Entropy and the Distinction Between Operation and Origin

In the seventeenth century Isaac Newton figured out how the solar system worked. The same gravitational force that makes apples drop to the ground also steers the planets in their orbits about the sun. But the English physicist warned against over estimating the power of his new laws. Though the planets “persevere in their orbits by the mere laws of gravity,” Newton concluded, “yet they could by no means have at first derived the regular position of the orbits themselves from those laws.” Gravity alone can maintain an orbit about the sun, but not establish such an orbit. In the centuries since Newton evolutionists have constructed a solar system origin narrative replete with contingent events and all manner of natural law heroics.

There is much more to the history of solar system theorizing and its underlying metaphysics. For our current purposes, what is important about Newton’s warning is his distinction between nature’s operation and its origin. He could explain the former with his laws of gravity, but not the latter.

In the three hundred years since Newton, science has grappled with many more fantastic operations of nature. One that has commanded much attention in recent years is the protein folding problem. About fifty years ago it became apparent that proteins, consisting of hundreds of amino acids chained together, are champions of entropy. They routinely defeat nature’s tendency toward disorder as they find their correct three dimensional shape in a universe of failures.

In 1969 Cyrus Levinthal noted that since proteins fold in a fraction of a second, they cannot explore any significant portion of the universe of possible shapes. Somehow the protein knows how to go from the unfolded to correct folded state—two very different structures—in a short time. Levinthal concluded that the folding of proteins must be directed rather than random. But the speed and accuracy of the process seemed like a paradox.

Like Newton’s solar system problem, the operation of protein folding is a great story of science’s discovering nature’s complexity and fantastic operation. And as with the solar system, there is a distinction between the operation and the origin of proteins.

The operation of the protein is due to its amino acid sequence and its surrounding environment. The origin of the protein deals with how that rare amino acid sequence arose in the first place.

But recently physicist Ard Louis has said that the operations of proteins should give us confidence in their evolution. “If I look at something like the bacterial flagellum motor,” notes Louis, “one question is how has it evolved, another question is how does it self-assemble.”

True enough, but since we now better understand the self-assembly of these proteins, Louis has greater confidence they arose via strictly naturalistic causes (that is, that they evolved):

And so the fact that it took us quite awhile to understand these principles, makes me think that we could do the same over evolutionary time, over a much longer period of time. There’s no reason why, if we think about this long enough, we may not find the answer.

No reason? Why does Louis conclude there is no reason we may not find an evolutionary explanation for proteins and the machines they form? I can think of a reason straight off: What if proteins did not arise from strictly naturalistic causes? That could make it pretty difficult to find evolutionary solutions.

Louis concludes there is no reason we may not find a strictly naturalistic explanation for the origin of proteins because we find strictly naturalistic explanations for the operation of proteins.

But this makes no sense. Just because science succeeds on some problems doesn’t mean it will succeed on other problems. But it’s worse than this. For the particular success we are talking about—explanations for the operation of proteins—does not in the slightest suggest a solution for the origin of proteins.

In fact, what we are learning about the operation of proteins is that it so strongly hinges on the design of the protein. The incredible protein folding and other operations are pre programmed in the protein’s amino acid sequence. Understanding these principles does not suggest the protein evolved; rather, it suggests even more so how unlikely such an evolution would be.

What we have learned about the operation of the protein does not make evolution any more likely or probable. It does not point to a strictly naturalistic narrative because, after all such an approach worked for the operation of the protein. In fact, it was the very design of the protein that proved so crucial in understanding its operation.

A child does not understand how an automobile operates. When he eventually learns the automobile works according to natural law, that does not give him confidence that the origin of the automobile was also according to natural law. And yet this is Louis’ logic.

When I pointed this out here and here, evolutionists wrote to me defending Louis. One explained that Louis was merely pointing out that we ought not to think complex designs are impossible without intervention. The bacterial flagellum is complex, yet it self-assembles.

But such self-assembly is possible only because the constituent proteins have rare amino acid sequences. From where did those amino acid sequences come? The problem of operation of the flagellum points back to the problem of its origin.

This evolutionary argument that naturalistic operation implies naturalistic origin tramples on Newton’s distinction between the two. None of this is to say that the naturalistic origin of proteins is impossible. Perhaps evolution can create all of biology, but that is not what the science is telling us. And fallacious philosophical arguments don’t change that fact.