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Wednesday, November 19, 2008 12:00 AM

God enough

We should see the ceaseless creativity of nature as sacred, argues biologist Stuart Kauffman, despite what Richard Dawkins might say.

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  • Tuesday, November 18, 2008 08:56 PM

    @pacificwhim

    I tried to pay attention to what Kauffman was saying. I really did. The problem is that when you read closely into what he's saying, he isn't saying much of anything at all.

    Living systems obey mathematical laws? For those of us working in bioinformatics, the response to this is a resounding "duh." No one seriously disputes the idea, which Kauffman is advancing as something new and revolutionary, that complex molecular interactions lead to emergent behavior. But his leap from that to something he apparently defines as "God" -- which is, I have to note, very different from the way true believers define the word -- is in the realm of philosophy, and it is an act of shameful deception to use his credentials to present it as science.

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