What they say. . .

The advent of sophisticated computer-aided mathematics in the 1950s was an unexpected boon for evolutionary theory, giving rise to what is known as complexity science. Complexity science made it possible to find patterns in the complex, dynamic interactions within systems. Biologists found that this new mathematics let them approximate the actual complexity of nature—something that Neo-Darwinist models have been hard-pressed to do. Everything, say these Complexity Theorists, co-evolves. And by studying whole systems, they discovered something truly astounding: when a particular kind of dynamic system moves toward chaos and disequilibrium, at some point it spontaneously shifts into a more complex and integrated structure. Through this process of “self-organization” or “emergence,” something arises that is more than the sum of its parts and functions with greater autonomy. New potentials come into existence: agitated particles become atoms; stressed bacteria form cells; and this continues all the way up through cultural evolution and the formation of the global economy. Complexity science, they believe, might even have the answer to the biggest mystery of evolution—how something can emerge from nothing and then create everything. How this happens is far from clear, but that it happens is now indisputable.

What it means. . .

The discovery of the emergent properties of matter has excited the best minds in every scientific field. Despite fierce disagreements, they all concur that, as physicist Paul Davies writes, “Science is in principle able to explain the existence of complexity and organization at all levels, including human consciousness.”

Yet the capacity of the cosmos to everlastingly produce intricate beauty and order out of chaos does elicit almost a religious awe in these tough-minded scientists. Some even seem to adopt pantheism, which posits that the constant miracle of the natural world is “God.” Most, however, deny that there is anything actually mystical going on. Theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman, for one, emphatically states that it is “utterly nonmysterious.” But Kauffman and others hold the process in such esteem that they look to evolution rather than to a transcendent God as the new source of ethical principles to guide human behavior.

“Self-organization may be the precondition of evolvability itself. Only those systems that are able to organize themselves spontaneously may be able to evolve further. How far we have come from a simple picture of [natural] selection sifting for fitter variants. Evolution is far more subtle and wonderful.”

Stuart Kauffman