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Sunday, January 08, 2006

Symmetry - It's a law!

I just finished reading Mario Livio's The Equation That Couldn't be Solved, a great book that straddles my two favorite genres: science and biography. The title refers to the problem of the quintic equation, one step beyond the familiar quadratic and a mathematical mind-boggler, along with the lives of two young men who got a handle on it then died at ridiculously early ages.

What's interesting about the quintic (five-based) and anything to do with odd numbers in general is that odd numbers aren't symmetrical and symmetry is an essential requirement in the universe. I've skated around this issue many times in previous posts, particularly my War of the Worlds series in which I pointed out that tripods can't walk.

It's a natural follow-on to my previous post about evolution when one considers the concept of how many legs the octopus will have next (or had before.) We don't know yet but there's one thing of which we can be damned sure: it won't be nine or seven or eleven or any odd number. It's no coincidence that there are no seven-legged animals or that humans have two ears. The laws of the universe just work that way and lead to crazy concepts such as quantum entanglement, teleportation and tachyons. These ideas are nutty but what the hell... they're symmetrical which gives them a better shot at being possible than if they were based on odd numbers.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Evolution versus Intelligent Design

What has this got to do with Theatrical Special Effects? Nothing and everything.

I'm a scientist. An engineer, actually: one who applies scientific principles and theories to practical applications. That's the definition of an engineer. We do that. Scientists discover the laws that make things happen. Engineers use those laws to make things happen. It's simple.

So what's the problem with "Evolution" versus "Intelligent Design?" I'm flustered.

The Intelligent Design camp (Creationists) say that "A Supreme Being" (it/he/she/God) is responsible for everything that exists. Okay. Most of us scientists and engineers have no problem with that. Let's take the "Big Bang" as a starter: God said "Let there be a universe and here are the rules, laws and principles: physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics... there you go. It's all there." Boom!

I have no problem with that. It works for me. Hey... it works, period. We can see that.

So: if the rules and laws and principles are all there, then what's the beef with evolution? Isn't that one of the principles? Don't the laws of biology cover how organisms originate, develop, change, mutate and prosper or become extinct? Where's the disparity here? I don't see any conflict. You can believe in God and you can trust Darwin. It works just fine. The only time you get into trouble is when you have God putting eight legs on an octopus. God didn't do that. He/she/it didn't need to. The laws of biology and evolution put eight legs on the octopus. If you believe in God, then you need to wait to see how many legs the octopus gets next.

Patience, my Creationist/ID friends, patience. You won't live long enough to see what comes next. It will keep changing. That's "evolution." What's evolution? That's "intelligent design." End of argument.

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