorry for my careless use of terms. When I say micro to macro evolution, it really means the synthesis of the precursor of LIFE, in my illustration of Professors Sidney E. Fox work, and the original discussion of my article, the emergence of LIFE from its basic raw materials. I realize the consequence of my careless use of terms, and please accept my sincere apologies. You are right, microevolution and macroevolution is a different kettle of fish from what I have been posting. My bad for the careless use of terms.
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