What's missing in the Design/Evolution Discussion is Math

I was just reading this article on NewScientist about the ongoing controversy over at the Royal Society about accomodating the desire to teach Creationism or Creation Science alongside Evolution.

One of the more reasonable pro-creation-science people said the following:

" It lies in the probability that such complexity arose out of undirected blind chance. Everything that we know about complexity outside of biology is that it arises from information, and that information arises from mind."


I had been reading for a while and could no longer contain myself, here's my reply:

Actually, thats not true. Complex products of human endeavour or of any lifeform may fit into that category, but there are many things in the universe that do not. The stars and galaxies are pretty complex, but the science explaining their behaviour and origin is much more detailed and precise than evolution and no mind is required. But there is an even better example. And the fact that it never comes up is evidence I think of why this discussion always goes round and round in circles. It has to do with Math. Have you ever seen the Manderbrot Set? Google it if you haven't. Its a mathematical construction based on a few very simple rules. Those rules don't require a mind to exist, they are just mathematical facts, and when applied to each other in a simple way you get this complicated and actually beautiful picture. And its not just complicated...its infinitely complicated. There are countless other fractal functions of this type. The point is, that a lot the people who accept natural selection as true don't do it because they've been duped or are being brainwashed. We accept it because its so obviously true to the mathematically inclined. The idea of natural selection itself isn't a theory, its a provably true algorithm for population given a few assumptions about that population. Now, biological evolution is a theory because in theory we can't never mathematically prove that natural selection is how life got where it is. But as long as the assumptions (about reproduction, inheritence of traits, and competition for scarce resources) apply its a very very plausible theory.



We'll have to get to more of this later. But interesting things are afoot in the jungle.