Most engineers are aware of the K.I.S.S. principle, so this story amused me:
Proponents of Intelligent Design claim that some things are so complex, they must have been designed by an intelligent creator and could not have arisen naturally. Recently, they've been comparing themselves to SETI, saying that they are also searching for patterns of intelligence.
This appears to have irked someone from SETI, who wrote an interesting column. Far from searching for complexity, SETI actually specifically looks for simplicity! That is, they look for steady, simple signals. You see, complexity actually comes rather naturally... It's simplicity that requires intelligence to create! I love how this kinda turns the whole ID argument on its tail. :)
I mean, the fundamental problem with the ID arguments is that complexity is actually easy to come by. It's precisely why I'm so fascinated by Conway's Game of Life: only 4 simple rules can generate unendingly complex patterns! It's simplicity that's difficult to find. If we look at DNA, we see tons of wasted genes and unnecessary complexity. If our DNA were efficient and well-organized, if we had no appendices, that would be a better sign of intelligent design than "the complexity of an eyeball".
(I found that SETI member column via this Ars Technica article.)
Comments (1)
This is a better way of expressing my own response to the ID arguments. My reasoning: OK, if you want to talk about intuition and the appearance of design, it's not scientific reasoning but let's work with it. I look at a city and I sense order and I know it's created by 'intelligent design'; I look at a rain forest and I see chaos and I know it's natural. I think the simplest test we employ to decide if something is man-made is to look for straight lines, perfect circles, flat surfaces - in short, yes, simplicity. Nature is characterized by rough edges, random variations, and irregularities. Intuition is obviously not science, but it seems to me that intuitively, the natural world seems to exude chaos, not intelligent design.
Posted by Jesse | December 16, 2005