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There's been a lot of talk very
recently, or definitely
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over the last several years,
about the idea of intelligent
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design and how it compares
to evolution.
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And my goal in this video
isn't to enter into that
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discussion, or it's actually
turned into an argument in
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most circles, but really to make
my best attempt to kind
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of reconcile the notions.
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So the idea behind intelligent
design is really that there
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are some things that we see in
our world that are just so
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amazing that it seems hard to
believe that it could be the
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product of a set of
random processes.
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And the example that tends to
be given is the human eye,
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which truly is an awe-inspiring
device.
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You can call it an organ
or a machine.
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Whatever you want to call
it, it does all of
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these amazing things.
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It can focus at different
lengths.
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It brings the light into focus
at just the right spot, and
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then you have your retinal
nerves and you have two eyes
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so can see in stereoscopic
vision.
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You can see in colors, and then
you can adjust to light
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and dark, so the human eye
truly is awe inspiring.
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And the argument tends to go
that, look, how can this be
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created from random processes?
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And the goal of this isn't to
trace the evolution of the
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eye, but I'll do a little side
note here that evolution is--
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and natural selection, and
I like the word natural
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selection more because
it's not talking
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about an active process.
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Natural selection is acting over
eons and eons of time,
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and we do see evidence in our
world of a progression of
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different types of eyes.
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In fact, all evidence shows
that the human eye is not
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perfect, and that there
is variation.
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I mean, we all know some of us
are nearsighted, some are
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farsighted.
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We have astigmatisms. It
degenerates over time.
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People generate cataracts, so
there's a whole set of things
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that can go wrong with
the human eye.
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I'm not using that as a
rebuttal, but I'm just showing
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you that there is variation,
even in what I believe is
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truly an amazing piece
of biology.
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And even if you go outside of
the human world, there's
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obviously a huge spectrum
of eyes.
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You have fish at the bottom of
the ocean that have eyes that
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are really just light sensors,
that barely can maybe tell
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you-- and some insects are like
this-- whether there's
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some light or some heat
around, nothing
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really more than that.
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And at the other end of the
spectrum, far better than
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humans, you have certain birds
and a certain type of
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nocturnal creatures where they
can see in the dark.
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You know, maybe you have a
certain-- actually, all cats
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have this reflective material in
their eye that allows them
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much better night vision, so in
that way they're superior
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to humans, and they can see just
as good as humans during
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the daytime.
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You have certain birds who can
see with far more visual
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clarity at far better distances
than humans can, so
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there is no perfect eye.
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So I'll go into a little bit
of a theological argument
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here, and for those of you who
watch my videos, you know that
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I'm one to stray away from
theological arguments,
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although I might eventually do
a whole philosophy playlist,
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but I want to be very careful
not to offend anyone's
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sensibilities, because
that truly, truly,
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truly is not my intention.
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But the whole point I want to
make is that, look, if you
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believe in a God, and I won't
take sides on that argument in
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this video right here, it's to
some degree, I would say,
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almost disparaging of an
all-powerful being to say that
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this human eye, it kind of gives
too much importance to
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us as individuals.
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I always think that religion--
and actually science.
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Or actually everything.
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I mean, we should be humble in
our lives, and there should be
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the realization that we, as
humans, really-- this isn't
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perfection, and to imply that
this is the best that a
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perfect entity or an
all-powerful entity could
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produce I think is a little
actually disparaging of it.
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I'll give you another example.
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I give you another example, and
I'll put my engineering
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hat on here.
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And once again, I want
to be very clear.
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My goal isn't in this video to
say, oh, you know, look, hey,
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evolution, random processes,
that by itself, there is no
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God, and you just have
to live with it.
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No, that's not my point.
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I'm actually making the opposite
argument, that a
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belief in God would not point
to a God who-- a belief in a
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universal, all-powerful God
would not point to a God who
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designs the particular, who
designs each particular.
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And even more, the imperfections
that we see
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around us would-- and especially
because we see
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variation and they're being
selected for it.
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I mean, we can't just
focus on the eye.
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We would have to focus on
viruses and cancers, and it
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would have to speak to a God
that is designing one off
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every version of every sequence
of DNA that we see,
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because if someone talks about
designing an eye, we know that
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the eye is the byproduct of DNA,
and we know the DNA is a
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sequence of base pairs, you
know, ATG, C, A, and, you
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know, billions and
billions of them.
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And so when we talk about
design, we would be talking
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literally about designing
the sequence.
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And we even know that a lot of
the sequence, there's some
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noise in there.
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We know that a lot of it comes
from primitive viruses deep in
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our past.
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So the argument I'm making here
is that in order to give
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credit to the all powerful, at
least to my mind, a system
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that comes from very simple and
elegant basic ideas like
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natural selection and
variations, that in our DNA,
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we call those mutations, in
the laws of physics and
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chemistry, and those, from that
simple and elegant basic
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ideas, for complexity
to emerge.
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So this is one idea and this
is what really evolution
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speaks to, that, look, our
universe is this profound
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world, this profound
environment, where from these
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very basic, simple, beautiful
ideas, we have this complexity
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in the structure that is truly,
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truly, truly awe inspiring.
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This is, in my mind, what
evolution speaks to.
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And in my mind, even as an
engineer, this speaks to a
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higher form of design.
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This speak to a more
profound design.
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So this whole video, the whole
argument, is that if one does
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believe in a God, and, you know,
I'm not going to take
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sides in that in this video,
and a God that speaks to
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beauty and elegance and is
infinitely powerful, then this
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idea of the laws of physics
and chemistry and natural
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selection, which is really-- I
mean, you know, when I talked
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about natural selection in the
last video, it was really-- I
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think you would find it was
a bit of common sense.
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That this is a very profound
design and it speaks to the
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art of the designer as opposed
to designing each of these
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entities one off.
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And what's even more profound
about the design
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is that it's adaptive.
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If there's environmental
stress, then the other
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variations survive
more frequently.
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And so it's never changing,
that perfection, that no
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instance can ever be pointed to
and say this is the highest
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point that this design
can reach.
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That is always-- I don't want
to say getting better.
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It's always getting more suited
to its environment as
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it changes, and that to
me is a better design.
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Now, just following
up on that, and I
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want to be very clear.
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This whole idea is to kind of
raise the standard of what we
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expect out of design.
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It's to kind of show other
points or other places in the
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scientific or mathematical world
where this does emerge.
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And the best example I see
of that is with fractals.
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A lot of you-all might have
seen-- this is the Mandelbrot
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set, a very famous
set of fractals.
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It's immensely complex.
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In fact, you can keep zooming
in on the Mandelbrot set at
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any point, and when you zoom it
out, it becomes infinitely
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complex, and you can explore
it indefinitely.
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But the beauty of it, the true
beauty of it, is all of this
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can be described by one
equation, one almost
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shockingly simple equation, and
that's this: The next z is
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equal to the z before
it squared plus 1.
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And you're like you know, Sal,
you started talking about
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intelligent design and evolution
and all of that.
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Why are you all of a sudden
breaking into fractals?
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And the point I'm trying to make
here is that if I had two
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designers and one set out to
go and paint this exact
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particular fractal and say,
oh, you know, I'm going to
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make this brown and I'm going
to make this blue and I'm
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going to make this a circle
with other circles, you'd
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think this is an amazing
painter.
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For example, if you were to go
to someone 300 years ago and
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you were to show them this, they
would say that this is
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the finest design that anyone
might have ever been able to
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devise, because it's so
infinitely complex.
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But now we know that this can
be completely described by
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this simple equation,
literally.
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For those of you are interested,
all they're doing,
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this is a complex plane, and
they're starting at zero--
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excuse me, not plus 1, plus c.
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Let me make that very clear.
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This is the equation plus c.
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So for every point on the
complex plane, you put that
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point in for c, and then you
start with zero, and you keep
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doing this.
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So you say zero squared plus
that number, that complex
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number, is equal to that.
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Then you put that in here, and
then you do that number
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squared plus that complex
number, and you do it again.
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You do it over and
over and over.
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So turns out that some numbers
don't go to infinity and those
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numbers are in black.
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They're considered part
of the Mandelbrot set.
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And then the numbers that do go
to infinity, as you iterate
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on this formula, you color it
based on how fast it goes to
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infinity, and it creates this
infinitely beautiful and
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complex pattern.
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Now, if you were to say what is
a more profound design, and
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you can ask any engineer this,
in my mind, this is the most
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profound design.
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Because it's simple and elegant,
but it describes
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something of infinite
complexity.
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It's not just focused on the
particular, it's focused on
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kind of the metalevel.
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It's focused on creating just
the idea of which this is just
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an example.
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So anyway, this is probably my
video where I steer most away
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from the science of it all and
maybe I focus a little bit
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more on the slightly
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metaphysical or the awe inspiring.
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But my whole point here is to
really throw out my little
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idea of how you can reconcile
these notions.
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That evolution, the randomness
of it, does not speak to a
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Godless universe, although
I'm not going to
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take sides on that.
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It speaks to a more profound
God, in my mind.
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So anyway, forgive me for taking
my liberties, and I
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want to make it very clear, I
don't want to offend anyone's
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sensibilities, but I really
just wanted to throw
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this idea out there.
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See you in the next video.
