Orderly Universe: Evidence of God?

Since writing my book "Irreligion" and some of my recent Who's Counting columns, I've received a large number of e-mails from subscribers to creation science (who have recently christened themselves intelligent design theorists). Some of the notes have been polite, some vituperative, but almost all question "how order and complexity can arise out of nothing."

Since they can imagine no way for this to happen, they conclude there must be an intelligent designer, a God. (They leave aside the prior question of how He arose.)

My canned answer to them about biological order talks a bit about evolution, but they often dismiss that source of order for religious reasons or because of a misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics.

(See Complexity and Intelligent Design for my Who's Counting discussion of biological and economic order and complexity arising out of very simple programs.)

Because the seemingly inexplicable arising of order seems to be so critical to so many, however, I've decided to list here a few other sources for naturally occurring order in physics, math, and biology. Of course, order, complexity, entropy, randomness and related notions are clearly and utterly impossible to describe and disentangle in a column like this, but the examples below from "Irreligion" hint at some of the abstract ideas relevant to the arising of what has been called "order for free."

Let me begin by noting that even about the seemingly completely disordered, we can always say something. No universe could be completely random at all levels of analysis.

In physics, this idea is illustrated by the kinetic theory of gases. There an assumption of disorder on one formal level of analysis, the random movement of gas molecules, leads to a kind of order on a higher level, the relations among variables such as temperature, pressure and volume known as the gas laws. The law-like relations follow from the lower-level randomness and a few other minimal assumptions. (This bit of physics does not mean that life has evolved simply by chance, a common mischaracterization of evolution.)

In addition to the various laws of large numbers studied in statistics, a notion that manifests a different aspect of this idea is statistician Persi Diaconis' remark that if you look at a big enough population long enough, then "almost any damn thing will happen."

A more profound version of this line of thought can be traced back to British mathematician Frank Ramsey, who proved a strange theorem. It stated that if you have a sufficiently large set of geometric points and every pair of them is connected by either a red line or a green line (but not by both), then no matter how you color the lines, there will always be a large subset of the original set with a special property. Either every pair of the subset's members will be connected by a red line or every pair of the subset's members will be connected by a green line.

If, for example, you want to be certain of having at least three points all connected by red lines or at least three points all connected by green lines, you will need at least six points. (The answer is not as obvious as it may seem, but the proof isn't difficult.)

For you to be certain that you will have four points, every pair of which is connected by a red line, or four points, every pair of which is connected by a green line, you will need 18 points, and for you to be certain that there will be five points with this property, you will need -- it's not known exactly - between 43 and 55. With enough points, you will inevitably find unicolored islands of order as big as you want, no matter how you color the lines.

A whole mathematical subdiscipline has grown up devoted to proving theorems of this same general form: How big does a set have to be so that there will always be some subset of a given size that it will constitute an island of order of some sort?

Ramsey-type theorems may even be part of the explanation (along, of course, with Diaconis' dictum) for some of the equidistant letter sequences that constitute the bible codes. Any sufficiently long sequence of symbols, especially one written in the restricted vocabulary of ancient Hebrew, is going to contain subsequences that appear meaningful.

Finally, of more direct relevance to evolution and the origin of living complexity is the work of Stuart Kauffman. In his book, "At Home in the Universe," he discusses what he has termed the aforementioned notion of "order for free."

Motivated by the idea of hundreds of genes in a genome turning on and off other genes and the order and pattern that nevertheless exist, Kauffman asks us to consider a large collection of 10,000 light bulbs, each bulb having inputs from two other bulbs in the collection.

Assume that you connect these bulbs at random, that a clock ticks off one-second intervals, and that at each tick each bulb either goes on or off according to some arbitrarily selected rule. For some bulbs, the rule might be to go off at any instant unless both inputs are on the previous instant. For others it might be to go on at any instant if at least one of the inputs is off the previous instant. Given the random connections and random assignment of rules, it would be natural to expect the collection of bulbs to flicker chaotically with no apparent pattern.

What happens, however, is that very soon one observes order for free, more or less stable cycles of light configurations, different ones for different initial conditions. Kauffman proposes that some phenomenon of this sort supplements or accentuates the effects of natural selection.

Although there is certainly no need for yet another argument against the seemingly ineradicable silliness of "creation science," these light bulb experiments and the unexpected order that occurs so naturally in them do seem to provide one.

In any case, order for free and apparent complexity greater than we might naively expect are no basis for believing in God as traditionally defined. Of course, we can always redefine God to be an inevitable island of order or some sort of emergent mathematical entity. If we do that, the above considerations can be taken as indicating that such a pattern will necessarily exist, but that's hardly what people mean by God.

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John Allen Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple University, is the author of the best-sellers "Innumeracy" and "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper," as well as of the just-released "Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why The Arguments for God Just Don't Add Up " His "Who's Counting?" column on ABCNEWS.com appears the first weekend of every month.

That’s not a logical answer. It’s an answer, which might be correct, but based entirely on faith. Faith is not to be confused with logic.

Neither is condescension.

You don't have faith in God because God allows bad things to happen. Yet you post on a website that preaches freedom. You see a problem there?

But you're correct about faith, faith is not science. Which puts a large burden on science.

So tell me DG, where did the E, M and C come from in Einstein's famous E=MC^2? Was it there before time started? Was it stored in some other universe? Of course that just is the ultimate regress that materialists impose on God. But what the hell, what's good for the Luddite creationists is certainly good for the secular materialists.

BTW, the fellow that posited the BBT was a Catholic Priest. Perhaps his faith led him to that magnificent piece of scientific work, perhaps not. But the secular materialists were enmeshed in a steady state universe because their secularism demanded it. They were, evidently, wrong and the Catholic Priest was correct. Life's a bitch.

woodworth is speaking about modern day, not in the days before Christ- although those kinds of miracles were not all that common- but here’s a point you probably haven’t seen- EVEN though they had those miracles, and saw them with their own eyes, they STILL refused to believe- much like you who has hte testimony of many that miracles happened-

[[That’s not a logical answer. It’s an answer, which might be correct, but based entirely on faith. Faith is not to be confused with logic.]]

Yeah, it’s much more logical to refuse a free gift that saves the soul for eternity. think you have a mistaken view of faith- faith isn’t blind ignorance- it is certainty established and rewarded.

You don't have faith in God because God allows bad things to happen. Yet you post on a website that preaches freedom. You see a problem there?

Yes, I see a problem with a person who doesn't know me, who has no idea what I believe, what relationship I have with God, or anything else about me, to make such stupid conclusions.

I could make similar stupid conclusions about you, but I won't. It's not my place.

I didn't make up the natural laws of the universe that we can observe. I can only observe them and, in fact, must. Those alone don't tell me anything about why they are the laws, only that they are the laws.

The facts are what they are. Any outside meaning one wants to ascribe to them are either speculation or faith.

no- they were giants

Good, I'm looking forward to the discovery of fossil giant men. The trend has been toward discovering smaller and smaller hominids. Not a giant among them.

Do you think scientists have found them and are destroying them to prevent the information about them from being revealed?

Makes no sense to someone who can’t see tyhe spiritual world- but whatever- you’re allowed your opinion.

I guess I don't really care if you and your friends think I can't see tyhe the spiritual world.

You won't answer my questions, and because you can't, you assume I'm evil.

Try this. Ask yourself those questions.

:-}

Actually the first sentence was supposed to have a question mark. It should have read: "You don't have faith in God because God allows bad things to happen? Yet you post on a website that preaches freedom. You see a problem there?

However you wrote above:

If God is so smart, all-knowing; the future, past, and present are all known to him, why did he create earth?
Sure, it all suppposedly turns out great in the end, but in the meantime, there are billions and billions of people who suffer greatly, all die, and tons of horrible stuff happens.
God does a Flood which accomplishes nothing. He sends part of the Trinity to earth to enlighten people and to get tortured and executed.
Why not just think, “I think I’ll just pass on creating this planet? It’s not going to turn out so well, and there will be a whole lot of sorrow that can be avoided. I don’t really need to see throats slit in the name of Allah.”

...which gives me ample reason for asking you that question.

Of course I asked you others which you were loathe to touch upon for good reason. You don't have any answers. But that doesn't stop you from asking those same type questions to creationists.

Why is that?

Well, this is the only other question I believed you asked.

So tell me DG, where did the E, M and C come from in Einstein's famous E=MC^2? Was it there before time started? Was it stored in some other universe?

I don't know how to answer that. It's clearly the rule in our universe. It's pretty hard for me to weigh in on any other. I don't know why you think that is a "gotcha" question. I don't really feel pinned to the wall with those.

LOL

And I laugh at your pride. One day you will curse your pride - it will happen and not that I want it to happen - it's a cause and effect. If one doesn't want 'y' to happen/come forth, one stops at 'x'. Better for all, it happens while we still have breath.

Some choose to live their life as a crap shoot, a demonstration of the lack of respect they have for their own life. Our soul never end dies, it's a spirit, you can't see it but it's there. As our 5 senses are there, you can't see the senses - we use them but can't see them - they. too, will remain a part of us - we will know where we are in eternity, we will see it, feel it - we will be very aware of what we have chosen for ourself.

Telling a child, don't go here or with some friend, because a parent has more insight and knowledge than a child - and when the explained danger happened to their friend and they were then spared the consequence of a wrong decision by obedience - even though they didn't understand, they listened. They ask 'how did you know' - they start to realize there is one bigger than them in knowledge and wisdom. The same with God, HE knows and has warned us of the consequence of pride.

Lastly, when you are before your Creator and exposed - you can never say you didn't know because you will be reminded - you were told and you laughed at it. It's doesn't matter about one's unbelief or lack of understanding - it ain't going to stop us all from having our Judgment Day for It Is Written.

We are all on a walk - here on earth - for us to decide our own eternity. We don't get to where we WANT to be with pride. That's an easy concept for even a child to grasp.

I didn't want to go into depth - for the surface isn't realized for some. Of course, in the natural we read The Word, it's the Power behind the Word - Supernatural power that we can't see but it does produce It's desired effect.

Only when one knows there is a God and is diligently seeking after Him w/ an open and a teachable spirit - can they experience that - but that's not the crowd I'm speaking to.

You: "I don't know how to answer that. It's clearly the rule in our universe. It's pretty hard for me to weigh in on any other. I don't know why you think that is a "gotcha" question. I don't really feel pinned to the wall with those."

You again in a previous post: "Any thoughts as to what God was doing for infinity prior to creating the universe?"

This leaves one of two possibilities. The first is that you're a hypocrite. And the second is that you don't understand that each is the age old infinite regress problem.

Your problem is that being a methodological naturalist you are bound to come up with a better answer than you don't feel got. Creationists have no such duty. They have, by definition, faith.

You understand now?

Your problem is that being a methodological naturalist you are bound to come up with a better answer than you don't feel got.

[snip]You understand now?

No, because that wasn't in english. I'm GUESSING that you're saying I asked a question with no possible answer, and that since I did so, I'm somehow a hypocrite.

I have no clue what a methadological naturalist is, but if you care to insult me some more, go ahead and lay out your diagnosis of me, doctor.

Any thoughts as to what God was doing for infinity prior to creating the universe?

Why do you waste your time on the unknowable, when the knowable things you reject? IF God felt we needed to know that for our salvation, we would know it. There are a lot of questions you/anyone don't even know to ask - but, even those unknown/unasked question - we will get answers to. There are more answers out there than we have questions to ask. No one can conceive nor image what God has for those that love Him.

God knows what we are capable and not capable of - even in our imagination. And all the degrees/knowledge in the world will never get even close to the Knowledge of God. Combine all the knowledge of 10 million scientists in the world and they will never get EVEN CLOSE to the Knowledge of God - and I'm talking about just God's knowledge not His Awesome Power. While we can never attain His Knowledge for He is ALL KNOWING, ALL SEEING. He makes it for easy for us to KNOW Him. And the benefits that Our Father bestows on His children are never ending.

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