Page 86 - The Evolution Impasse 2

84 Ordered System

tinct struc tures. Ordered sys tems in - tak ing place spon ta ne ous ly.
clude sim ple ar range ments and rep - It has of ten been ar gued by anal o gy to
e ti tions, while or ga nized sys tems wa ter crys tal liz ing to ice that sim ple
con tain very com plex and in ter con - mon o mers may pol y mer ize in to com -
nect ed struc tures and func tions. plex mol e cu les such as pro tein and
Knowledge and con scious de sign DNA. The anal o gy is clear ly in ap pro -
are es sen tial if they are to emerge. pri ate, how e ver . . . The atom ic bond -
ing for ces draw wa ter mol e cu les in to
Ilya Prigogine re sort ed to this de -
an or der ly crys tal line ar ray when the
lib er ate con cep tu al con fu sion and
ther mal ag i ta tion (or en tro py driv ing
re ferred to mol e cu les that ar ranged
force) is made suf fi cient ly small by
them selves as en er gy passed
low er ing the tem per a ture. Organic
through them as "spon ta ne ous ly
mon o mers such as ami no ac ids re sist
self-or gan iz ing." In their book The
com bin ing at all at any tem per a ture,
Mystery of Life's Origin, the
how e ver, much less [form ing] some or -
American sci en tists Thaxton, der ly ar range ment. 80
Bradley and Olsen de scribe the po si -
Prigione de vot ed his whole ca -
tion in these terms:
reer to try ing to square ther mo dy -
In each case ran dom move ments of
nam ics with the the o ry of ev o lu tion.
mol e cu les in a flu id are spon ta ne ous ly
But even he ad mit ted that there was
re placed by a high ly or dered be hav iour.
no re sem blance be tween the crys tal -
Prigogine, Eigen, and oth ers have sug -
li za tion of wa ter and the emer gence
gest ed that a sim i lar sort of self-or gan -
of com plex bi o log i cal struc tures:
i za tion may be in trin sic in or gan ic
chem is try and can po ten tial ly ac count The point is that in a non-iso lat ed sys -
for the high ly com plex mac ro mol e cu les tem there ex ists a pos si bil i ty for for ma -
es sen tial for liv ing sys tems. But such tion of or dered, low-en tro py struc tures
anal o gies have scant rel e vance to the at suf fi cient ly low tem per a tures. This
or i gin-of-life ques tion. A ma jor rea son or der ing prin ci ple is re spon si ble for the
is that they fail to dis tin guish be tween ap pear ance of or dered struc tures such
or der and com plex i ty. . . . 79 as crys tals, as well as for the phe nom e -
na of phase tran si tions. Unfortunately,
Those same sci en tists al so de -
this prin ci ple can not ex plain the for -
scribe the log i cal su per fi ci al i ty and
ma tion of bi o log i cal struc tures. 81
dis tor tion of some ev o lu tion ists'
claim that wa ter turn ing in to ice is
an anal o gy of bi o log i cal or der ing

The Evolution Impasse II