Why Darwin Matters_ The Case Against Intelligent Design - Michael Shermer [32]
The ultimate answer to the design inference is to provide a cogent theory of natural design that can account for the complexity of the universe and life. This we have through the sciences of complexity, in which we recognize the properties of self-organization and emergence that arise out of complex adaptive systems. Self-organization means that the system requires only an input of energy into it in order to generate an action, which comes from within the system itself. An emergent property is one that is more than the sum of its parts. Complex adaptive systems are those that grow and learn as they change, and they are autocatalytic, which means that they contain self-driving feedback loops. For example:
Water is a self-organized emergent property of a particular arrangement of hydrogen and oxygen molecules.
Consciousness is a self-organized emergent property of billions of neurons firing in patterns in the brain.
Language is a self-organized emergent property of thousands of words spoken in communication between language users.
Law is a self-organized emergent property of thousands of informal mores and restrictions that were codified over time into formal rules and regulations as societies grew in size and complexity.
Economy is a self-organized emergent property of millions of people pursuing their own self-interests without any awareness of the larger system in which they work.
Life is a self-organized emergent property of prebiotic chemicals; complex life is a self-organized emergent property of simple life, where simple prokaryote cells self-organized to become more complex eukaryote cells (many of the little organelles inside cells were once self-contained independent cells); multicellular life is a self-organized emergent property of single-celled life; and so on up the chain of complexity to colonies, social units, societies, consciousness, language, law, and economies.
Self-organization is itself an emergent property, and emergence is a form of self-organization. The system is self-repeating, and therefore there is no need to invoke an Intelligent Designer.
The design inference comes naturally. The reason people think that a Designer created the world is because it looks designed. I think we should quit tiptoeing around this inference and admit that life looks designed because it was: from the bottom up, by evolution. The reason design appears artifactual to us is because evolutionary design is based on functional adaptation. Form follows function, function follows design, and natural selection selects among those designs that are most functional; that is, they enable the organism to survive and reproduce. When we use words like “design,” “form,” and “function,” it sounds purposeful because we are accustomed to using these terms to describe human action, which we equate with purpose and intelligence. But in fact, the science of complexity shows how design, form, and function are all derivatives of self-organized emergent complex systems.
Irreducible Complexity: Evolution cannot account for the stepwise gradual increase in complex systems.
In the Origin of Species Darwin wrote: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”24 Creationists have been in search of Darwin’s exception ever since. Lehigh University biochemist Michael