Intelligent Design

Fox News ran a piece this morning about a scientific discovery concerning the shapes of letters and symbols in all languages here. It is argued, in this report, that the shapes of letters and symbols in all languages appear to be derived from a common form in nature.

The idea came about as a result of a study of how robots see the world. Robots “employ object-recognition technology to navigate a room by recognizing contours. A corner is seen as a "Y," for example, and a wall is recognized by the L-shape it makes where it meets the floor.”

Mark Changizi, a theoretical neurobiologist at Caltech, and one of the scientists involved in this study, said that he did not think it a coincidence that the shapes of these letters, which the robots employ, look like the things they really are in nature. Changizi, and his colleagues, think that all languages throughout the ages use these common symbols which humans are good at seeing.

"Evolution has shaped our visual system to be good at seeing the structures we commonly encounter in nature, and culture has apparently selected our writing systems and visual signs to have these same shapes," Changizi said.

What is the point of this study? To show that “the figures we use in symbolic systems and writing systems seem to be selected because they are easy to see rather than easy to write," he concludes. "They're for the eye.”

Can a phenomenon like this be explained from a purely naturalistic worldview? I suppose it can, for intelligent people like Changizi think that it can. I think there is an issue of fundamental importance lying beneath the surface of this new discovery, however. It’s the issue of information, or code, or language. Why is it the case that this code or structure is common in all shapes of letters and symbols? Notice it is assumed that this is a result of evolution. Can evolution account for this rather uniform and highly complex system?

I suppose that the structure and uniformity of the shapes of letters and symbols is rather similar to the structure and uniformity of the DNA code. Thus, perhaps I can use a rather similar argument concerning this new study with one that I use for DNA. I think it is a rather widespread assumption that information cannot arise spontaneously. In order for information to arise it is necessary that there be an expenditure of energy, as well as an act of intelligence. Energy is what places the letters into the code, and intelligence is what directs the sequence. For instance, energy is required to write into the sand, but intelligence is needed to write “Help, we are stranded with no food or water and we are going to die!” (Or even something as simple as S.O.S. is just as complex). If we throw a bagful of letters in the air we wouldn’t expect the letters to land on the ground and be arranged into the sentence “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit”. The throwing of the letters into the air requires energy; the arranging of letters into an intelligible sequence requires intelligence.

I suppose, further, that we would think it rather absurd that anything other than intelligence could explain or account for an event like throwing a bag full of letters into the air and having them hit the ground arranged into a sentence like the one noted above. I even suppose we would think it absurd that anything other than intelligence could explain for the arrangement of the letters S.O.S. (the arrangement, as well as the ability to “see” or perceive and understand what these letters mean).

What if we gave the thrower of the bag of letters, or the writer in the sand, enough time, as well as random assortment of letters? I suppose that this is a rather difficult question to answer. How much time is needed? How would we be able to prove, still, that it was the result of something other than intelligence? How can we be sure that with the passing of time the code would become more complex so that it reached the point of perfect complexity (S.O.S. or “In a hole…”)?...and so many more questions.

If we wouldn’t assume that these two events are a result of anything other than an intelligent agent performing the act, then why would we assume that the complex and uniform code inherent in anything else (say DNA, or this new discovery concerning the structure of the shapes of letters and symbols) is something other than a result of an intelligent agent performing the act?

I suppose this is a good place to end the discussion. Thoughts?