A complexity argument against creationism.

I find it rather odd that human beings in the 21st century continue to believe that life is created by a “creator”. I find it even odder that an “argument” as lame as “Intelligent Design” is being touted as a theory worthy of being considered an “alternative” to the rather wonderful “Theory of Evolution” Charles Darwin presented to us about 150 years ago.

The “Intelligent Design Theory” suffers from a simple fallacy that it uses the extreme improbability of the complexities that exist in life forms to increase the probability of a “creator” which is infinitely more complex than any known life. Richard Dawkins does a rather good job of exposing the inadequacies of this theory in his wonderfully readable creation “The God Delusion”. A lot of the modern day “evolutionists” have also pointed out that arguments justifying “creationism” tend to appear from “Gaps” in the knowledge of the process of evolution.

It occurred to me that both “theories” focus on the “qualitative” aspects of life. There is more to life on earth than that. It occurred to me that one should investigate if there are other such aspects where the differences in the two theories can be tested better. For example, could we evaluate the two theories in relation to the “quantitative” aspects of life? Does one theory fare much better than the other?

Once you ask that question, the answer is almost immediate. A “Creationist” view of life requires that a “creator” pick and choose which life exists. This would require that life progress linearly in quantity at a rate determined by the time a “creator” spends in performing an act of creation. The “Evolutionist” view provides life with an ability of increase exponentially in numbers. People familiar with the mathematics of complexity of algorithms would phrase this as “Creation is an algorithm with O (N) complexity while Evolution is an algorithm with O (log (N)) complexity”. Which of the two would stand a chance of justifying the enormous quantity of “life” that exists on earth?

Just how much life exists on earth anyway? For starters there are about 6,000,000,000 of us. There is the rest of the animal kingdom, plants, microbes…More than a million species of life have been identified. I would conservatively put the total number of living things on earth as a number to the order of 1e30.

How does “creationism” fare here? If a creator takes an atto-second (1e-18 seconds) to create one of them, the process would take 1e12 seconds or about 31710 years. I don’t think most of them live that long to make the process work. The smallest known living organism is about 400 nM in size. Light takes about 1e-15 seconds to pass through that. It is a generous concession on my part to postulate that each organism can be “created” in an atto-second.

How about “Evolution”? Clearly evolution allows for species to be created as a result of “genetic modifications” introduced in the process of “reproduction”. Reproduction gives life the ability to increase in quantity “exponentially”. Life can start in small quantities and increase dramatically fast in short time. You can start with a single cell that divides once in a day and reach a large number of cells like 1e30 in about 100 days. A single human egg fertilized with a single sperm through the process of cell division with “modifications” in the cells as appropriate creates a human being with all organs in place in about 9 months. Every one of us is a living example of the power of the process of “Descent with Modification” to result in enormous diversity in “qualitative” as well as “quantitative” aspects of life. Evolution does stand a chance of explaining the enormous quantity of life that exists on earth.

The conclusion you should be coming to is that not all life is “created”. It is still possible for the “Intelligent Design” theory to survive with a modification that some (if not all) speciation is a result of intervention from a “creator”.

I also recognize that a lot of “religious” people will take offense at the conclusions that I have drawn. I wish to say the following to them. I’ve very consciously avoided using the word “God” through the discussion above with the exception of where I’ve cited the title of Richard Dawkins’s book. I consider myself to be a deeply religious person. I’ve at multiple instances in my life been struck with awe with the benevolence that abounds in nature. I cannot but come to the conclusion that there is much that I’ve to be grateful for. “God” to me is the face I put on “benevolence”. I do visit places of worship (when I can) and find myself thanking “God” for all that I’ve been given. I do however find that “religion” reduces “God” to such pettiness that I’m unable to accept as a means to express one’s gratitude. I don’t understand why any human would deem it appropriate to require “God” to match his “Beliefs”. Would a “benevolent” “God” not deem is appropriate to let life be?