Dr. Bilal Masud*
Design in the Universe: The wonderful regularity and
extraordinary precision
Our observations show us much regularity around us. This
includes periodicity, regular (law-like) behaviour,
artificial regularity of the man-made machines and the
regularity pointed out by science. Periodicity means
phenomena repeating in time like the alteration of day
and night, motion of stars, seasonal changes and regular
human pulsation. Regular behaviour includes heavy
objects always falling towards earth and fire always
burning, etc. Science has added to this list in two
different ways. One by pointing out examples of
extraordinary precision in the design of the universe
such as the precise balance of different forces
in the universe to guarantee the emergence of stars and
life, the precise cancellation of electrical
charges in an atom, precise parameters like
temperature, size, and magnetic field of the earth and
of its atmosphere like the oxygen percentage and the Van
Allen Belt, the precise equality of the
wavelength of light emitted from sun and the wavelength
suitable for life, photosynthesis and vision, the
extraordinary thermal properties of the water, and the
extraordinary properties of different elements such as
carbon, oxygen and nitrogen necessary for life etc.1
The other ways science has increased regularity on the
earth is by producing regularly running machines (like a
fan regularly rotating) and regularly managed social
systems like a smoothly running political system with
elections on a regular basis.
But not every phenomenon around us is regular: weather
in a storm and a turbulent water flow in a mountainous
river look far from being regular. And, of course, human
decisions cannot be guaranteed to be based on some
regular pattern. Behaviour of a mad person clearly shows
a lack of pattern, but decisions of a sane person can
also be not predicted with complete confidence.
Accordingly, there are words in human languages whose
daily usage means complete lawlessness, no pattern at
all, a situation when anything can happen, etc. A
question arises how ordered is the universe, including
the life on earth? An expectation is that science tells
us how much is the universe ordered and how much it
is not ordered? This expectation assumes that
science can describe both order and disorder and can
compare how much we have order in the universe and how
much disorder. The purpose of the following discussion
is to analyze if science, a search for pattern, can
measure ‘no pattern’?
Do
“Disorder, Chaos or Randomness” of science mean a
complete lack of Design?
In
science, the category of ‘order’ is more or less same as
the corresponding daily usage meanings of the word
order like “the state that something is in when its
different parts are related in a way that can be
recognized and understood” and “state that exists in a
place or among a group of people when normal activities
are taking place and laws and rules of behaviour are
being obeyed.” Science does make that term ‘order’
precise by meaning that ordered state of a thing is a
state in which it is following what are termed ‘laws of
nature’ in a way that its future can be predicted if we
know its initial state. Technically, this is called the
scientific determinism, the clock-type view of a
universe whose future can be in principle exactly
predicted if the present is known to the utmost
accuracy.
But the situation with disorder, chaos and randomness is
different; in quantitative sciences like physics
‘disorder’ is a well-defined measurable quantity termed
entropy that has a clear formula in terms of the
number of possible states of atoms into which these are
scattered. This “disorder” is subject to certain rules
like ‘all the states into which atoms are scattered have
equal chances,’ and hence is not exactly the disorder of
the daily usage. For a common person it is very
difficult to understand the formula for the entropy, but
the general idea of scattered things having more
disorder can be easily appreciated. Another way to put
the idea is to tell that more disorder mans less variety
and more uniformity. Scientific meaning of disorder can
be illustrated by the often-quoted example of many balls
kept around a corner of an otherwise empty box. As long
as these balls remain in a corner and are not
scattered into the full box, these are in a more
ordered state than the state in which these are
scattered into the full box to occupy it. And to
understand the variety-order (and uniformity-disorder)
connection, one has to note that in the ordered state
(of all the balls in a corner) there is much variety:
near one corner of the box are balls and
everywhere else there are no balls. In the
disordered state (of large entropy) each place in the
box has balls and thus the situation at each place in
the box is same---a uniform state. A uniform state has a
maximum disorder in the scientific sense, though it is
subject to the ‘rule’ of uniformity and does not
mean total disorder in the daily usage sense.
Maybe it is worth mentioning here the law of increase
of entropy or the second law of thermodynamics. It
states that the total entropy (disorder) in a
disconnected system goes on increasing or can at most
stay constant. In simple words, it means that in any
system order cannot increase by itself. In the
above mentioned example of the balls in a box, the law
means that the balls can scatter into the empty parts of
the box but, once scattered, the balls cannot by
themselves start squeezing into a corner. According to
this law, there cannot be an evolution in an
isolated system. This physical law is one of the most
established ones. During the 20th century
revolution of physics, almost all of the ‘laws’ of the
19th century were modified except for this
law. In its nature, the law has almost a mathematical
certainty. Does it mean that the law can be used to
refute the Darwinian evolution, in a system like a
living, being by itself? It could be so, though the
matter is not that simple; supporters of Darwinism say
that an animal is not a disconnected system and order in
it can evolve due to the effect of its surroundings. The
law of increase of entropy could allow such a
possibility, but it remains a remote possibility and
far-fetched idea.
Like disorder, the word chaos in its daily usage
means “a state of complete disorder and confusion.” But
the scientific term ‘chaos’ means something like “an
(apparent) lawless behaviour governed entirely by (some
underlying) law.2” Here a prediction is
actually possible for every outcome, and according to
the scientific laws the prediction is binding. It is
just that it is very difficult for us to know the
right prediction. The most famous example of the chaotic
behaviour is the weather on earth. Much of the time it
apparently remains in a state of complete disorder and
lawless. But many scientists remained believer in the
idea that, like everything on the earth, weather must
also be governed by the scientific laws, like the
Newton’s laws of motion, governing everything else. And
in recent years they have come up with quantitative
evidence that the apparent disorder of weather is
actually governed by some well-defined mathematical
equations. Any one having some experience with solutions
of the mathematical equations would know that the
solutions are ‘ordered’ by mathematical formulas and
hence are not disordered or irregular. The modern
mathematics of chaos is mostly concerned with
demonstrating that such underlying ordered behaviour
described by writable formulas can apparently
turn out to be in “a state of complete disorder and
confusion.” As for directly showing that some apparent
“state of complete disorder and confusion” could
actually be governed by a law, the ability of science to
make weather forecast shows that they do know some rules
governing the apparent disordered state of weather;
without knowing any rules of its behaviour, nothing can
be predicted about a phenomenon. But it must be
clarified that the scientific knowledge of weather is
far from being free of problems: if we could make a
weather forecast for two days based on observations of
ten stations, we need 100 stations to make a weather
forecast for four days. The rule is that the prediction
time is proportional to the power of ten in quantity of
input information (like the number of stations).
Similarly, the scientific meaning of the word “random”
is not completely free of some underlying pattern. If a
random behaviour is described by science, the
description would not be a description of “a state of
complete disorder.” If a coin is tossed once,
scientists do not have a rule telling if head would
result or tail. In that sense the outcome is random, in
the daily usage sense of “being without a definite
pattern.” But if scientists use the example of the
tossing of a coin, they mention it to describe a pattern
in tossing. If we toss a coin a large number of times, a
pattern starts appearing: heads would appear
almost as many times as tails.
Here we have a pattern in the large number of tossing
and no pattern in an individual tossing. But science
is concerned only with the part of the reality that is
ordered is some sense or other, namely the patterned
part; there is no scientific view of a complete
disorder. Science does not quantitatively describe
disorder aspects of any phenomenon. If the words of
disorder, chaos and randomness are used in their daily
usage sense, science cannot have a detailed view about
them. Even disorder (entropy), chaos and randomness are
considered, and hence viewed, in science if there are
some underlying patterns. Modern quantum physics does
deal with phenomena that are partly random in the daily
usage sense of being completely without a pattern; but
this scientific theory describes only the deterministic
and predictable part of the phenomena, resulting in the
calculations of probabilities (chances)3.
This is not a problem with the present science, expected
to be overcome by some future advanced science; there is
a simple problem of logic here. Science is pattern and
“no pattern” (a complete disorder) is “no science.”
Hence it is logically wrong to ask for the scientific
(law based) view of any state of complete lawlessness,
of something un-Designed. Whatever is usefully described
by science in any manner whatsoever necessarily has a
pattern or plan underlying it. Hence by its very nature
science cannot avoid indicating a Design in the
universe.
References
1:
For a modern presentation of the Argument from Design,
see
Haroon Yahya, The Creation Of The Universe,
published by Al-
Ateeq, Canada, 2000.
2: Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice: The New
Mathematics of Chaos,
Penguin Books, 1989.
3: Roger Penrose, Emperors New Mind, published
by Vintage, 1989.
