Is the argument from complexity a dead argument?

[tonyrey]

The null hypothesis in metaphysics is therefore chaos, i.e. a total absence of order or regularity. There is no obvious reason why there should be any rules, regularity, consistency or predictability in an undesigned universe. GIGO

What you appear to be doing is attempting to transform the argument from complexity into an argument from the existence of laws.

Complexity presupposes natural laws.

 

[tonyrey]

You are presupposing that natural laws exist yet there is no obvious reason for the fact that “hydrogen atoms prefer to hang out next to each other”. Your argument is based on what happens in this universe but the null hypothesis is a total absence of order or regularity - unless you believe in physical necessity (which is based on an act of faith!).

The principle of economy in both cases. (Occam’s Razor)

 

[JapaneseKappa]

The principle of economy in both cases. (Occam’s Razor)

Ah, I think I’ve understood what you’ve been saying. It was so obviously wrong to me that I didn’t think anyone would seriously propose it.

Occam’s razor tells us how to choose between two concrete theories that both explain the same phenomenon. It does not tell us that we are always competing against a hypothetical “maximally simple” theory. For example, suppose someone has a theory that says “the sky is blue because X.” Occam’s Razor does not compel that theory “X” to compete against “the sky doesn’t exist” or “the sky doesn’t have a color.” The reason is because those theories fail to explain the data (i.e. “the sky is blue”) and so their simplicity is irrelevant.

This appears to be what you’re attempting to do, though. You have proposed some hypothetical scenario (a null world) that explains none of the data we’re discussing (the existence of complexity) and cited “simplicity” as the justification for doing so.

There are arguments where the possibility of a null world is relevant, but we are discussing “The argument from complexity.” In order to make that argument, there needs to actually be complexity to argue from. That is to say, what we should be comparing are the various possible explanations of complexity (e.g. laws of nature vs divine intervention.)

 

[inocente]

Perhaps you don’t understand how the null hypothesis applies to metaphysics rather than science. It is based on the principle of economy which applies to all rational arguments. (Occam’s Razor)

Come on, the term null hypothesis is not used in metaphysics. Search the SEP, you’ll only find it in an article on statistics. And it has nothing to do with what you suggest.

*The null hypothesis in metaphysics is therefore chaos, i.e. a total absence of order or regularity. There is no obvious reason why there should be any rules, regularity, consistency or predictability in an undesigned universe. GIGO

You are assuming that because we exist this universe must exist but the issue is not this universe but all possible universes*.

If you wish to argue that there are other possible universes then logically some contain regularity, others have no regularity and nothing interesting happens, and since you couldn’t exist in those conditions, guess what.

For a start there need not be any universe at all. That is the most economical hypothesis but, as I have pointed out, hypotheses presuppose at least one rational mind. However that rational mind need not be in a universe at all - and of course that belief is shared by most religions including Christianity. The next possibility is that there is a rational mind and also a chaotic universe. It may seem illogical but there is no reason why the Creator should conform to our ideas of logic. For all we know there may be other types of universe which are totally different from the one we inhabit. In short it is certainly not obvious that there need be physical laws at all…

Prove that there need not be any universe at all. The claim that nothing could exist is illogical, since nothing is the absence of existence. The absence of all existence cannot logically exist.

You contradict yourself by saying “hypotheses presuppose at least one rational mind” and then “here is no reason why the Creator should conform to our ideas of logic”.

You claim most religions are built on the hypothesis of this rational mind, but none of them are, not even one. There appear to be three conceptions of God here -

(a) God as an hypothesis
(b) the God of the philosophers
(c) the God of the holy books

Perhaps intelligent design fans preach (a). Perhaps the small number of Thomists in the world preach (b). The rest of us preach (c).

Paul asks “where is the philosopher of the day”, and answers “has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”. We do not preach an unmoved mover. We do not preach an intelligent designer hypothesis. We do not preach appeals to ignorance. We preach the living God, “we preach Christ crucified”. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor 1)

 

[inocente]

I don’t think EITHER theory - gravity or evolution - ‘sets out’ to do something and nothing whatsoever beyond that.

Then please quote the text in On the Origins which makes predictions beyond the scope of the book.

 

[inocente]

Complexity presupposes natural laws.

This isn’t true. Natural laws are not a priori, they are instead inferred from the behavior of phenomena.

Even in situations such such as gas molecules randomly moving around and randomly bumping into each other, statistical rules can be inferred. Many physical laws are statistical. In what I understand is seen as a classic work, Warren Weaver in 1948 coined the term disorganized complexity for these behaviors, and pointed out they are actually easier to deal with than more regular systems.

I don’t consider myself a theistic evolutionist or an ID advocate in the sense that either of them present themselves. I guess I am simply a Creationist (I’m open-minded about the age of the Earth). I have written a small booklet called “Creation Biology” and I feel that if a person sees and learns some of cell biology, s/he will or at least *should *appreciate the creativity that went into it. The link to it is here:

womanatwell.blogspot.com/p/creation-biology.html .

A comment, for what it’s worth.

A number of creationists spend lots of time and energy calculating probabilities when they have never studied statistics. As a result most of their calculations are plain wrong.

I know enough statistics to know that most of the numbers used in creationist calculations are estimates and so should be given with ± error bars indicating the range of each estimate. And that often the numbers are the products of simplifying assumptions which further increase the error bars.

In the few creationist calculations I’ve looked at, the error bars totally overwhelm the supposed result, making it worthless. To make up an example which is not in your pdf, 10^57 should instead have been written 10^57 ± 10^92.

(btw in computing we call ^ a hat or a caret, not a carrot, probably a typo in your pdf).

Now unlike many creationists you may well have written down all your simplifying assumptions and calculated all the error bars, but then left them out for the sake of brevity. Just saying without them, a lot of your intended readership may give up on your pdf when they don’t see that critically important information.

 

[womanatwell]

A comment, for what it’s worth.

A number of creationists spend lots of time and energy calculating probabilities when they have never studied statistics. As a result most of their calculations are plain wrong.

I know enough statistics to know that most of the numbers used in creationist calculations are estimates and so should be given with ± error bars indicating the range of each estimate. And that often the numbers are the products of simplifying assumptions which further increase the error bars.

In the few creationist calculations I’ve looked at, the error bars totally overwhelm the supposed result, making it worthless. To make up an example which is not in your pdf, 10^57 should instead have been written 10^57 ± 10^92.

(btw in computing we call ^ a hat or a caret, not a carrot, probably a typo in your pdf).

Now unlike many creationists you may well have written down all your simplifying assumptions and calculated all the error bars, but then left them out for the sake of brevity. Just saying without them, a lot of your intended readership may give up on your pdf when they don’t see that critically important information.

Thank you for checking out my booklet. I admit I am not a statistician, but there are professors of mathematics who ascribe to intelligent design, such as Granville Sewell and John Lennox.

At the end of my booklet I link to peer-reviewed journal articles that give statistical answers to the extreme improbability of proteins. Though Douglas Axe is an Intelligent Design advocate, Hubert Yockey, working with Information Theory, was not. Axe found 150 amino acid length proteins to be functional at a rate of 1 in 10^74, while Yockey found functional 100-amino acid proteins to be 1 in 10^63.

Another article among many to announce the improbability of proteins is from Reidhaar-Olson and Sauer, the abstract of which is here:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2199970 .

They are from MIT, and found the proportion of functional folds for a particular protein to be 1 in 10^63.

In all my avid reading of this type of information of proteins, I have not found “sidebars” which diffuse the results of these experiments and calculations.

Thank you for pointing out the “carrot” mistake. I guess my mind was on other things when I was writing the booklet.

 

[inocente]

Thank you for checking out my booklet. I admit I am not a statistician, but there are professors of mathematics who ascribe to intelligent design, such as Granville Sewell and John Lennox.

At the end of my booklet I link to peer-reviewed journal articles that give statistical answers to the extreme improbability of proteins. Though Douglas Axe is an Intelligent Design advocate, Hubert Yockey, working with Information Theory, was not. Axe found 150 amino acid length proteins to be functional at a rate of 1 in 10^74, while Yockey found functional 100-amino acid proteins to be 1 in 10^63.

Another article among many to announce the improbability of proteins is from Reidhaar-Olson and Sauer, the abstract of which is here:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2199970 .

They are from MIT, and found the proportion of functional folds for a particular protein to be 1 in 10^63.

First law of science, don’t take arguments from authority, always find out for yourself .

So I looked at the paper in your link. The abstract doesn’t give any numbers, and it costs money to read anything more than the abstract. Like most posters I wouldn’t understand the technical jargon anyway.

Wondering why I should be interested in a highly specialist paper published 36 [edit 26!] years ago, I google and find the paper is cited in a critique of a creationist book called Of Pandas and People. - ncse.com/creationism/analysis/new-pandas-has-creationist-scholarship-improved

Now you say the paper announces “the improbability of proteins” but according to that critique, the authors drew exactly the opposite conclusion:

“The work done under the direction of Sauer has shown that the amino acid message “is highly degenerate in that many different sequences can code for proteins with essentially the same structure and activity.” … Thus we do not need to rely on an undirected search as Pandas assumes.”

And another paper by those same authors does indeed say: “This message is highly degenerate in that many different sequences can code for proteins with essentially the same structure and activity”. - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2315699

Most of us don’t have the specialist knowledge to understand highly specialist technical papers, we don’t have the money to access all the papers which creationists cite, and we don’t know enough to be able to find out whether such papers have since been overturned.

I doubt whether many creationists can either, and every time I’ve followed up on creationists claims I’ve found the same muddy waters. I can only recommend you do the same before accepting any of these claims.

In all my avid reading of this type of information of proteins, I have not found “sidebars” which diffuse the results of these experiments and calculations.

“Error bars” are the graphical representation, see also terms such as margins of error.

Thank you for pointing out the “carrot” mistake. I guess my mind was on other things when I was writing the booklet.

De nada.

 

[womanatwell]

First law of science, don’t take arguments from authority, always find out for yourself .

So I looked at the paper in your link. The abstract doesn’t give any numbers, and it costs money to read anything more than the abstract. Like most posters I wouldn’t understand the technical jargon anyway.

Wondering why I should be interested in a highly specialist paper published 36 [edit 26!] years ago, I google and find the paper is cited in a critique of a creationist book called Of Pandas and People. - ncse.com/creationism/analysis/new-pandas-has-creationist-scholarship-improved

Now you say the paper announces “the improbability of proteins” but according to that critique, the authors drew exactly the opposite conclusion:

“The work done under the direction of Sauer has shown that the amino acid message “is highly degenerate in that many different sequences can code for proteins with essentially the same structure and activity.” … Thus we do not need to rely on an undirected search as Pandas assumes.”

And another paper by those same authors does indeed say: “This message is highly degenerate in that many different sequences can code for proteins with essentially the same structure and activity”. - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2315699

Most of us don’t have the specialist knowledge to understand highly specialist technical papers, we don’t have the money to access all the papers which creationists cite, and we don’t know enough to be able to find out whether such papers have since been overturned.

I doubt whether many creationists can either, and every time I’ve followed up on creationists claims I’ve found the same muddy waters. I can only recommend you do the same before accepting any of these claims.

“Error bars” are the graphical representation, see also terms such as margins of error.

De nada.

I am sorry if you find the articles difficult to follow and would just like to make a few more comments so you know where I am coming from.

The upfront abstracts of these papers say that many proteins can carry on the jobs.Then buried on the inside of the paper is the proportion of functional proteins, which is one in 10^63 in the Reidhaar-Olson and Sauer paper (I did not buy it but ordered it by interlibrary loan and have read it myself). There are a great number of proteins that can do the job, it is true, but as Dr. Axe describes, the problem is in the “search” for the ones which work. One protein with 100 amino acids has 10^130 possible combinations. There may be 10^65 that do the job, a huge number, but then still only 1 in 10^65 would do it. It is considered that only 10^50 organisms could have lived on the Earth even if it is billions of years old. All the organisms of life could not keep sifting through the gene combinations for proteins to find the thousands needed to do their jobs with proportions such as these.

Yockey is significant, no matter how old the paper, in that he was the first to predict this extreme improbability of proteins by comparing a particular protein in various species by information theory. This prediction has been validated in the experiments such as done by Dr. Axe and others.

I realize there is a lot of jargon in scientific papers which is why I am trying to explain things in a more understandable way to those who are not accustomed to reading the facts about biological complexity. I hope that some of my illustrations in the booklet gave you an idea of how complex biology is and how proteins and DNA work. My booklet is aimed basically for non-experts. Some may feel that Christians give a skewed account of science, but we feel we are trying to give the truth. For example, the Reidhaar-Olson paper should be easily accessible to the public as many important papers are. The abstract should have had that 1 in 10^63 number in it. These are the types of things that are not easily found and we get the idea the facts are not being shared as they should to the public.

I don’t want to get in trouble with the moderator – I hope I’m still staying within the lines. If you have more questions or comments about my booklet perhaps you can ask them on my blog (link at bottom of signature). Thanks for your interest and keep learning.

 

[fisherman_carl]

First law of science, don’t take arguments from authority, always find out for yourself .

When will you traveling in outer space to verify relativity for yourself?

I would bet that most of the scientific things have not been personally verified by you. Nor can all scientists verify every other scientists work. Therefore, some things are taken based on authority and credibility of the scientist. Nonetheless, this requires faith, since you did not personally observe their work.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

When will you traveling in outer space to verify relativity for yourself?

I would bet that most of the scientific things have not been personally verified by you. Nor can all scientists verify every other scientists work. Therefore, some things are taken based on authority and credibility of the scientist. Nonetheless, this requires faith, since you did not personally observe their work.

The First Church of Charles Darwin requires a holy faith in its founder!

 

[tonyrey]

Complexity presupposes natural laws.

“Complex:characterized by a very complicated or involved** arrangement** of parts, units, etc”.

Molecules randomly moving around and randomly bumping into each other exist within a framework of order and regularity. What occurs at the macroscopic level is incomparably more significant because otherwise life wouldn’t exist and nothing would make sense. Absurdity doesn’t rule the universe…

 

[IWantGod]

“Complex:characterized by a very complicated or involved** arrangement** of parts, units, etc”.

Molecules randomly moving around and randomly bumping into each other exist within a framework of order and regularity. What occurs at the macroscopic level is incomparably more significant because otherwise life wouldn’t exist and nothing would make sense. Absurdity doesn’t rule the universe…

The universe is very rational, it appears as if it is…contrived.

 

[tonyrey]

Perhaps you don’t understand how the null hypothesis applies to metaphysics rather than science. It is based on the principle of economy which applies to all rational arguments. (Occam’s Razor)
Come on, the term null hypothesis is not used in metaphysics. Search the SEP, you’ll only find it in an article on statistics. And it has nothing to do with what you suggest.

You have totally ignored the principle of economy which implies a null hypothesis. Null = Of or relating to a set having no members or to zero magnitude. In any realm of knowledge there is nothing more economical than nothing!

The null hypothesis in metaphysics is therefore chaos, i.e. a total absence of order or regularity. There is no obvious reason why there should be any rules, regularity, consistency or predictability in an undesigned universe. GIGO
You are assuming that because we exist this universe must exist but the issue is not this universe but all possible universes

.If you wish to argue that there are other possible universes then logically some contain regularity, others have no regularity and nothing interesting happens, and since you couldn’t exist in those conditions, guess what.

Our existence is totally irrelevant to the issue of complexity. We are not the central focus of the universe.

For a start there need not be any universe at all. That is the most economical hypothesis but, as I have pointed out, hypotheses presuppose at least one rational mind. However that rational mind need not be in a universe at all - and of course that belief is shared by most religions including Christianity. The next possibility is that there is a rational mind and also a chaotic universe. It may seem illogical but there is no reason why the Creator should conform to our ideas of logic. For all we know there may be other types of universe which are totally different from the one we inhabit. In short it is certainly not obvious that there need be physical laws at all…

Prove that there need not be any universe at all. The claim that nothing could exist is illogical, since nothing is the absence of existence. The absence of all existence cannot logically exist.

The phrase “of all existence” is redundant. A total void is a possibility that cannot reasonably be ignored. There is no logical reason for believing otherwise.The onus is on you to prove that something must exist, remembering that we are not necessary neither is anything else except the Supreme Being.

You contradict yourself by saying “hypotheses presuppose at least one rational mind” and then “here is no reason why the Creator should conform to our ideas of logic”.

You claim most religions are built on the hypothesis of this rational mind, but none of them are, not even one. There appear to be three conceptions of God here -

(a) God as an hypothesis
(b) the God of the philosophers
(c) the God of the holy books

Perhaps intelligent design fans preach (a). Perhaps the small number of Thomists in the world preach (b). The rest of us preach (c).

The Abrahamic religions are an example of the belief that there is a Necessary Being, “He Who Is” - and that Being is superior to human beings who are made in His image with** the power of reason** and the capacity for creative love.

Paul asks “where is the philosopher of the day”, and answers “has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”. We do not preach an unmoved mover. We do not preach an intelligent designer hypothesis. We do not preach appeals to ignorance. We preach the living God, “we preach Christ crucified”. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor 1)

“wiser” and “stronger” are the key words. Christ Himself taught us that God is a loving Father who creates the beauty in the world and expects us to follow His example by treating everyone as our brothers and sisters. Love is not irrational but eminently reasonable because it is the source of unity and harmony. It is apparently foolish but in reality it leads to joy and fulfilment in heaven.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Molecules randomly moving around and randomly bumping into each other exist within a framework of order and regularity. What occurs at the macroscopic level is incomparably more significant because otherwise life wouldn’t exist and nothing would make sense. Absurdity doesn’t rule the universe…

Eggsactly.

If there is no design to the universe, there can be no point to it, no sense to be made of it.

We might be able to learn to say how the laws of the universe work (science) but would never be able to explain** why **they work as they do without some governing intelligence behind the whole shebang (philosophy).

Indeed, why should there be any laws at all?

Why not just pure an unadulterated chaos everywhere all the time?

 

[tonyrey]

The universe is very rational, it appears as if it is…contrived.

And so it is! The hypothesis that everything is absurd is obviously self-contradictory because the hypothesis itself would be absurd.

 

[IWantGod]

Why not just pure an unadulterated chaos everywhere all the time?

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…now that would be delicious.

 

[tonyrey]

Eggsactly.

If there is no design to the universe, there can be no point to it, no sense to be made of it.

We might be able to learn to say how the laws of the universe work (science) but would never be able to explain** why **they work as they do without some governing intelligence behind the whole shebang (philosophy).

Indeed, why should there be any laws at all?

Why not just pure an unadulterated chaos everywhere all the time?

Science itself presupposes purposeful activity! If science is aimless it is worthless.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Eggsactly.

If there is no design to the universe, there can be no point to it, no sense to be made of it.

We might be able to learn to say how the laws of the universe work (science) but would never be able to explain** why **they work as they do without some governing intelligence behind the whole shebang (philosophy).

Indeed, why should there be any laws at all?

Why not just pure an unadulterated chaos everywhere all the time?

Why do you continue to make this point without addressing my earlier objection to it?

Why? This is a point that frequently gets bandied around, but I’ve never heard a good justification.

The assumption you’re making is that in the absence of some “overriding cause” or “sufficient reason” the universe would be a certain way (e.g. nothing would exist, there would be chaos, etc.) But we have no good reason for thinking that way. What makes the “nothing exists” or “chaos reigns” scenario the default? After all, we could suppose either scenario, then ask the counter-question: “why should there be nothing instead of something?” "why should there be chaos instead of order?

What you’re doing is declaring the “chaos world” to be the default or natural state of the universe, when we have no reason to believe that it is. You say there is no obvious reason for the laws, but likewise there is no obvious reason why there shouldn’t be laws.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Science itself presupposes purposeful activity! If science is aimless it is worthless.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…now that would be delicious.

Eggsactly.

If there is no design to the universe, there can be no point to it, no sense to be made of it.

So I would like to point out that since no one here is even bothering to discuss “complexity” anymore, I think that it is fair to say that the argument from complexity is in fact dead. Instead, it seems that the “argument from laws” or “the argument from regularity” is preferred.