Self-Organization, Complexity, and the Origin of Life (Book Notes: Evolving Creation)

One of the most common arguments used by creationists against evolution is that it is "impossible" for complexity or novelty to come about without the direction of some outside intelligence directing the entire process. This isn't true - it's known to happen not only in biology, but also elsewhere in some very familiar circumstances.

In Perspectives on an Evolving Creation, Loren Haarsma and Terry M. Gray write in the essay "Complexity, Self-Organization, and Design" about how self-organization can appear under the right conditions — and, therefore, the existence of complexity in nature is not automatically a reason to discount the truth of evolution. They offer an interesting analogy with the self-organization of a complex economy:

Our modern industrial economy is very complex. There are thousands of different industries and occupations. Occupations range across agriculture, health care, education, manufacturing, transportation, energy, and many others. Within a given industry , there are many specialties. ... If one industry or subindustry... were to stop working altogether, the entire economy would suffer greatly unless a substitute industry were available.

There is an obvious connection here to the principle of "irreducible complexity" used by Intelligent Design supporters. According to "irreducible complexity," some biological forms are so complex that the removal of any one feature would lead to a total breakdown and, therefore, it could not have evolved this complexity naturally — instead, it must have been designed.

There have been many critiques of this argument, but if we were to accept it then shouldn't we also conclude that our modern industrial economy was also designed from above? After all, the removal of oil refining would lead to a collapse of the economy; therefore, it couldn't have come about without the direction of an outside designer.

Haarsma and Gray explain why this conclusion is false:

Industrial economies do not achieve their complexity all at once. Their complexity is built up slowly, over time, from much simpler economies. As new technologies or techniques are invented, a few people specialize in providing that particular good or service. Others specialize in providing the raw materials for the new good or service, while others use the good or service to produce other things. The entire economy adjusts and becomes more efficient and productive. The interlocking complexity builds up slowly, over time, as individuals interact with each other in new ways, finding combinations of interactions that increase their productivity.

Obviously the evolution of an industrial economy is not a perfect analogy with the evolution of something like a cell because the building blocks of an economy — people — are intelligent agents while the building blocks of cells are not. However, the people which make up an economy are not "designing" that economy with its final form in mind. They are not analogous to a "Designer" that creationists claim is behind the development of life.

Haarsma and Gray explain how and why complexity evolves in an economy:

An important feature of the economy — necessary for the self-organization of complexity and novelty — is the presence of redundancy and multitasking. As an example of redundancy: one factory produces racing bicycles, while different factories produce mountain bikes, children's bikes, scooters, or unicycles. If the racing bike factory reduces or stops production, some people who rely on those bikes will be inconvenienced, but most could adapt to using the alternatives.

As an example of multitasking: the racing bike factory might spend only half of its time making racing bikes and the other half making related products, such as exercise bikes. Another example of multitasking: the factory supplies racing bikes to not one but several different industries (e.g., professional bicycle racers, amateur biking clubs, bicycle messenger services, people who use bikes to commute to work, etc.). This sort of multitasking increases the likelihood that the bicycle manufacturer will interact with another industry (e.g., an electric motor manufacturer) to combine resources. The combination of resources could produce totally new products (e.g., electric mopeds, or perhaps electric gear-and-chain winches).

The presence of redundancy and multitasking allows, under the right circumstances, for the self-organization of novelty as well as complexity.

Once again, the relationship here with Intelligent Design should be obvious. Creationists complain that the appearance of complexity and novelty are not possible under the blind processes behind evolution. What we have here, however, is an explanation of exactly that occurring on the macro-level of a nation's economy. No one "designs" the development of complex interaction. No one "designs" the development of novel industries or products. These developments are the natural outgrowth of how economies work.

There is something even more interesting at work here. If you stop and think about it, the above description could easily function as an explanation of why market capitalism is so good while command economies (like under socialism or communism) are so bad. It's not possible to "design" or "plan" an economy that is as efficient and nimble as one that evolves naturally.

This perspective is generally accepted as true by religious conservatives, but among these conservatives are those who simultaneously reject the same principle when it comes to biology. In other words, religious conservatives who reject the idea that "this is too complex to occur naturally and must instead be planned" when it comes to a national economy will turn around and accept it when it comes to biology.

As Mark A. R. Kleiman explains:

[The Intelligent Design argument is] based on the idea that something that works must have been designed to work. But of course if that were true, then individuals interacting in their own self-interest couldn't create the spontaneous order of a market. If we wanted to make sure that everyone had bread, we'd need to have a Ministry of Bread to plan the bread supply.

It's very ironic that some of those who insist that an economy works best when novelty, complexity, and organization are allowed to spontaneously develop on their own will turn around and insist that none of this could possibly happen in biology. Once again, I think we are seeing an example of what happens when a person allows themselves to be led around by faith and ideology rather than science, facts, or reason.

 

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