Intelligent Design and Evolution

There's been a lot of talk very
recently, or definitely

over the last several years,
about the idea of intelligent

design and how it compares
to evolution.

And my goal in this video
isn't to enter into that

discussion, or it's actually
turned into an argument in

most circles, but really to make
my best attempt to kind

of reconcile the notions.

So the idea behind intelligent
design is really that there

are some things that we see in
our world that are just so

amazing that it seems hard to
believe that it could be the

product of a set of
random processes.

And the example that tends to
be given is the human eye,

which truly is an awe-inspiring
device.

You can call it an organ
or a machine.

Whatever you want to call
it, it does all of

these amazing things.

It can focus at different
lengths.

It brings the light into focus
at just the right spot, and

then you have your retinal
nerves and you have two eyes

so can see in stereoscopic
vision.

You can see in colors, and then
you can adjust to light

and dark, so the human eye
truly is awe inspiring.

And the argument tends to go
that, look, how can this be

created from random processes?

And the goal of this isn't to
trace the evolution of the

eye, but I'll do a little side
note here that evolution is--

and natural selection, and
I like the word natural

selection more because
it's not talking

about an active process.

Natural selection is acting over
eons and eons of time,

and we do see evidence in our
world of a progression of

different types of eyes.

In fact, all evidence shows
that the human eye is not

perfect, and that there
is variation.

I mean, we all know some of us
are nearsighted, some are

farsighted.

We have astigmatisms. It
degenerates over time.

People generate cataracts, so
there's a whole set of things

that can go wrong with
the human eye.

I'm not using that as a
rebuttal, but I'm just showing

you that there is variation,
even in what I believe is

truly an amazing piece
of biology.

And even if you go outside of
the human world, there's

obviously a huge spectrum
of eyes.

You have fish at the bottom of
the ocean that have eyes that

are really just light sensors,
that barely can maybe tell

you-- and some insects are like
this-- whether there's

some light or some heat
around, nothing

really more than that.

And at the other end of the
spectrum, far better than

humans, you have certain birds
and a certain type of

nocturnal creatures where they
can see in the dark.

You know, maybe you have a
certain-- actually, all cats

have this reflective material in
their eye that allows them

much better night vision, so in
that way they're superior

to humans, and they can see just
as good as humans during

the daytime.

You have certain birds who can
see with far more visual

clarity at far better distances
than humans can, so

there is no perfect eye.

So I'll go into a little bit
of a theological argument

here, and for those of you who
watch my videos, you know that

I'm one to stray away from
theological arguments,

although I might eventually do
a whole philosophy playlist,

but I want to be very careful
not to offend anyone's

sensibilities, because
that truly, truly,

truly is not my intention.

But the whole point I want to
make is that, look, if you

believe in a God, and I won't
take sides on that argument in

this video right here, it's to
some degree, I would say,

almost disparaging of an
all-powerful being to say that

this human eye, it kind of gives
too much importance to

us as individuals.

I always think that religion--
and actually science.

Or actually everything.

I mean, we should be humble in
our lives, and there should be

the realization that we, as
humans, really-- this isn't

perfection, and to imply that
this is the best that a

perfect entity or an
all-powerful entity could

produce I think is a little
actually disparaging of it.

I'll give you another example.

I give you another example, and
I'll put my engineering

hat on here.

And once again, I want
to be very clear.

My goal isn't in this video to
say, oh, you know, look, hey,

evolution, random processes,
that by itself, there is no

God, and you just have
to live with it.

No, that's not my point.

I'm actually making the opposite
argument, that a

belief in God would not point
to a God who-- a belief in a

universal, all-powerful God
would not point to a God who

designs the particular, who
designs each particular.

And even more, the imperfections
that we see

around us would-- and especially
because we see

variation and they're being
selected for it.

I mean, we can't just
focus on the eye.

We would have to focus on
viruses and cancers, and it

would have to speak to a God
that is designing one off

every version of every sequence
of DNA that we see,

because if someone talks about
designing an eye, we know that

the eye is the byproduct of DNA,
and we know the DNA is a

sequence of base pairs, you
know, ATG, C, A, and, you

know, billions and
billions of them.

And so when we talk about
design, we would be talking

literally about designing
the sequence.

And we even know that a lot of
the sequence, there's some

noise in there.

We know that a lot of it comes
from primitive viruses deep in

our past.

So the argument I'm making here
is that in order to give

credit to the all powerful, at
least to my mind, a system

that comes from very simple and
elegant basic ideas like

natural selection and
variations, that in our DNA,

we call those mutations, in
the laws of physics and

chemistry, and those, from that
simple and elegant basic

ideas, for complexity
to emerge.

So this is one idea and this
is what really evolution

speaks to, that, look, our
universe is this profound

world, this profound
environment, where from these

very basic, simple, beautiful
ideas, we have this complexity

in the structure that is truly,

truly, truly awe inspiring.

This is, in my mind, what
evolution speaks to.

And in my mind, even as an
engineer, this speaks to a

higher form of design.

This speak to a more
profound design.

So this whole video, the whole
argument, is that if one does

believe in a God, and, you know,
I'm not going to take

sides in that in this video,
and a God that speaks to

beauty and elegance and is
infinitely powerful, then this

idea of the laws of physics
and chemistry and natural

selection, which is really-- I
mean, you know, when I talked

about natural selection in the
last video, it was really-- I

think you would find it was
a bit of common sense.

That this is a very profound
design and it speaks to the

art of the designer as opposed
to designing each of these

entities one off.

And what's even more profound
about the design

is that it's adaptive.

If there's environmental
stress, then the other

variations survive
more frequently.

And so it's never changing,
that perfection, that no

instance can ever be pointed to
and say this is the highest

point that this design
can reach.

That is always-- I don't want
to say getting better.

It's always getting more suited
to its environment as

it changes, and that to
me is a better design.

Now, just following
up on that, and I

want to be very clear.

This whole idea is to kind of
raise the standard of what we

expect out of design.

It's to kind of show other
points or other places in the

scientific or mathematical world
where this does emerge.

And the best example I see
of that is with fractals.

A lot of you-all might have
seen-- this is the Mandelbrot

set, a very famous
set of fractals.

It's immensely complex.

In fact, you can keep zooming
in on the Mandelbrot set at

any point, and when you zoom it
out, it becomes infinitely

complex, and you can explore
it indefinitely.

But the beauty of it, the true
beauty of it, is all of this

can be described by one
equation, one almost

shockingly simple equation, and
that's this: The next z is

equal to the z before
it squared plus 1.

And you're like you know, Sal,
you started talking about

intelligent design and evolution
and all of that.

Why are you all of a sudden
breaking into fractals?

And the point I'm trying to make
here is that if I had two

designers and one set out to
go and paint this exact

particular fractal and say,
oh, you know, I'm going to

make this brown and I'm going
to make this blue and I'm

going to make this a circle
with other circles, you'd

think this is an amazing
painter.

For example, if you were to go
to someone 300 years ago and

you were to show them this, they
would say that this is

the finest design that anyone
might have ever been able to

devise, because it's so
infinitely complex.

But now we know that this can
be completely described by

this simple equation,
literally.

For those of you are interested,
all they're doing,

this is a complex plane, and
they're starting at zero--

excuse me, not plus 1, plus c.

Let me make that very clear.

This is the equation plus c.

So for every point on the
complex plane, you put that

point in for c, and then you
start with zero, and you keep

doing this.

So you say zero squared plus
that number, that complex

number, is equal to that.

Then you put that in here, and
then you do that number

squared plus that complex
number, and you do it again.

You do it over and
over and over.

So turns out that some numbers
don't go to infinity and those

numbers are in black.

They're considered part
of the Mandelbrot set.

And then the numbers that do go
to infinity, as you iterate

on this formula, you color it
based on how fast it goes to

infinity, and it creates this
infinitely beautiful and

complex pattern.

Now, if you were to say what is
a more profound design, and

you can ask any engineer this,
in my mind, this is the most

profound design.

Because it's simple and elegant,
but it describes

something of infinite
complexity.

It's not just focused on the
particular, it's focused on

kind of the metalevel.

It's focused on creating just
the idea of which this is just

an example.

So anyway, this is probably my
video where I steer most away

from the science of it all and
maybe I focus a little bit

more on the slightly

metaphysical or the awe inspiring.

But my whole point here is to
really throw out my little

idea of how you can reconcile
these notions.

That evolution, the randomness
of it, does not speak to a

Godless universe, although
I'm not going to

take sides on that.

It speaks to a more profound
God, in my mind.

So anyway, forgive me for taking
my liberties, and I

want to make it very clear, I
don't want to offend anyone's

sensibilities, but I really
just wanted to throw

this idea out there.

See you in the next video.