Creationism and Evolution

August 10, 2009.

Creationism is not a theory of origins, since it simply asserts that intelligent living things were created by some other intelligent living thing. This still leaves unexplained how the first intelligent thing came to be.

That God always existed is not part of creationism. It may be part of some religions, but it is not part of creationism itself. Creationism cannot explain the origin of intelligent life as it simply says that intelligent life was created by other intelligent life.

If creationism is the belief that intelligent life always existed, then it has no explanation for the origin of intellient life other than to deny that there was such an origin.

In any event, that version of creationism is not an alternative to evolution. Evolution is a scientific theory. Anything that requires supernatural intervention cannot be a scientific theory.

It does not follow that because creationism is a Christian belief, it includes all of Christian belief. If creationism includes specific Christian religious beliefs such as God's eternal nature, it is most definitely not a scientific theory of any kind.

Creationism doesn't deal with evolution at all. Creationism deals with the origin of livings things as well as their increasing complexity. If you, by definition, exclude anything involving non-living things from evolution, then creationism has a greater scope than evolution. You can't point to limits on evolution and then argue they apply to creationism.

Creationism definitely deals with the transition from non-living things to living things. If creationism were a validated scientific theory (and you could somehow fix the self-contradictions in it), it could replace both evolution and abiogenesis. Abiogenesis would be replaced with a creator willing the first living thing into place (ignoring somehow the contradiction that the creator would have to be alive to will anything). Evolution would be replaced with a creator willing progressively more complex beings (ignoring somehow the contradiction that the creator could not be complex).

An example of evolution is if you had self-replicating non-living molecules, that experienced both random mutations (either due to duplication error or radiation or chemical affects) and the mutations could effect the rate of replication, would that not be an example of evolution

To argue evolution could not possibly explain the origin of life, would require you to show that there is no possible way that non-living things could have experienced random mutations and differential survival.

The standard broad definition of "evolution" is the appearance of functional complexity (or the appearance of design) arising from reproduction, mutation, and survival of the fittest. It subdivides into things like biological evolution, algorithmic evolution, and things that are enough like evolution that the term is used more loosely to describe them.

How non-living things can reproduce:

Proteins can't reproduce, but folds inside them can. Molecules don't reproduce either, yet humans can even though they're made of molecules. That's because the attributes of a human allow that human to re-arrange existing molecules into the form of that human. This is precisely analogous to 'contagious' protein folding, such as what causes BSE. Fire is another example of a non-living thing that can 'reproduce' even though it is not living.

While proteins cannot produce proteins out of nothing, folded proteins can produce proteins with identical folds out of unfolded proteins. That is, a folded protein can turn a suitable candidate protein (not a replice of itself) into a replice of itself. This is not conceptually different from you rearranging raw materials you find in the world around you into another person much like you.

All you need for an evolutionary process is contagious mutations and differential propogation. With just those 2 things, you can get the appearance of design and increasing functional complexity.

We can already create non-living systems that show these things, for example, evolutionary algorithms implemented in a computer. The question is whether such things could arise without an intelligence to put them together in the first place. (The computer itself, obviously, cannot evolve from non-living things on its own.)

It's entirely within our capability to create non-living things that do reproduce (though not of any kind that would be likely to have evolved on their own).

When does evolution start?

Evolution starts after self-replication, diffential propogation, and mutation exist. It does not require life.

Life is not an on/off switch.

There was no magic instant at which a non-living things became a living thing. Things which were non-living but displayed some attributes of living things gradually became barely-living things which displayed many attributes of non-living things. Similiarly, processes that are "sort-of" evolutionary began to occur and were gradually replaced with processes that were more like what we typically think of as evolutionary processes.

Life does not "begin" in some precise place. Things that are not alive gradually transitioned to things that are alive. Every modern theory of abiogenesis proceeds in this way.

Evolution does not start when living things possess genes. A gene is defined as a linear sequence of nucleotides. It is hard to imagine any process other than evolutionary ones that could have had as an end result a functional linear sequence of nulceotides.

That is, genes themselves evolved as an efficient way to store inheritable information. As far as I know, there is no evidence to suggest that genes are the most primitive way to hold inheritable biological information and some evidence to suggest that they are not.

Some forms may be arguably living and arguably non-living. The argument over whether such forms are living has to do with things like whether they excrete and whether they are self-sufficient.

They may also arguably demonstrate evolution or not demonstrate evolution. That argument would be over whether they experience random changes that can be passed on to duplicates of themselves and whether those change can effect their success at replication.

Although there are some common issues, such as reproduction, there is not a priori reason to think that the answer to both of these question is always the same. This is especially true in cases where the answer to the first question is "maybe".

For example, viruses indisputably experience evolutionary processes. Their DNA is replicated with random errors, and those errors result in differential propogation of inheritable traits selecting for those that provide the greatest chance for replication.

However, whether viruses are alive is arguable. The fact that they experience biological evolution does *not* end the living/dead debate.

Modern theories of abiogenesis show both a gradual transition from non-living to living and a gradual switch from non-evolutionary processes to evoluationary processes.

There is no point where evolution begins. There is no point where life begins. The origin of evolution and the origin of life overlap in a series of complex and not-very-well understood transitions. This is consistent with every modern theory of abiogenesis and if there is an alternative, I have no idea what it is.

The most generic definition of evolution is simply a gradual process wherein something changes into a form that is better in some way. Every theory of abiogenesis includes steps from nearly the very beginning that are evolutionary in this sense.

The most specific definition of evolution is the appearance of design and functional complexity caused by random genetic changes and differential propogation.

If you look at any modern theory of abiogenesis you will see that almost all of the steps are evolutionary in the most generic sense. The steps get closer and closer to being evolutionary in the most specific sense. Nowhere in that process is there a definitive on/off switch. The change is completely gradual.