Evolution and Entropy

Kilometre zero, in front of Notre Dame.

My left-wing friend Xerxes has written a column that, although it does not address it directly, perhaps gives some insight into the celebrations on the left of the destruction wrought on Notre Dame de Paris.

In short, he opines that the universe is based on two great principles, evolution and entropy. Evolution is good, entropy is evil. Science is evolution, religion is entropy. Science is good; religion is bad.

The implicit message is also that all change is good, and leads to progress. All that already exists, then, is bad and no doubt should be burned to the basement.

The problems with this line of thinking are so many it is hard to see where to begin.

Let’s start with the first concept mentioned, evolution. Xerxes argues that evolution leads inexorably to greater complexity. He associates this with Darwin’s theory. “Evolution evolves” “to adapt to altered environments.” “Evolution always moves towards greater complexity, more specialized roles. It never moves backwards.”

This is not supported by Darwin’s theory. Evolution, to begin with, clearly does not always move towards more specialized roles. The evolution of humans has moved in the opposite direction. Humans are generalists. The same is true of some other species.

There is, moreover, nothing in Darwin’s theory that should direct evolution to greater complexity over time. Actually the opposite: an engineer will always go with the simplest mechanism to perform the needed task. Fewer moving parts favours survivability, and so Darwinian evolution should on balance move from complexity to simplicity.

Nevertheless, what we all see in reality is the reverse: creation as a whole indeed seems to be moving over time towards greater complexity and, more importantly, greater consciousness. This includes the inanimate universe, to which the Darwinian theory of evolution simply does not apply.

Which amounts, really, to prima facie empirical proof of the existence of God.

I am less confident about discussing entropy. Biology is more my bag than physics. I suspect when Xerxes says entropy, what he really means is inertia. After all, his criticism of religion seems to be that it is too committed to order and stasis, not that it is dissolving into random disorder. And according to the theory of entropy, all change, being irreversible, is actually decay, a loss of energy that can never be recovered. Yet his argument is pro-change.

But if he means inertia, is it right to equate the lack of change with evil, or even indeed in simple terms with lack of progress? Only if change is always good. We know it is not. Our most dramatic physical examples of rapid change do not suggest creation or advancement to greater complexity, but destruction: a nuclear explosion, a wildfire, a hurricane, a corrosive acid. In terms of creation/destruction, inertia seems the lesser of two evils. If nothing new comes into being, what already is, is preserved. The opposite state of extreme change is chaos, in which nothing is.

Many of our highest values imply a lack of change, inertia. We value diamonds, gold, iron, true love, honesty, and Christmas precisely because they do not change.

So where are we? Evolution in the Darwinian sense is neither good nor evil. Evolution in the sense of creativity, of moving towards greater consciousness, is good. But inertia is not the opposite force. And inertia is not the same as either destruction or evil. And Xerxes seems to have the positions of science and religion reversed. Science cannot account for evolution in this sense; it knows only entropy. Religion can account for both.

Both science and religion change and build—evolve. Both are creative forces. Science changes more rapidly than religion. That is not evidence that it is more creative. Greater change does not equate to creativity, because as we have seen change can be either creative or destructive. The true measure of creativity—evolution if you prefer--is the fruits over time. “By their fruits you shall know them.” What human endeavour has been producing the most enduring and compelling artifacts in the three great fields that are the goals of all human endeavor: the Good, the True, the Beautiful?

It seems to me religion wins that competition knees down. To begin with, science cannot touch on two of those three values at all. Science has produced nothing in terms of morality, on which it is scrupulously disinterested. It is amoral. Its influence on beauty is indirect and ambiguous. It has generated technology that might then be employed to create art. It has at the same time generated the technologies Blake called “dark Satanic mills,” those others call aesthetically soulless, “Stalinist,” and some that others call “pollution” or “pillaging the earth”: plagues of ugliness, because of its general lack of interest in aesthetics. Its successes have been in material comfort.

Philosophers like Popper have argued that science also cannot establish truth, our third value. It only disproves, never proves. All its claims are provisional.

That makes it, although of obvious practical value, on balance, not terribly creative. A bit of a treadmill. A provisional, but not clearly an ultimate, good.

Religion, by contrast, has given us Notre Dame de Paris. And the civilization that surrounds it.