"Autopoiesis provides a compelling case for intelligent design in three stages:
(i) autopoiesis is universal in all living things, which makes it a pre-requisite for life, not an end product of natural selection;
(ii) the inversely-causal, information-driven, structured hierarchy of autopoiesis is not reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry; and
(iii) there is an unbridgeable abyss between the dirty, mass-action chemistry of the natural environmental and the perfectly-pure, single-molecule precision of biochemistry.
Professor Michael Polanyi FRS, in his 1968 article in Science called ‘Life’s Irreducible Structure.’ Polanyi argued that living organisms have a machine-like structure that cannot be explained by (or reduced to) the physics and chemistry of the molecules of which they consist.
The snowflakes illustrate reducible structure.
Meteorologists have recognized about eighty different basic snowflake shapes, and subtle variations on these themes add to the mix to produce a virtually infinite variety of actual shapes. Yet they all
arise from just one kind of molecule—water. How is this possible?
When water freezes, its crystals take the form of a hexagonal prism. Crystals then grow by joining prism to prism. The elaborate branching patterns of snowflakes arise from the statistical fact that a molecule of water vapor in the air is most likely to join up to its nearest surface. Any protruding bump will thus tend to grow more quickly than the surrounding crystal area because it will be the nearest surface to the most vapor molecules. There are six ‘bumps’ (corners) on a hexagonal prism, so growth will occur most rapidly from these, producing the observed six-armed pattern.
Snowflakes have a reducible structure because you can produce them with a little bit of vapor or with a lot. They can be large or small. Any one water molecule is as good as any other water molecule in forming them.
To now understand irreducible structure, consider a silver coin.
The crystal structure of solid silver consists of closely packed cubes. The main body of the native silver nugget has the familiar luster of the pure metal, and it has taken on a shape that reflects the available space when it was precipitated from groundwater solution. The black encrustations are very fine crystals of silver that continued to grow when the rate of deposition diminished after the main
load of silver had been deposited out of solution.
Unlike the case of the beautifully structured snowflakes, there is no natural process here that could turn the closely packed cubes of solid silver into round, flat discs with images of men, animals and writing on them. Adding more or less silver cannot produce the roundness, flatness and image-bearing properties of the coins, and looking for special environmental conditions would be futile because we recognize that the patterns are man-made. The coin structure is therefore irreducible to the physics and chemistry of silver.
Polanyi pointed to the machine-like structures that exist in living organisms. ..three examples of common machine components:
a lever,
a cogwheel
and a coiled spring.
Just as the structure and function of these common machine components cannot be explained in terms of the metal they are made of, so the structure and function of the parallel components in life cannot be reduced to the properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and trace elements that they are made of. There are endless examples of such irreducible structures in living systems, but they all work under a unifying principle called ‘autopoiesis’.
Autopoiesis literally means ‘self-making’ (from the Greek auto for self, and the verb poiéō meaning ‘I make’ or ‘I do’) and it refers to the unique ability of a living organism to continually repair and maintain itself—ultimately to the point of reproducing itself—using energy and raw materials from its environment. In contrast, an allopoietic system (from the Greek allo for other) such as a car factory, uses energy and raw materials to produce an organized structure (a car) which is something other than itself (a factory).
Autopoiesis is a unique and amazing property of life—there is nothing else like it in the known universe. It is made up of a hierarchy of irreducibly structured levels. These include:
(i) components with perfectly pure composition,
(ii) components with highly specific structure,
(iii) components that are functionally integrated,
(iv) comprehensively regulated information-driven processes, and
(v) inversely-causal meta-informational strategies for individual and species survival (these terms will be explained shortly). Each level is built upon, but cannot be explained in terms of, the level below it. And between the base level (perfectly pure composition) and the natural environment, there is an unbridgeable abyss.
Most origin-of-life researchers agree (at least in the more revealing parts of their writings) that there is no naturalistic experimental evidence directly demonstrating a pathway from non-life to life." CMI
(i) autopoiesis is universal in all living things, which makes it a pre-requisite for life, not an end product of natural selection;
(ii) the inversely-causal, information-driven, structured hierarchy of autopoiesis is not reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry; and
(iii) there is an unbridgeable abyss between the dirty, mass-action chemistry of the natural environmental and the perfectly-pure, single-molecule precision of biochemistry.
Professor Michael Polanyi FRS, in his 1968 article in Science called ‘Life’s Irreducible Structure.’ Polanyi argued that living organisms have a machine-like structure that cannot be explained by (or reduced to) the physics and chemistry of the molecules of which they consist.
The snowflakes illustrate reducible structure.
Meteorologists have recognized about eighty different basic snowflake shapes, and subtle variations on these themes add to the mix to produce a virtually infinite variety of actual shapes. Yet they all
When water freezes, its crystals take the form of a hexagonal prism. Crystals then grow by joining prism to prism. The elaborate branching patterns of snowflakes arise from the statistical fact that a molecule of water vapor in the air is most likely to join up to its nearest surface. Any protruding bump will thus tend to grow more quickly than the surrounding crystal area because it will be the nearest surface to the most vapor molecules. There are six ‘bumps’ (corners) on a hexagonal prism, so growth will occur most rapidly from these, producing the observed six-armed pattern.
Snowflakes have a reducible structure because you can produce them with a little bit of vapor or with a lot. They can be large or small. Any one water molecule is as good as any other water molecule in forming them.
To now understand irreducible structure, consider a silver coin.
The crystal structure of solid silver consists of closely packed cubes. The main body of the native silver nugget has the familiar luster of the pure metal, and it has taken on a shape that reflects the available space when it was precipitated from groundwater solution. The black encrustations are very fine crystals of silver that continued to grow when the rate of deposition diminished after the main
Unlike the case of the beautifully structured snowflakes, there is no natural process here that could turn the closely packed cubes of solid silver into round, flat discs with images of men, animals and writing on them. Adding more or less silver cannot produce the roundness, flatness and image-bearing properties of the coins, and looking for special environmental conditions would be futile because we recognize that the patterns are man-made. The coin structure is therefore irreducible to the physics and chemistry of silver.
Polanyi pointed to the machine-like structures that exist in living organisms. ..three examples of common machine components:
a lever,
a cogwheel
and a coiled spring.
Just as the structure and function of these common machine components cannot be explained in terms of the metal they are made of, so the structure and function of the parallel components in life cannot be reduced to the properties of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and trace elements that they are made of. There are endless examples of such irreducible structures in living systems, but they all work under a unifying principle called ‘autopoiesis’.
Autopoiesis literally means ‘self-making’ (from the Greek auto for self, and the verb poiéō meaning ‘I make’ or ‘I do’) and it refers to the unique ability of a living organism to continually repair and maintain itself—ultimately to the point of reproducing itself—using energy and raw materials from its environment. In contrast, an allopoietic system (from the Greek allo for other) such as a car factory, uses energy and raw materials to produce an organized structure (a car) which is something other than itself (a factory).
Autopoiesis is a unique and amazing property of life—there is nothing else like it in the known universe. It is made up of a hierarchy of irreducibly structured levels. These include:
(i) components with perfectly pure composition,
(ii) components with highly specific structure,
(iii) components that are functionally integrated,
(iv) comprehensively regulated information-driven processes, and
(v) inversely-causal meta-informational strategies for individual and species survival (these terms will be explained shortly). Each level is built upon, but cannot be explained in terms of, the level below it. And between the base level (perfectly pure composition) and the natural environment, there is an unbridgeable abyss.
Most origin-of-life researchers agree (at least in the more revealing parts of their writings) that there is no naturalistic experimental evidence directly demonstrating a pathway from non-life to life." CMI
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Psalm 139:14 NLT
