Electric Universe? Mea Culpa

Like most other non-physicists in the scientific community, I have always assumed that the evidence for the Big Bang, black holes, dark energy, and the like was rock-solid, and I even promoted this cosmology in one of my recent books. Alas! Now I am convinced that modern astrophysics is a pseudo-science with overtones of a religious dogma that fabricates stories to prop up its reigning deity and treats contradictory evidence as a heresy.

These are strong words, I know, but they are well supported in a mind-opening, paradigm shattering book called The Electric Sky by the emeritus electrical engineer (University of Massachusetts) cum astronomer, Donald E. Scott. Our mainstream view of the cosmos has been shaped by an interpretation of the red shift phenomenon that is demonstrably wrong, by a misplaced reliance on gravity as the primary shaping force in the universe, and by plugging up the serious deficiencies in this model with imaginary (unverifiable) theories about black holes, dark matter, dark energy, and other creations.

Meanwhile, compelling evidence that electric plasmas, electromagnetic forces, ubiquitous electric current “filaments” and related phenomena represent a vastly greater cosmic influence and account for 99% of the matter/energy in the universe has been rejected with thinly veiled hostility. Consider this simple household experiment: It takes only a small toy magnet to induce a gravity-defying leap by, say, a nail or a ball bearing. Electromagnetism is vastly more powerful than gravity, and it can be used in a plasma laboratory to simulate such cosmic phenomena as galaxies without recourse to mysterious, unseen shaping influences. We can see evidence of these cosmic plasmas in our own ionosphere and in the brilliant auroras that can light up the night sky. We can see them also in our solar corona and the misnamed “solar wind.” And we can see them shaping whole galaxies, like our Milky Way.

Nevertheless, modern astrophysicists are in denial and posit a plethora of ever more fanciful hypothetical entities – WIMPS, MACHOS, MOND, SIDM, SADM, FDM and so on – to mask the inherent deficiencies of a gravitation-only universe. Of course, a lot is at stake for the astrophysics cult. Emperors do not like to be unclothed. But more important, they are on the wrong side of a scientific revolution the like of which we have not seen since Copernicus and Galileo. It seems clear that the Big Bang never happened, that there are no black holes, dark energy, dark matter, MACHOS, or any other invisible and unverifiable mysteries. Moreover, it seems that our sun is not a gravity-driven thermonuclear reactor but a plasma pinch-driven generator. Even Einstein has been knocked off his pedestal. No wonder the astrophysicists “do not go gentle into that good night” (to borrow a famous line from poet Dylan Thomas). But don’t take my word for all this. Read Donald Scott’s book (including the open letter now signed by more than 400 scientists), or go online and visit the website of the distinguished electrical engineer Anthony Peratt (http://plasmauniverse.info) or read his book, Physics of the Plasma Universe.

As I said, Mea Culpa.

Thought for the Day: Scott characterizes mainstream cosmology with the acronym: Fabricated Ad hoc Inventions Repeatedly Invoked in Efforts to Defend Untenable Scientific Theories (FAIRIE DUST). It is also a classic case of what can be called mathematical mysticism, an affliction that can be traced back to one of the founders of Western science, Pythagoras of Samos and his Pythagorean Brotherhood. It involves a conviction that the mathematical properties that can be found in the natural world are the underlying reality; if it’s logically tight it must be true. However, the map is not the territory, to quote a famous iconoclast, Alfred Korzybski.

Complexity is Just a Word!

What is complexity, asks author-journalist George Johnson in the science section of The New York Times a few years back? Below the headline, "Researchers on Complexity Ponder What It's All About," Johnson reports that there is still no agreed-upon definition, much less a theoretically-rigorous formalization, despite the fact that complexity is currently a "hot" research topic. Many books and innumerable scholarly papers have been published on the subject in the past few years, and there is even a journal, Complexity, devoted to this nascent science. Johnson quotes Dan Stein, chairman of the physics department at the University of Arizona: "Everybody talks about it. [But] in the absence of a good definition, complexity is pretty much in the eye of the beholder."

This is not to say that the researchers in this area have not been trying to define it. In the 1970s, Gregory Chaitin and Alexei Kolmogorov (independently) pioneered a mathematical measuring-rod that Chaitin called "algorithmic complexity" -- that is, the length of the shortest "recipe" for the complete reproduction of a mathematical treatment. The problem with this definition, as Chaitin concedes, is that random sequences are invariably more complex because in each case the recipe is as long as the whole thing being specified; it cannot be "compressed".

More recently, Charles Bennett has focused on the concept of "logical depth" -- the computational requirements for converting a recipe into a finished product. Though useful, it seems to be limited to processes in which there is a logical structure of some sort. It would seem to exclude the "booming, buzzing confusion" of the real world, where the internal logic may be problematical or only partially knowable -- say the immense number of context-specific chaotic interactions that are responsible for producing global weather "patterns", or the imponderable forces that will determine the future course of the evolutionary process itself.

A number of researchers, especially some of those who are associated with the Santa Fe Institute, believe that the key lies in the so-called "phase transitions" between highly ordered and highly disordered physical systems. An often-cited analogy is water, whose complex physical properties lie between the highly ordered state of ice crystals and the highly disordered movements of steam molecules. While the "Santa Fe Paradigm" may be useful, it also sets strict limits on what can be termed "complex". For instance, it seems to exclude the extremes associated with highly ordered or strictly random phenomena, even though there can be more or less complex patterns of order and more or less complex forms of disorder -- degrees of complexity that are not associated with phase transitions. (Indeed, random phenomena seem to be excluded by fiat from some definitions of complexity.)

To confuse matters further, a distinction must be made between what could be labeled "objective complexity" -- the "embedded" properties of a physical phenomenon and "subjective complexity" -- its "meaning" to a human observer. As Timothy Perper has observed (on-line communication), the equation w = f(z) is structurally simple, but it might have a universe of meaning depending upon how its terms are defined. Indeed, information theory is notorious for its reliance on quantitative, statistical measures and its blindness to meaning -- where much can be made of very few words. The telephone directory for a large metropolitan area contains many more words than a Shakespeare play, but is it more complex? Furthermore, as Elisabet Sahtouris has pointed out (on-line communication), the degree of complexity that we might impute to a phenomenon can depend upon our frame of reference for viewing it. If we adopt a broad, "ecological" perspective we will see many more factors, and relationships, at work than if we adopt a "physiological" perspective. When Howard Bloom (on-line communication) quotes the line "To see the World in a Grain of Sand..." from William Blake's famous poem, "Auguries of Innocence", it reminds us that even a simple object can denote a vast pattern of relationships, if we choose to see it that way. Accordingly, subjective complexity is a highly variable property of the phenomenal world.

Perhaps we need to go back to the semantic drawing-board. Complexity is, after all, a word -- a verbal construct, a mental image. Like the words "electron" or "snow" or "blue" or "tree", complexity is a shorthand tool for thinking and communicating about various aspects of the phenomenal world. Some words may be very narrow in scope. (Presumably all electrons are alike in their basic properties, although their behavior can vary greatly.) However, many other words may hold a potful of meaning. We often use the word "snow" in conversation without taking the trouble to differentiate among the many different kinds of snow, as serious skiers (and Inuit Eskimos) routinely do. Similarly, the English word "blue" refers to a broad band of hues in the color spectrum, and we must drape the word with various qualifiers, from navy blue to royal blue to robin's egg blue (and many more), to denote the subtle differences among them. So it is also, I believe, with the word "complexity"; it is used in many different ways and encompasses a great variety of phenomena. (Indeed, it seems that many theorists, to suit their own purposes, prefer not to define complexity too precisely.)

The "utility" of any word, whether broad or narrow in scope, is always a function of how much information it imparts to the user(s). Take the word "tree", for example. It tells you about certain fundamental properties that all trees have in common. But it does not tell you whether or not a given tree is deciduous, whether it is tall or short, or even whether it is living or dead. The same shortcoming applies also to the concept of "complexity". Although there may be some commonalities between a complex personality, a complex wine, a complex piece of music and a complex machine, the similarities are not obvious. Each is complex in a different way, and their complexities cannot be reduced to an all-purpose algorithm. Moreover, the differences among them are at least as important as any common properties.

What in fact does the word "complexity" connote. One of the leaders in the complexity field, Seth Lloyd of MIT, took the trouble to compile a list of some three dozen different ways in which the term is used in scientific discourse. Yet this exercise produced no blinding insight. When asked to define complexity, Lloyd told Johnson: "I can't define it for you, but I know it when I see it."

Rather than trying to define what complexity is, perhaps it would be more useful to identify the properties that are commonly associated with the term. I would suggest that complexity often (not always) implies the following attributes: (1) a complex phenomenon consists of many parts (or items, or units, or individuals); (2) there are many relationships/interactions among the parts; and (3) the parts produce combined effects (synergies) that are not easily predicted and may often be novel, unexpected, even surprising.

At the risk of inviting the wrath of the researchers in this field, I would argue that complexity per se is one of the less interesting properties of complex phenomena. The differences, and the unique combined properties (synergies) that arise in each case, are vastly more important than the commonalities. If someone does develop a grand, unifying definition-description of complexity, I predict that it will add very little to the tree of knowledge (pardon the pun). But that shouldn't deter us from trying; the very effort to do so will surely enrich our understanding.

Thought for the day: Complexity is a qualitative property that we apply to both apples and oranges -- to borrow a cliché. They are both fruits and grow on trees but also differ from each other in important ways. Despite the many fruitless attempts (pardon the pun) to develop a general definition for the term, perhaps its only universal trait is that it taxes the human mind.

What is Natural Selection?

The truth is there are a variety of definitions out there in the mountainous literature on evolution, and there is no consensus, even among biologists, about how Darwin’s central concept should be defined. One reason is that natural selection does not refer to a thing, or a discrete “mechanism.” It’s really a metaphor – what I call an “umbrella category” – that directs our attention to a fundamental aspect of the history of life on Earth.

Given the misunderstandings that are evident in various writings about evolution, it’s worth re-stating Darwin’s basic idea. In a nutshell, he posited that the history of life on Earth has involved a very long, trans-generational process characterized by both continuities and “progressive” (and sometimes regressive) functional developments over time. Moreover, both the continuities and the changes that have occurred in the course of evolution have been the ultimate result of a causal dynamic that is internal to the process itself. It was not imposed from outside.

In essence, this causal dynamic is a process in which the outcomes (in terms of survival and reproduction) in each generation of living organisms are determined in situ by the functional relationships and interactions that occur between organisms and their specific environments. Both the organism and its environment are important players in this dynamic, and it is absolutely wrong to say that inanimate environments do any “selecting”. Even as a metaphor, this is misleading. Likewise, it is onerous to say that something is “selected for.” It implies premeditation.

Darwin characterized this dynamic as “natural selection,” but he well understood (despite his sometimes flagrant rhetoric) that natural selection is not a concrete mechanism, and it does not actually do anything. In fact, it was based on an analogy with artificial selection by animal breeders. Nor did he claim that natural selection was the exclusive agency of evolutionary change; he was well aware of the complexities.

A crucial point about Darwin’s theory, which is often overlooked by his critics, is that it rests on the fundamental assumption that life is a contingent and often precarious process (a “struggle for existence” as Darwin put it) and that “earning a living” (and reproducing) in the “economy of nature” is the basic vocation for all life forms. In other words, in evolution there is no free lunch.

Given this premise, and given the well-documented fact that living systems can vary greatly in their functional capabilities – their ability to earn a living in a given environment – it follows that there will be differential success in surviving and reproducing. So natural selection refers to the survival/reproduction outcomes in each generation, including both the continuities and the changes -- the weeding in as well as the weeding out. (I’m partial to biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky’s distinction between “normalizing” or stabilizing selection, positive selection, and negative selection.) Darwin also adopted the Malthusian assumption of relentless population growth, which greatly intensifies competition for the means of subsistence, but this assumption is not essential to the theory and is not always the case in nature.

So why is there no “standard definition” of natural selection. In part, no doubt, the very subtlety of the idea challenges our efforts to provide a simple one-sentence definition. But partly too, I suspect the differences reflect varying degrees of bias among those who are strongly pro-natural selection and those who would wish to minimize or even reject Darwin’s theory. The pro-Darwinians often speak about natural selection as if it were an active, even omnipotent selecting agency. Thus, paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson asserted that "The mechanism of adaptation is natural selection....[It] usually operates in favor of maintained or increased adaptation to a given way of life." Similarly, biologist Ernst Mayr informed us that "Natural selection does its best to favor the production of programs guaranteeing behavior that increases fitness." And, in his discipline-defining volume Sociobiology, Edward O. Wilson assured us that "natural selection is the agent that molds virtually all of the characters of species."

On the other side of the fence are anti-Darwinian theorists like biologist Robert Reid, in his book Biological Emergences, who claims that natural selection is “irrelevant” to the explanation of complexity in the natural world. Evolution is an internally-driven, “emergent” process, he tells us, and natural selection is mostly “obstructionist”. At best it may play a minor, “fine-tuning” and “stabilizing” role by “weeding out” unfit variants. Likewise, biologist Lynn Margulis and her son and co-author, Dorion Sagan, while not hostile to natural selection, nevertheless downplay its role in making their case for “symbiogenesis” as a creative agency in evolution. In their book, Acquiring Genomes, they speak of natural selection as “a strictly subtractive process.”

In other words, some theorists see natural selection as the “creator” while others see it as the “executioner”. It’s analogous to a situation in which two critics, viewing an old-fashioned black and white photograph, get into an argument about the role of the negative. One critic asserts that, since the paper used for the print is white to begin with, only the black portions can be attributed to the influence of the negative. On the contrary, the other critic argues, the negative is only responsible for the white portion of the print, since that is where the negative acted to block the developer light from passing through to darken the print. In fact, the negative controls both the light and dark portions of the print by virtue of its ability either to block the light or allow it to pass through. And so it is also with natural selection. To repeat, natural selection both weeds in and weeds out evolutionary novelties, and gives a pass to prior developments that still work.

This formulation can be illustrated with a textbook example of evolutionary change -- "industrial melanism." Until the Industrial Revolution, a "cryptic" (light-colored) species of the peppered moth (Biston betularia) predominated in the English countryside over a darker "melanic" form (Biston carbonaria). The wing coloration of B. betularia provided camouflage from avian predators as the moths rested on the trunks of lichen-encrusted trees, an advantage that was not shared by the darker form. But as soot blackened the tree trunks in areas near growing industrial cities, in due course the relative frequency of the two forms was reversed; the birds began to prey more heavily on the now more visible cryptic species and overlooked the darker form.

The question is, where in this example was natural selection "located?" The short answer is that natural selection encompasses the entire configuration of factors that combined to influence differential survival and reproduction. In this case, an alteration in the relationship between the coloration of the trees and the wing pigmentation of the moths, as a consequence of industrial pollution, was an important proximate factor. But this factor was important only because of the inflexible resting behavior of the moths and the feeding habits and perceptual abilities of the birds. Had the moths been subject only to insect-eating bats that use "sonar" rather than a visual detection system to catch insects on the wing, the change in background coloration would not have been significant. Nor would it have been significant had there not been genetically based patterns of wing coloration in the two forms that were available for "selection" in the two forms. (Later studies concerning the additional influence of air pollution can be left out of the discussion for our purpose.)

Accordingly, one cannot properly speak of "mechanisms" or fix on a particular "selection pressure" in explaining the causes of evolutionary change via natural selection. One must focus on the interactions that occur within an organism and between the organism and its environment(s), inclusive of other organisms; natural selection is about adaptively significant changes in organism-environment relationships. But this begs the question: What factors are responsible for bringing about changes in organism-environment relationships? The answer, of course, is many things. It could be a functionally-significant mutation, a chromosomal transposition, a change in the physical environment, a change in one species that affects another species, or it could be a change in behavior that results in a new organism-environment relationship. In fact, a whole sequence of changes may ripple through a complex pattern of relationships. For instance, a climate change might alter the ecology, which might induce a behavioral shift to a new habitat, which might encourage an alteration in nutritional habits, which might precipitate changes in the interactions among different species, resulting ultimately in the differential survival and reproduction of alternative morphological characters and the genes that support them. (An excellent illustration of this causal dynamic can be found in the long-running research program in the Galápagos Islands among "Darwin's finches" by the husband and wife team, Peter and Rosemary Grant.)

The bottom line is this: It is the functional effects or consequences of various organism-environment pattern-changes, insofar as they may impact on differential survival, that constitute the "causes" of natural selection. Another way of putting it is that causation in evolution also runs backwards from our conventional view of things; in evolution, functional effects are also causes. It is an iterative process. To use Ernst Mayr's (1965) well-known distinction, it is the "proximate" functional effects which result from any change in the organism-environment relationship that are the causes of the "ultimate" (transgenerational) selective changes in the genotype, and the gene pool of a species.

Thought for the Day: “When the words are confused, the mind is also” -- Seneca