Examples of Order that do not require intelligence...

[rocketdodger]

Some nut is spamming the religion and philosophy subsection with nonsense along the lines of "there are no examples of order that do not require intelligence in nature."

Please contribute to this thread if you can think of anything.

As a start, here are some good examples:

Sand dunes -- created by wind and sand.

Ripples in the sand at a beach -- created by waves.

Perfect spheres -- created by attractive forces between liquid molecules in zero gravity.

Crystals -- due to the mathematical structure of many compounds, including many pure elements.

[DrBaltar]

The mandelbrot set
http://www.linesandcolors.com/images/2006-06/mandelbrot_450.jpg

And evolution ;)

[Furious Coder]

Density sorting in fluid streams. As rivers speed up or slow down with seasonal changes, they drop different sized debris in orderly, sorted patterns.

The rings of Saturn (or any planetary rings for that matter). Nice, neat orderly near-circles that are very stable and require zero interaction other than the force of gravity and their initial velocity. Rings certainly don't require any intelligence.

Half-Lives. One could argue that it's pretty orderly that half the radioactive material of an element will decay within a known period, and then half what remains after that in the same period, but it's pretty orderly and non-intelligent, unless someone wants to make the claim that the radioactive atoms are communicating and taking numbers.

[blutoski]

Some nut is spamming the religion and philosophy subsection with nonsense along the lines of "there are no examples of order that do not require intelligence in nature."

Please contribute to this thread if you can think of anything.

As a start, here are some good examples:

Sand dunes -- created by wind and sand.

Ripples in the sand at a beach -- created by waves.

Perfect spheres -- created by attractive forces between liquid molecules in zero gravity.

Crystals -- due to the mathematical structure of many compounds, including many pure elements.

I always rewind this argument a bit and ask why the IDer cares about 'order' since it's not a scientific concept.

How does he measure 'order'? ie: what prevents him from rejecting all your arguments as 'not examples of order' by fiat? He could, for example, be defining order as things made by intelligence. Don't fall into a Begging The Question or No True Scotsman situation.

Order is a human concept, like beauty or grooviness, and people define it somewhat arbitrarily.

Gould covers this in a couple of his books. Or, more specifically, he covers the misunderstood relationship between thermodynamic entropy (which is a scientific concept) and the human concept of disorder.

[patnray]

Snowflakes.

The way Jupiter cleared the solar system of debris after the planets formed.

Hurricanes.

Rainbows.

[DrBaltar]

I always rewind this argument a bit and ask why the IDer cares about 'order' since it's not a scientific concept.Entropy is analogous to a measure of order.

[Ashles]

I love the way vibration can create really unexpected patterns in liquid.

Where I used to work we had disposable styrofoam coffee cups that, when dragged along the table at the right speed, produced static waves in the coffee that could be really incredibly high and stable.

I forget what work I was supposed to be doing at the time.

Also, doesn't boiling water usually form that 6 point boiling pattern at the exact right moment?

And I think the way solar systems maintain stable orbits for billions of years seems fairly ordered.

What do we mean by order anyway - forming patterns that appear regular to us?
Would magnetic polarity count?
Saturn's rings?
The double slit experiment?

[portlandatheist]

Fibonacci's sequence's observed in nature:
Living: pinapples, trees, ferns, deer antlers, etc.
non living: river deltas, lightning

[INRM]

What is the mandlebrot set

[Macoy]

What is the mandlebrot set

Something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set

Anyway, what about the intelligence behind disorder? The wiring behind my desk alters its tangles without my intervention. Who's behind that?

[blutoski]

Entropy is analogous to a measure of order.

Not really. At least, not in the way IDers use it (they often correlate order with complexity, which is another human concept). Also: it's analogous to a measure of disorder. A perfect crystal at zero degrees kelvin is alleged to have an entropy value of 0. Entropy increases when ice melts, for example. The molecules are leaving the lattice and going in random directions.

Two bacteria have twice the entropy of one bacteria. Are two bacteria twice as disordered as one bacteria?

Consider: in biological organisms, as they get larger, they have more entropy because they have more molecules moving around in them. A human has a trillion times the entropy of a bacterium. If you use entropy as a measure of disorder, then scientifically, a human appears to be a trillion times less ordered than a bacterium. Nevertheless, IDers would argue that a human is more ordered than a bacterium, which is the opposite of what the measurement of entropy implies.

It's not a good analogue except in a few mundane examples. When you actually calculate good estimates of entropy in real objects, it becomes clear that what humans call 'order' only appears superficially related to the scientific concept of entropy.

[Big Les]

Chladni (http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~nonlin/chladni.html) vibration patterns are quite amazing examples of order - apply a certain frequency to a metal plate and some sand on top of it, and the sand will "snap" into a certain geometric pattern.

[sol invictus]

Stars and planets are close to perfect spheres.

Oceans stay in their beds, rivers flow downhill. The seasons are regular. Night follows day follows night. The sun rises in the east. Rainbows. Spiral galaxies. Orbits. We always see the same face of the moon.

How many more examples do you need? The world is obviously a rational place - it's full of order because it obeys a relatively simple set of underlying rules.

[sthomson]

Magnetic field lines (or, more specifically, the pattern caused by iron filings falling on a magnet)

Benard convection cells (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9nard_cells). (I remember when I first learned of these in my fluid mechanics class - I spent half an hour with a glass pot on my stove watching the cells form and dissipate).

[Hokulele]

Brain coral (http://www.reefnews.com/reefnews/photos/corals/brain1.html)
Portuguese Man of War (http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/portuguese-man-of-war.html)

[Wowbagger]

If everything, ultimately, breaks down to physics, it would seem everything will ultimately have an order, of some sort, according to its physical properties.

I always thought the more interesting task was to list examples of replication, in nature, that are not (what we normally consider to be) living things. I started this thread over a year ago!:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=69697

[athon]

Mandelbrot patterns are the ones that come to my mind as well.

Pretty much any simple mathematical formula that creates incredibly complex-looking patterns could be used. I suspect it's why, compared with biologists, physicists and mathematicians are more likely to be atheists. They understand that you can start with a very simple interaction between a few bits of information and get some amazing patterns forming.

Athon

[Slimething]

honeycombs, crystals, buckeyballs (http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-2/text/rndmain1.html), atomic orbitals (esp. f (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.chem.tamu.edu/rgroup/hughbanks/courses/673/handouts/4f_orbitals.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.chem.tamu.edu/rgroup/hughbanks/courses/673/handouts/handouts.html&h=550&w=810&sz=69&tbnid=4Jx16x27TcbECM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=144&prev=/images%3Fq%3Df%2Borbitals%26um%3D1&start=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=1)), benzene

ETA: DNA

[tracer]

The economy (http://edge.org/3rd_culture/paulos05/paulos05_index.html).

[BenBurch]

When I make a bowl of "Easy Mac" the macaronis all align sometimes in a most organic-looking fashion. Mechanical self-sorting

[Terry]

Also, doesn't boiling water usually form that 6 point boiling pattern at the exact right moment?

Benard cells

[MG1962]

Stars and planets are close to perfect spheres.



Gee I would debate that

[portlandatheist]

Fibonacci's sequence's observed in nature:
Living: pinapples, trees, ferns, deer antlers, etc.
non living: river deltas, lightning

On further research, river deltas don't qualify but lightning certainly does

[autumn1971]

In a rapidly flowing, and very turbulent stream of water (think of a river going over a bed of irregular rocks) there occasionally happen to be positions in which regular eddys of a predictable size happen. In this case, a nearly random bunch of molecules spontaneously, and without energy input, form a lower entropy system, i.e., one in which the position of a particle is suddenly predictable, at least for a short period of time.

[sol invictus]

Gee I would debate that

Why?

The earth is a sphere to well under a percent, the sun to about one part in a hundred thousand.

[UnrepentantSinner]

fijords or any coastline for that matter is a fractal

[Complexity]

The integers.

[B3LYP/CEP-31G(d)]

In abstract algebra, Symmetric groups (the elements are permutations) have the property that exactly half of the permutations are even and the other half odd.

[MG1962]

Why?

The earth is a sphere to well under a percent, the sun to about one part in a hundred thousand.

Agreed, but Saturn is close to 10% and Achenar is close to 50%

[logical muse]

Crop circles.




What?

[Kotatsu]

Soccer, perhaps? For very low values of "order", of course.

[MRC_Hans]

honeycombs, crystals, buckeyballs (http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-2/text/rndmain1.html), atomic orbitals (esp. f (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.chem.tamu.edu/rgroup/hughbanks/courses/673/handouts/4f_orbitals.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.chem.tamu.edu/rgroup/hughbanks/courses/673/handouts/handouts.html&h=550&w=810&sz=69&tbnid=4Jx16x27TcbECM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=144&prev=/images%3Fq%3Df%2Borbitals%26um%3D1&start=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=1)), benzene

ETA: DNA

Ahh, precisely! DNA, three rings.

I have been in discussions like this with creationists, and they seem somehow able to present this argument in a way that you tend to overlook the fact that it is circular.

Basically, it goes like this:

- We see no ordered things (language, code, or whatever they choose to call it) that are not the result of intelligent action.

- We can see that DNA (eye, whatever) is ordered/language/code.

- Therefore, DNA (whatever) is the result of intelligent action (=creation).

However, seen this way, it becomes obvious that premise #2 falsifies premise #1. Premise #1 is only true if we accept the conclusion a priori.

So the example of an order/language/code that does not have an intelligent origin is: DNA.

I have used this rebuttal against creationists, and those of them who can think (yes, they certainly exist) leave the debate so fast you can't see their backs for dust.

Hans

[Correa Neto]

I was about to say crystal lattices, but its already mentioned.

So, I dare say consciousness, our self. Yes, why not? There's no evidence that an "intelligence" is responsible for creating the human consciousness, or self. OK, it may not be exactly a good example of order, but...

Well, this may be more appropriate to the R&P subforum.

[technoextreme]

lightning
How is lightning ordered?

[PixyMisa]

Agreed, but Saturn is close to 10% and Achenar is close to 50%
Not to mention Mesklin.

[nimzov]

http://img337.imageshack.us/my.php?image=180345to0.jpg

nimzo

[UnrepentantSinner]

Soccer, perhaps? For very low values of "order", of course.
Damn, wish I'd thought of this joke before leaving work...

Internet posts by Creationists, assuming they are, while factually incorrect, grammatically correct and have proper spelling.

[KingMerv00]

How is lightning ordered?

It tends to hit lightning rods for one.