Darwinian Complexity

I find the concept of evolution to be very fascinating and am completely enthralled by its finer aspects and I had assumed this was the common sentiment across humanity. Turns out that I was WRONG. Amazingly, there are still people who would choose to ignore all evidence and regard Darwinism as a "theory".. just a theory. I know that there are a million pseudo scientific texts and videos out there which try to show how Darwin was a nitwit and how utterly ridiculous it is that we, the great , omnipotent and omniscient humans could have anything to do with primates.. Good heavens!! The FACT that we have been able to map the human genome and prove that we indeed share genetic similarities with the great apes is just another trivial scientific trivia akin to we needing oxygen for survival and can be safely regarded as inconsequential and irrelevant.
Anyways, religious and moronic ideologies aside I do understand the reason why Darwin's theory so upsets many people and I shall try to draw some analogies between Darwinism and a ridiculous sorting algorithm. As usual, this analogy like myself.. will be perfect. ;-)

Now, the single most disturbing thing about Darwin's theory of evolution is that it points to a total lack of purpose to life. It is easy to see why this can be so disconcerting. If life is result of random mutations then it seems meaningless and without purpose and that's not what we would like to believe. The other major flaw that non believers point out is that some features that organisms posses is just too complicated to have evolved by chance. A common example that is pointed out is the one where if you find a rock on the ground then you will have no problems in believing that it is just a piece of rock brought about by random processes of compression and erosion. If however you now find a Swiss watch in the same place then would you assume that it was a naturally occurring phenomena? The point here being that the Swiss watch is so complicated that it points to a definite design and hence a designer.

As far as complexity goes, the non believers grossly underestimate the awesome power of randomness. Nature is infinitely more complicated than we can imagine and what looks like design is just a result of millions of years of selective breeding. The rules for selecting a specific mutation need not be complex at all but over time the complexity can build up and lead to fascinating results. The best example to see this is to see a demonstration of Mathematica and Dr. Wolframs cellular automaton . It goes on to show how a complex structure can be derived starting from a simple building block and by using a simple set of rules. The best part is that this process is not algorithmically compressible so there is no way to hasten the process. You get what you see and you see it only when you get it!! Also, its is not only nature that can induce complexity. For instance, Bulldogs were being selectively bred for their large head sizes and now we are at a point where they cannot be conceived naturally because of the excessive head sizes. Thus, Bulldogs now have become dependent on us for the survival of their species and this kind of dependency is a result of evolution and the biggest proof that the "designer" can be bypassed.

Coming to the question of purpose. That's a tough one from a philosophical standpoint but I can find some similarities between this question and a little known sorting algorithm called Bogosort. (Introduced to me by Adarsha or "Mircosoft Maga" as he is popularly known as)
Now Bogosort sounds ridiculous because it relies on a random reshuffling of a list hoping that the restructured list "just happens" to be the sorted one. If the list is finite then the number of iterations will remain bounded and thus there is a finite probability of getting to a sorted list. This is not practical however because there is no way of determining how long the sort will take. Moreover, with a pseudo random generator the sorted list may never result because the long term cyclic behaviour of such a generator prevents it from being truly random. Thus though this is a valid sorting algorithm, its randomness will make it seem purposeless UNTIL it actually results in the sorted list. Evolution is much the same, it is random and hence seems to be without a purpose but it is not so. It has an agenda and that agenda is the betterment of the species as a whole.

We can only hope that nature employs a true random event generator thus ensuring that there is a finite probability of reaching a conclusion i.e a ecosystem where everything is in harmony with everything else. If not then we are screwed as that would imply a long term cyclic behaviour. Going by history, Earth was ruled by reptiles and then somehow the mammals became dominant. So, if this is a cycle.. oh no.. sorry guys gotta go and apologize to the lizard who may have seen the underside of my chappals a bit too close for its liking..