h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Ste,

first thing, I admire your work about Evolution.

Evolution and religion are mutually exclusive.

Well, I know you don't agree with that statement, but you are a scientist, so I'll try to explain. Evolution is not only a biological thing, it is more than just genes improving slowly over time. As you pointed out, genes were not even known at the time Evolution was discovered.

So what is Evolution, and what makes it incompatible with Religion?

Evolution the the abstraction of the processes that happen in a closed complex dynamic system. These processes only need one thing from outside: randomness and energy, of course. What they don't need is any input!

You could try it for yourself: put some mud into a black box (you might as well take the earth), pour some energy in it (sugar, water, light, you know better then I), close it tight, seal it, wait some million years... You know what will happen: out comes a little person telling you about the relativity theory.


And exactly that is the difference between Evolution and religion:

Evolution works by itself, creating life out of nothing.

Religion is the opposite to that: it entirely relies on an outside source, which creates everthing (be it the mud-story or recoined as Evolution-there-must-be-a-mind-behind-it-story) and makes rules for it (us!) to live by. This is the core of every religion, taken literally or not. (Of course we all do know that the rules are made up by some guys who wanted to have power over their fellows)


So what, you might ask? Whether it's Evolution all by itself or inspired by a god doesn't matter that much. No, it does matter. It makes a whole world of a difference.

One difference is: Freedom of thought.

Freedom to understand the complex dynamic system we are part of. Freedom to understand ourselfes, our genes, our memes and freedom to choose our way to happiness in dynamic interactivity with other people.

Whenever this freedom is restricted, be it by political or religious systems, one thing happens which is common to dynamic systems: the smooth oscillations of self-regulating processes are hindered and are later on turning to wild and destructive outbursts of peaks. Just look at history, it proves my point: suppression of freedom and self-regulating processes leads to wars and death.


This is why religion brings death, while Evolution creates life and happiness.

Hi Wonko, thanks for posting.

"I admire your work about Evolution."

You're right, I disagree with your statement, but I can understand and sympathise why you think they are mutually exclusive. I would prefer to state that "evolution and *fundamentalist religious belief* are mutually exclusive."

I think evolution is primarily a biological thing. The only time when it leaves the realm of biology is when people interpret the ramifications of evolution in light of their faith (or lack of). Evolution can be a major challenge to ones faith, but only if your faith is so inflexible and unyielding that it cannot accomodate new ideas. Christianity hasn't survived for millenia for nothing you know. Fundamentalist Christianity is unable to intpret anything, never mind assimilating new scientific theories into their belief system (note the important distinction between religion and fundamentalist religion).

"Evolution the the abstraction of the processes that happen in a closed complex dynamic system. These processes only need one thing from outside: randomness and energy, of course. What they don't need is any input!"
The Earth is not a closed system. You mention energy and "randomness". The former is from the Sun, the latter is a property of the universe. The only closed system that I can think of is the Universe, and that might not be true (black holes, wormholes, etc.). My point is that they cannot help but to have input.

Alright, I think I get what you're saying. That evolution does not require an outside source, but religion is based totally upon that percieved outside source. Therefore 'believing' in evolution negates the need for an outside source for life to exist. Therefore, if you believe in evolution you cannot believe in a God? Am I right?

But God and religion are more than just a pre-scientific way of explaining the world away. Religion works on many different levels (single belief, an individual's complete faith, community, etc.) and cannot be rendered obsolete or unecessary by science. If it were the case, religion wouldn't be around any more would it?

"Whenever this freedom is restricted, be it by political or religious systems, one thing happens which is common to dynamic systems: the smooth oscillations of self-regulating processes are hindered and are later on turning to wild and destructive outbursts of peaks. Just look at history, it proves my point: suppression of freedom and self-regulating processes leads to wars and death."
Whilst reading this passage, I was unsure on which side you were going to end up on. Was science silencing religion (as the fundie christians are claiming), or is it the other way around. Interesting huh? I think in this case it's all a matter of perspective.

Wonko, I'm already looking forward to your reply.

Ste

Hi Ste, thanks for your kind reply!

"Therefore 'believing' in evolution negates the need for an outside source for life to exist. Therefore, if you believe in evolution you cannot believe in a God? Am I right?"

You almost got my point. I say almost because this is not a question of belief, but of observation. Where ever you look at, you see self-regulating processes. In biology you got hormones regulating other hormones, you got viruses keeping bacteria low on your skin, in economics you got the market regulating the price, in politics you got the leftists against the rightists. As long as the balance of this is keept, the oscillations are smooth and Evolution creates new things out of nothing.

It is the other way round: The observation that everything works by the self-regulating processes is like a relevation. They are everywhere, it is so overwhelming. Evolution is just another word for that!

"But God and religion are more than just a pre-scientific way of explaining the world away. Religion works on many different levels (single belief, an individual's complete faith, community, etc.) and cannot be rendered obsolete or unecessary by science. If it were the case, religion wouldn't be around any more would it?"

Religion not only is obsolete or unecessary, it is contrary to reality. Religion works by outside rules, whereas in reality everything works by self-regulation. You may observe that countries with the least interference from relgion, especially monothistic ones, are the most peaceful ones.


"Whilst reading this passage, I was unsure on which side you were going to end up on. Was science silencing religion (as the fundie christians are claiming), or is it the other way around. Interesting huh? I think in this case it's all a matter of perspective."

I don't think it's science vs. religion. I think it's more a matter of accepting that reality is based on complex interactions vs. simple abstractions. The world is not as simple as middle east based monothistic religions (juadism, christianity, islam) want us to believe. It is very very complex. Physics, biology, social interaction. There is no good or bad. Take for example the law not to murder somebody. It takes a long time for courts to speak justice. Do you really think this should be replaced by some simple religious rules? If you look at the rules of modern society you'll find so many of them in order to do real justice. Or the case of priests getting in a too close a contact with children. There are no simple answers to these questions, and it's very interesting to see that nobody in the church has answers. (BTW, do you have??? Stone them? Or throw them out of church so they can sleep on the sidewalk as they have no job anymore? Or let love be the winner? What is christianity, BTW, apart from disliking sex?) Why? Because religion doesn't provide answers, it creates problems instead by treating the world and the people in a simplistic and thereby inhuman way. Complex problems can only be sovled with complex solutions. Or why do you think we have over 100 bones, 8 billion brain cells each with 5000 connections on average and some other incredibly compex stuff in us?

So I think religion is replaced by man's growing understanding of complexity and self-regulation.


The insight that Evolution works by self-regulating processes and that it is capable to actually create Life is most important philosophical discovery man ever made. I'd even say, it's the only one. Future generations will put two scientific, and at the same time philosophical facts side by side when they review the achivements of mankind

Evolution and Relativity

Evolution shows how Life is working and how it created itself. Relativity gives an insight of how the universe is working. The only thing left is to find out how the universe started (probably itself).

My personal theory is that the universe is the product of a Evolution of the underlying physics, which is refined over quite a long time in many universes, or many cycles of big bangs. It could even be that Life, when speading over the universe, has such a big an influence that the next universe generates physics more fit to Life which is then started by Evolution.

That would explain why certain constants of the fabric of space do fit so good to Life as we know it.


CU, Ste, you kind guy!

"I say almost because this is not a question of belief, but of observation."
Agreed, hence the '..' around belief.

I like the whole self-regulating idea. That is why I'm an atheist, I just don't think there is a need for a God for this universe that we live in to both exist and tick along happily. I also feel no need for spirituality, nor the support religion seems to give people.

"As long as the balance of this is keept, the oscillations are smooth and Evolution creates new things out of nothing."
Would that last fact tend to disrupt the balance? Just a thought...

It's a bit arrogant isn't it, to presume that the world, the galaxy, whatever isn't self-regulating. That to keep on chugging along it needs a helping hand from a conscious being (like God, who seems to be a bit too attached to this small insignificant planet). If things were not self-regulatory they simply wouldn't exist, so what else would you expect to see other than a bunch of self-regulatory stuff?

"Religion not only is obsolete or unecessary, it is contrary to reality."
I really do admire your strength of position here. I have become a bit more wooly since I met some deeply religious people whom I like a great deal. If I wasn't such a fence-sitter sometimes I suspect that I would agree with that statement.

"Religion works by outside rules,"
Yes, and furthermore, religion can *only* work by inventing these outside rules. Making them up out of nowhere to explain away one's unbending faith. See the oft-wheeled out claim that God is "outside of time" and therefore is immune to the big bang, etc, etc. Seems a lot like floundering to me.

"I think it's more a matter of accepting that reality is based on complex interactions vs. simple abstractions. The world is not as simple as middle east based monothistic religions (juadism, christianity, islam) want us to believe."
But any decent Christian scholar can see something as advanced as chaos, quantum or evolutionary theory and take it in their stride. Religious folk can even integrate these theories into their faith and use them as evidence of God power and infinite power and wisdom. And there's not a damn thing you could say against that, no matter how much it grates or is counter-intuitive to you or I. But then again, if they want to think that then let 'em. As long as they keep it to themselves and don't turn into damnable things like creationists then noone should stop them. or try to tell them contrary.

Science has strictly defined boundaries. If a religion points to quantum theory and says that God is responsible (even though Einstein may disagree ) then science should remain silent, it is outside of it's realm.

"The insight that Evolution works by self-regulating processes and that it is capable to actually create Life is most important philosophical discovery man ever made."
I would, of course, agree.

"That would explain why certain constants of the fabric of space do fit so good to Life as we know it."
Oooh, the Anthropic Principle. Otherwise known as the "argument from ignorance" and the "what else do you expect to see principle".



Ste