From the
beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis has urged us to give up materialistic
ways and go out into the streets to the poor, both to evangelize and help them. In his way of living and in many of his
sayings, he promotes simplicity.
The Pope has
also approved Vatican websites and tweets on Twitter. He therefore assumes that those who are
following his daily routine and pronouncements come equipped with computers and
smart phones.
This is not to
criticize, since I think it is wonderful he communicates with his flock. But there is a little bit of irony here. With daily scientific advances, the world is
becoming more complicated. It’s fairly
widely believed that the best way to help people out of poverty is education. Though one might live in a smaller house and
drive an older car, to be educated is to live with complexity.
In the
Intelligent Design (ID) movement, advocates are trying to determine how to
detect design in biology. One of their
basic concepts is to equate design with complexity. They take the example of computer programming
and state that the only way this programming has come about is by
intelligence. They go on to theorize
that the resemblance of DNA to programming points to the conclusion that DNA
was designed by intelligence.
In order to
prove their point, they use computer programming examples. They compare simple strings of repetitive
letters or numbers, such as 1010101010, with simpler computer instructions to
create them (repeat “10” 5 times), as opposed to a long line of random-looking
letters, such as YXOL248JMN (print “YXOL248JMN”). They go on to say that the complexity is not
enough to prove design—it must also be specified, which fits patterns or is
predicted ahead of time. But part of
this specified complexity is complexity itself, so the concept is worth
examining.
There are lots
of critics to ID and I don’t want to get into all the in’s and out’s of this
argument. But I’d like to use an example
of simple repetitive units as something they might therefore regard as
un-designed: that is salt.
Solid salt, called
NaCl for sodium chloride, is a repeat of sodium and chlorine atoms in a 3-D
lattice. Therefore salt seems made of simple repetitive units that on the whole can be considered un-designed.
But these units are necessary for life. Without the sodium and chloride ions,
there could be no cell function. Among
other things, these electrically charged ions are pumped in and out constantly
with other nutrients (digestion), they keep the cell from popping or collapsing
(osmosis), they help the nerves to fire (membrane electrical potentials). Does salt become complex because it is
involved in biology?
Salt is easily
dissolved, it is easily distributed when solid and makes food taste good. Most of us are able to get what we need
through our food and the shaker on our kitchen table. I think it is marvelously designed.
To use computer
programming to compare simplicity and complexity is a little strained. The presence of repeating numbers or letters
on a screen still takes a computer, a programmer and syntax. Finding patterns in the repeating symbols
might even take more time and effort than to type the random string. Whether the specific command is a little
shorter or longer is almost mute.
This is another
reason why faith undergirds knowledge.
We can have visions of proof of biology, but what about minerals and
planets? If we didn’t have these, we
wouldn’t have life either. All of it is
designed, and all of it is unimaginably, for us, complex.
Christ said to
us, “You are the salt of the Earth. But
if salt loses its flavor, with what can it be seasoned?” (Matthew 5:13 NABRE).
If we forget God in the midst of our
theories, we lose the main truth. This
is both simple and complex, perhaps a paradox.
The uneducated can believe in God and know where things came from as
well as those who are considered our most erudite.
Later, St. Paul
also used salt in an analogy: “Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders,
making the most of the opportunity. Let
your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you know how you
should respond to each one.” (Colossians 4:5-6 NABRE).
Salt is
marvelous, simple yet complex. It makes
you think, doesn’t it?
