Some Professors Senselessly Say Minerals, Suns and People Are "Conceptually Equivalent"

 At the Reuters web site we have a headline of "Scientists propose sweeping new law of nature, expanding on evolution." In the article we read this:

"Nine scientists and philosophers on Monday proposed a new law of nature that includes the biological evolution described by Darwin as a vibrant example of a much broader phenomenon, one that appears at the level of atoms, minerals, planetary atmospheres, planets, stars and more. It holds that complex natural systems evolve to states of greater patterning, diversity and complexity. 'We see evolution as a universal process that applies to numerous systems, both living and nonliving, that increase in diversity and patterning through time,' said Carnegie Institution for Science mineralogist and astrobiologist Robert Hazen, a co-author of the scientific paper describing the law in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

We have a link to a paper entitled "On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems." It's a very pretentious affair that starts out like this:

"The universe is replete with complex evolving systems, but the existing macroscopic physical laws do not seem to adequately describe these systems. Recognizing that the identification of conceptual equivalencies among disparate phenomena were foundational to developing previous laws of nature, we approach a potential 'missing law' by looking for equivalencies among evolving systems. We suggest that all evolving systems—including but not limited to life—are composed of diverse components that can combine into configurational states that are then selected for or against based on function. We then identify the fundamental sources of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—and propose a time-asymmetric law that states that the functional information of a system will increase over time when subjected to selection for function(s)." 

We see no promising signs in this opening. For one thing, the very first phrase is the claim that "the universe is replete with complex evolving systems," and we don't know that at all. Life has only been discovered on our planet, and compared to the vast complexity and vast organization of earthly life, nothing we know of outside of Earth is complex or organized in comparison. Stars like our sun are as simple as can be compared to the physical complexity of organisms such as humans. What goes on in the article is that the authors try to place stars like our sun under the category of "complex evolving systems," which makes no sense at all.  Physically the sun has no complexity to speak of compared to the vast complexity and organization of mammals.  Our sun is not organized at all. It is a ball of hydrogen and helium particles that bounce around in an incredibly disorganized manner. 

The authors try some misguided strategy that involves trying to stretch the word "evolution" to the limits, so that it applies to pretty much anything that changes over time. It's kind of a "stars evolve, galaxies evolve, so of course life can evolve" kind of affair.  It makes no sense to try to lump living things and nonliving things into the same conceptual bucket, and suggesting they all evolve for a similar reason. Lifeless things are lifeless things, and living things are living things. Let us consider some of the differences between stars (suns) and humans. 

	Humans	Stars (suns)
Mass	Not very massive	A trillion times more massive than humans
Level of physical complexity and organization	Vast levels of hierarchical organization. Physically humans contain subatomic particles, which are organized into atomic nuclei, which (along with electrons) are organized into atoms, which are organized into small molecules such as amino acids, which are organized into very large molecules called proteins, which are organized into protein complexes (sometimes called molecular machines), which are organized into organelles, which are organized into cells, which are organized into tissues, which are organized into organs, which are organized into organ systems, which (along with a skeletal system) make up the main part of a human body.	Stars have almost no organization or physical complexity. Stars like the sun consist of disorganized hydrogen nuclei and helium nuclei along with disorganized electrons. Stars like the sun are too hot for any  molecules to exist in them. Stars may “evolve” to other states such as white dwarves or neutron stars, but such states have very little physical organization compared to the bodies of mammals.
Mental complexity	Inadequately studied by biologists, the human mind is something of    oceanic depth and complexity.	Stars do not have any minds.
Composition	By mass, mostly oxygen and carbon	By mass, mostly hydrogen and helium
Number of types	There are many thousands or millions of types of humans.	There are not very many types of stars. Astronomy courses typically list only about 10 types.
Amount of change	Humans rapidly change  physically and mental, and the most profound constructive changes often  occur in a single year or month.	Stars like the sun undergo little change over billions of years, other than a very slow and gradual increase in the amount of helium. A star can suddenly change when a supernova occurs, but that's only a destructive change, not a constructive change.
What forms them?	An unfathomably complex still-not-understood morphogenesis process not involving gravitation or nuclear fusion.	Stars form from gas and dust clouds by simple gravitation, and then later start lighting up because of simple nuclear fusion.
Capable of reproduction?	Yes, humans can reproduce.	Stars don't reproduce. A star never splits into two stars. A star can explode in a supernova, sending gases into space; and eons later such gases may collapse to become one or more stars. But that isn't really "star reproduction."
Physical lifespan	About 75 years	Billions of years

There's just no comparing humans and stars.  So trying to speak like lifeless things like stars are kind of like living things because "they both evolve" makes no sense. And it is not true that everything evolves. A star like the sun undergoes an incredible gradual change that could fancifully be called "evolution" as its percentage of helium slowly increases over billions of years. But things like moon rocks and lifeless asteroids undergo no change at all over billions of years.  

The science paper goes "off the rails" with the very silly statement below:

"A pervasive wonder of the natural world is the evolution of varied systems, including stars, minerals, atmospheres, and life. These evolving systems appear to be conceptually equivalent in that they display three notable attributes: 1) They form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations; 2) processes exist that generate numerous different configurations; and 3) configurations are preferentially selected based on function."

So lifeless things are "conceptually equivalent" to living things such as humans? Hogwash. Baloney. Bunk. Humbug. BS. Large living things such as human beings have dramatic characteristics unlike anything in natural lifeless things, including vast levels of hierarchical organization, very high levels of internal information involving symbolic representations, and also minds and memories.  

It's so goofy to call these "conceptually equivalent"

What's going on here sounds like nonsense similar to the nonsense of arguing for panpsychism. What goes on there is this:

Step 1: use shrink-speaking language that tries to describe the incredibly rich, deep and varied diversity of the human mind in the most shrunken and minimal way you can, by calling human minds mere "consciousness." 

Step 2: then say "why of course humans are conscious -- everything is conscious." 

Something similar is going on in this new paper:

Step 1: use shrink-speaking language that tries to describe the vast levels of hierarchical organization and information richness and reproduction ability of living things as being mere "combinations of different configurations" involving "evolution" (very broadly defined as just change over time). 

Step 2: then say something "why of course life evolves -- everything evolves." 

One of the reasons the first case fails is that it is nonsense to think that rocks and stones are conscious. One of the reasons the second case fails is that it just isn't true that everything evolves. Billion-year-old moon rocks haven't changed a bit in a billion years, nor have most asteroids. And in both cases we have the absurdity of describing things as if they were vastly  simpler than they are. 

Anyone who thinks that by studying the minimal unimpressive "chump change" level of organization in stars and minerals will help explain how we got the almost infinitely greater level of organization in human bodies is probably someone who did not sufficiently study the level of organization and fine-tuned complexity in human bodies.  I could write on a single page an algorithm for duplicating the level of organization in a mineral crystal, such as the organization we see below. An instruction manual of 10,000 pages would never be sufficient to specify how to artificially manufacture the level of organization and fine-tuned dynamic functionality in a human body. Below is the very simple structure of a mineral crystal. Crystals with such a structure are as old as planet Earth, and are not the result of any thing that is reasonably called evolution (unless you want to stretch the term "evolution" so that it means basically any change, so that you can talk about things like the evolution of the meal you cooked last night).

The statement quoted above has argued that stars are "conceptually equivalent" to living things because both "form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations."  This is not true. Stars like the sun are spheres filled with simple hydrogen and helium, with only three zones, as shown in the diagram below.  Stars  do not "adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations."  Every star of the same class has basically the same configuration, and there are only a few classes of stars: O, B, F, G, K, M, L and T. 

It is easy to understand why Darwinism fans would be looking for some "law of evolution" they could state. It is an embarrassing fact that Darwinian theory involves no credible claims of any law, unlike physics which does involve a description of real laws such as the law of gravitation and Coulomb's law describing the force between electrical charges. 

 In science a law is something that invariably happens, with the effect occurring in a precise way that is mathematically predictable.  For example, the main law of electromagnetism (Coulomb's law) is a very precise description telling us exactly how much force of attraction or repulsion will occur between any two charges separated by a particular distance. There is a precise equation telling us the exact force that arises from this law. 

But there is no "law of evolution."  It is not a law that over large periods of time species evolve into other species. We know of quite a few species that have existed without significant change for eons. We can understand how Darwinists with a kind of "physics envy" might want to suggest that Darwinian evolution is an example of some law of nature. But the moment these nine people started claiming that lifeless things and living things are "conceptually equivalent," they went way, way off the rails, and went way into the realm of silly speaking.  

The paper has some attempt to proliferate the faulty misleading speech at the core of Darwinism into some faulty misleading speech involving the whole natural world.  Darwin used the misleading trick of creating the phrase "natural selection" for something that was not actually selection (a word meaning a choice by a conscious agent).  Our nine paper authors try to extend this language abuse to cover a host of things in the lifeless world.  So we read in the paper not-really-true "language abuse" statements like this:

"Stellar nucleosynthesis depends on the selection of stable configurations of protons and neutrons. Mineral evolution relies on selection of new, locally stable arrangements of chemical elements."

So the authors have taken us from the "natural selection that isn't actually selection" of evolutionary biologists to some "stellar selection" that isn't actually selection and some "mineral selection" that isn't actually selection.  The paper also makes many uses of the doubly-misleading phrase "selection pressure" so loved by evolutionary biologists, a term describing some alleged thing that involves no actual selection and no actual pressure. 

What is pressure in the world of physics? In physics pressure is usually a force caused by the motion of particles. Consider a balloon.  Why doesn't an inflated balloon collapse, given that there is the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere acting on it cause such a collapse? The reason is that inside the balloon are oxygen molecules speeding around rapidly, many of which are making contact with the inner surface of the balloon, providing an outward force. That outward force keeps the inflated balloon from collapsing.  A very similar story explains why stars like the sun do not collapse. Every star like the sun is subjected to an enormous inward gravitational force, which if not balanced by an opposite force would cause the star to collapse inwardly. But the star does not collapse because of the pressure caused by all the very hot particles within it. Moving around very rapidly because of the high temperature, such particles cause an outward force that balances the inward force caused by the star's high gravity. 

So those are some examples of pressure. Is there any kind of pressure involved when biologists speak of "selection pressure" in relation to evolution? None whatsoever. When such a term is used, we have a "double the duplicity" affair.  When biologists claim that miracles of biological innovation occurred because of "selection pressure," it's a case of so-called selection that isn't actually selection (since no conscious agent is choosing) and so-called pressure that isn't actually pressure (since nothing is being pushed, and no actual force is going on).  It's a very bad case of misleading language, which occurs partially because biologists are trying to make their lame explanation attempts sound a little like physics. 

The statement I quoted above making the ludicrous claim that stars, minerals and life are "conceptually equivalent" also makes the untrue claim that in all three of these things "configurations are preferentially selected based on function." No, the configurations of stars and minerals are not not "preferentially selected based on function" except when humans choose to use particular minerals because they are more useful. 

In their paper the authors start using the term "functional information" in an erroneous way, as if the term meant "function."  Information can be defined as facts or knowledge or instructions or similar content declared using some particular system of representation involving symbols or tokens. The tokens may be any of a large number of things: letters, numbers, sounds, symbols, words, or particular combinations of low-level tokens such as binary tokens (0 or 1) or nucleotide tokens (those used in the genetic code).  "Functional information" can be defined as some data or information telling how to do something. DNA really does contains functional information, because the individual genes in DNA tell how to combine amino acids to get started making particular protein molecules.  

The authors of the "On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems" paper start using "functional information" as if there was lots of functional information in stars and minerals. This makes no sense. Stars do not have functional information. All real functional information uses some scheme of representation or symbolism in which particular combinations of symbols or tokens represent something. Stars and minerals do not use any system of representation, and do not contain any information.  You can write information about the sun, but the sun contains no information. Nowhere in a sun is there anything telling you how to do something. It isn't even possible to write information on an object like the sun. 

The lack of any functional information in stars like the sun is one of the reasons why it is nonsensical to try to talk about some "evolution of stars" and compare that with an evolution of organisms.  As imagined by Neo-Darwinists, the evolution of a species hinges mainly on a change in its functional information, its DNA.  Nothing like that can ever occur in stars, because stars don't have functional information. The fact that each cell in our bodies contains very much functional information in its DNA is a very important clue worth knowing. That fact points us in the right direction, because the only improvement humans ever observe in functional information occurs through purposeful activity.  We should beware of anyone trying to distort the important concept of functional information by defining it in some weird way that makes it apply to practically anything.  

Misusing the term "functional information" as if meant "function," the authors incorrectly claim "the functional information of every enzyme is greater than zero." No, enzymes and other proteins have no functional information (although they do have functions).  Functional information always involves symbols or tokens or representations, and enzymes have no such things. There is a gene corresponding to each protein, and each such gene does have functional information, in which there are symbolic tokens (nucleotides that represent or stand for particular amino acids).  Just as incorrectly, the authors state, "so stars’ functional information could be said to increase with time." You can write information about stars, but stars do not contain any type of information. Stars have a function, but they do not have functional information. Seemingly trying to maximize their use of the word "information" (perhaps to give their musings a little information science glamour), the authors have misused the phrase "functional information" many different times. There are functions, and there is functional information, instructions that help you perform functions.  You should not be using the term "functional information" when you merely mean a function. 

When the authors claim to have discovered a "law of increasing functional information," they merely mean a law of increasing function. You do not explain the appearance of highly functional and fantastically organized things on our planet by evoking some cosmic law of increasing function. That would be as vacuous as claiming to explain the appearance of strange spaceships in the sky by evoking a "law of atmospheric complexity increase." In the universe there is no general law of increasing function operating throughout time and space. As "function" is a word referring to the purposes of living things, any claim that function grew in the first eight billion years of a lifeless universe would be very weak. Looking around the galaxy and other galaxies, we have found only one planet where there are high levels of biological function (our own) despite 60 years of searching for radio signals from other solar systems. When something seems to occur only nearby and relatively recently, you are not on firm ground claiming there is a cosmic law to produce such a thing. Conversely, studies of objects on opposite sides of the universe show that the law of gravitation and Coulomb's law have been operating constantly through every part of the universe since its early days. 

In the same week that we had this "off the rails" professor talk, we had another piece of "off the rails" professor talk. A press release quotes some professor giving us this little explanation for the origin of humans:

"" 'When the universe began 13.8 billion years ago in a hot big bang, there were no objects like protons, atoms, people, planets, stars or galaxies. Now the universe is full of such objects,' he said. 'The relatively simple answer to where they came from is that, as the universe cooled, all of these objects condensed out of a hot background.' "

This little "humans are just some condensation" claim is as false as false can be. According to scientists, the universe had already cooled to its cold current background temperature billions of years before the Earth and the sun originated.  Scientists don't believe any type of life formed by condensation. 

Sinking their fangs of rhetoric into you, some professors try to use words to suck out your humanity, by trying to make you think you're like a monkey, a rock, a robot, or just some condensation or bag of chemicals.  This occurs largely because such professors lack credible explanations of humans, so they try to use shrink-speaking diminutive language to paint humans as mere shadows of humans, thinking they can offer something to explain such measly shadows. It's dumb to dehumanize. 

What the authors of this paper have done is use very carefully chosen words to suggest that things utterly dissimilar are conceptually equivalent. By choosing your words very carefully, it is easy to paint some similarity between things almost totally dissimilar. So, for example, if I wanted to suggest that a human is like a trash can, I might say something like this:

"Why humans and trash cans are very similar -- they both have a shape, and both are made of atoms. And just as a trash can may be filled, a human woman can be filled during sex or filled with a growing child during pregnancy. And just as a trash can may be filled with trash, the mind of a human may be filled with bad ideas. And just as a trash can may rest on a street corner, a human may rest on a street corner."

Such nonsense is like what the writers of this science paper have done -- using very carefully chosen words to make us think things having almost nothing in common are similar or equivalent.