THE LIMITATIONS OF COMPLEXITY THEORY IN EXPLAINING THE ORIGIN OF LIFE:

A number of scientists have begun to look at alternative explanations to Darwinian as an explanation for the origin of life. They are doing so because Darwinism beyond microevolution presents extreme improbabilities as a complete explanation for life.

 There has been a focus on the findings of the study of complex and chaotic systems termed "autocatalytic".  This is a very interesting field of study and while we believe it may play a role in evolution, we believe that like Darwinian macro evolution, autocatalytic systems have limited explanatory power when it comes face to face with the incredible complexity of life.  

We believe that all forms of self-organization from the laws of the universe have major problems in explaining the complexity and beauty of the universe.  The book; "A Case Against Accidental and Self Organization by D. Overman reflects our beliefs as to the limits of science in explaining complexity and the facts that science actually shows the extreme improbability of self organization theories.

S. Kauffman is one of the leading scientists in the field of complexity as it relates to life.  In his book "Investigations", Mr. Kauffman says on page 17; "Darwin's theory of evolution is a theory of descent with modification.  It does not yet explain the genesis of forms, but the trimmings of the forms once they are generated.  He says on page 47; "autocatalysis and molecular reproduction are necessary for life, but not yet sufficient."  Even a leading expert in the field sees that complexity theory cannot explain the origin of life.

Mr. Kauffman says on page 21 about the origin of life; "no theory is yet established for the general conditions underlying the emergence of life from nonlife.  Nor if such a general theory were established would that yet establish how life arose on earth."  He says on page 25; "No one has succeeded in achieving experimental conditions in which a single stranded DNA or RNA could line up free nucleotides one by one, as compliments to a single strand, catalyze the ligation of the free nucleotides into a second strand, melt the two strands apart, then enter another replication cycle."   In simpler words, there is no experimental evidence that life can be formed from nonlife.  As long as that remains true, then the life would seem to have been created.  Unless science is missing something very important and fundamental, creation seems to be necessary.

It is understandable that scientists are looking more and more beyond Darwinian evolution for the origin and almost incomprehensible complexity of life.  The more we learn about it, the more we find life has a complexity almost beyond imagination.  Science is finding a level of complexity even in the simplest of bacteria that is almost unbelievable.

Certainly the more complex life is, the harder it is to believe that it could have arisen from a very simple process like Darwinian evolution.   Atheistic scientists are beginning to be forced to look elsewhere (even to the point of saying that life must have arisen in outer space) since it is such a low probability that it could have arisen on earth.

While it is a fact that life forms do evolve to adapt to their environment (longer bird beaks, etc.), the is no hard evidence that Darwinian evolution in fact is more than a very limited fine tuning mechanism.  The fossil record does show the sudden appearance of truly novel life forms, however, and even if one believes in a creator, it is still possible that creation is a complex and to some degree an ongoing process and is at least to a degree governed by the laws of physics which govern the interactions in the universe.  

There is also always the possibility that there is some form of life field that is not known to science.  In the book "How the Leopard Changed its Spots, Mr. Goodwin the author says on page 37; " These act on the 'generative field' m the organization of the egg cell or the organism itself that grows and develops".  He also says "it remains useful to distinguish those aspects of  this single dynamic field".  The most fundamental law of physics which is quantum mechanics defines the entire universe in terms of fields.  It is very reasonable to postulate the fields could exists which influence life and act in concert with DNA to produce evolving life as we see it.  Fields certainly play a central role in life.

Certainly, in any case, living systems are autocatalytic in that they make their own catalysts.  (Catalysts are molecules which can speed up the rate of a chemical process by as much as a million times.  In living systems, the catalysts are proteins which the living system needs to exist.   This still leaves, however, the chicken and egg problem.  If life needs proteins and proteins only come from life, how did life ever start.  Auto catalyzing systems are some help but one is still left with a huge information and information processing problem.  There are very profound issues for those who do not accept the possibility of a creator or some design energy/organizing field.

It is a fact that certain physical processes can generate conditions to sustain the process, but the process found by sciences (separate from life forms) which do that are millions of times less complex than the simplest processes found in the simplest life forms.

Proponents of various autocatalytic theories have in fact no theory with any significant laboratory test/scientific hard data which might even begin to explain the origin of life.  There is no significant chance from known scientific facts that life could start from some simple inanimate system and have any realistic probability of evolving into life if you define life as anything like life as we see all around us.

It does seem likely that there is some underlying law which governs the nature and evolution of life and the study of complexity is fascinating and is likely to at least shed some light on the subject and the subject is worth study, but it has major limits.

There are three very interesting books which talk about life and its complexity;

    How the Leopard Changed its Spots, the Evolution of Complexity, by B. Goodwin  Ref. pages x, 9, 13, 25, 31, 34, 36, 37, 44, 45, 48, 51, 65, 74, 84, 88, 133, 136, 141,145, 160,161, 165, and 167.

   Investigations, by S. Kauffman  Ref. pages 7, 23, 25, 47, 74, 82, 120, 123, and 125

   Complexification by J. Casti  (See "Book review in this site.)

   Complexity by R. Lewin  Ref. pages 11, 14, 15, 26, 27, 29, 35, 40, 45 (List of pages is      incomplete, book still being studied.)

   A death-blow to reductionism.