The sum of the parts is greater than the whole

"The sum of the value of parts is less than the value of a whole"

This is what systems scientists (or should I call them philosophers) would wants you to think. To give an analogy, what they're trying to say is that if we were to study a cat, should we take it apart, the first thing we're going to get is a dead cat. Surely this must means that a cat is more than all the parts of a cat added together? Well, before coming to any conclusions yet, lets take a better look at the cat.

A cat is basically an organism made up of billions upon billions of cells. Each cell being quite alive, each cell growing and reproducing, interacting and manufacturing, all these when zoomed out, creating what you see in cat. What systems scientist/philosophers will have you believe is that the cat is all these cells, and more. Together the cells does something that each individual cell can't do alone, they can make the cat see and breathe, allow it to eat or sleep, surely by looking at individual cells we can't work out these characteristics when we put them all together, then doesn't that means the cat is more than cells put together?

Well, what these people doesn't seem to realise is that in every single cell of the cat (except red blood cells), stores the entire set of a genetic library of what it means to be that particular cat in question. This library is found within the nucleus of the cell, in the sequence of DNA itself. The most amazing thing is that this library is ready to become an entirely new cat at any time. If we were to take the nucleus of any cell of the cat out, and implant it into an embryonic cell in the womb of a cat (could be the same one, if female), what we would get is an identical copy of the cat, and if we were to closely observe the stages of development of the cat, we can see specifically how the DNA cause the different features of the cat to appear. So if we were to look at a cat again, one cat is actually equivalent to a million, million potential copies of that same cat. Is the sum of the parts still less than the whole?

Of course some unbelievably stubborn philosophers will try to tell you that the cloned cat would never be the same as the real cat itself. At the very least its personality would be different, even if it isn't so, it would be impossible to have 2 cats with exactly the same arrangement of cells at the microscopic level. I would reply that if we were to specify the word 'parts', then it must also include the past of the cat. Where and when the cat have been in its life and the events that have taken placed during that time must be accounted for as parts of the cat. As for the second problem, I suspect that this is probably also the result that 'parts' has not been specified. DNA gives cells rules to follow, and not the exact location of where to place the next cell. As a result, if we really want to compare, we must also take into account that 'parts of the cat' includes all the different environmental factors that affects the development of the cat, from radiation in the surroundings, to the protein composition present in the mother's milk. (To keep all of them in control is almost impossible)

If we have to take everything that affects a cat into account, then surely the sum of the value of the parts of the cat is greater than the value of the whole, after all, it is quite conceivable for a different order of the influences to cause the cat to develop in an entirely different way. With the order of events fixed, then the possibility of other ways of development now becomes more limited. Therefore, the sum of the parts allows a wide range of possibilities, but the whole would drastically restrict that. Hence shouldn't it mean that the parts are of greater worth than the whole?

God, get out! Defence of pro-atheism

For too long moderates all over the world have held on to the position of NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria), what this means is that the world of Science cannot comment on the world of faith. This takes places after Darwin's evolutionary theory, which threw the world of faith into disarray. While these people may appear to be very friendly (almost like some mediator who steps into the conflict and tries to divide everything into half), do we really want to hold such a position? Do we really want to absolutely say that any statement based on faith, no matter how stupid/wrong/fanatical it seems, there is no way for Science to comment?

If someone was about to push a person off a building because he thinks that a god is keeping us to the floor, and that if he really prays hard enough then the god will stop that person from falling, do we want to say that we can in no way use our knowledge that gravity will pull people towards Earth, to save that guy? That the only possible way to save that person is only to have a stronger faith to counter the other guy's faith? Are you going to tell me that Science can in no way judge that the faithful person is not just wrong, but dead wrong? (Of course you can contrast this story to the one found in the bible where the devil tries to get Jesus to jump of the cliff and have god save him, maybe the lesson to be learnt is not so much as not to test god, but not to test gravity.)

No! Science should have a say in that, and faith must have none at all. By definition faith is something we believe that is not based on evidence, how does that in any ways apply to the real world? Without evidence how can we claim that our statement made based on faith are true and apply to the world we live in?

Now, most people see the problems that this causes (if you can't, you must be quite thick) and so changes NOMA such that Science gets the entire domain of the real world, leaving faith to before time exist, after death, morality and other subjective matters. Well, this division still seems a little to kind, giving Science access to only things that can be reasoned out from evidence, while faith takes everything else. Again we ask the question do we really want such a situation to exist? No doubt if Science starts approaching these areas, as psychology is doing, faith is expected to retreat. If this is the case, then why did we even give faith any concession at all in the first place? Why do we allow faith to explain everything wrong first, and only as Science catches up, then attempt to correct it?

So where do gods come in? Well...

"...imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for." - Douglas Adams

Gods are humanity's first attempt at understanding the world, and quite a bad one at it too. If humans did not live in a world where some complex things exist because we invented them, then there's no reason at all to suggested that anything else of complexity must be invented by some kind of very smart(-ass) guy, and all for the benefit of humans. Why? Because we are able to use the things around us so well. The trees can be used for wood, animals are food, rock and stones can be made into tools. Wow! Someone all-powerful must have put all these things here especially for me! It is a huge inferential step, and it always has been so, now only more obvious since evolution can explain that away.

Now some people tells us that we shouldn't get rid of gods since they allow us to die in peace knowing that there's an afterlife of reward, or that families need it for occasions such as funerals, and the priest locked up in the confession box makes a very good listener. However, maybe it just doesn't occur to them that what is consoling doesn't make it all the more true, and if that's the case, then what we should have done is investigate the causes of these consolations and reproduce them with greater effectiveness. In fact, I don't know which is worse, that people would endorse something fake just because it consoles them, or that they don't ever want to subject what they endorse to a test.

The most irritating thing about religion and NOMA is that these people says that there is no way to ever prove or disprove that there is a god. Well, maybe there isn't, except maybe if some giant guy float down from outer space and starts bringing the dead back to life. However just because there isn't any way to prove the existence of gods doesn't mean that the chances of it is exactly 50-50! If I were to tell you that there exist a dragon in my room that is invisible, able to pass through solid objects, and breathes fire at exactly the same temperature as the room, would you believe me and say that the chances of it existing is exactly 50-50? Or would you be inclined to believe that the dragon does not exist at all? Now, why are gods any different from my unobservable dragon? With the exception that they are believed based on faith by millions of people all over the world. But just because everyone believes in it doesn't make it any more true. We have found out long ago that the universe stopped revolving round us, it's time to apply the same standard to religion.

God, get out!

Help! My biology teacher's a Creationist

Well, technically she calls herself an "intelligent designist". Ah, but "to-mah-to"/"to-mae-to", what's the difference?

I don't really have to go through what's wrong with the creationist's picture even if they don't leave out god(s), do I? Oh come on, surely you have heard of the arguments? What you haven't? Which year have you been living in, don't you know the evidence that you came from a monkey? Oh, all right already, let me spell out what's wrong with creationism.

1. Evolution is the process of genetic mutation producing difference between species, and natural selection action as the judge to see who survives, those with good mutations have a higher tendency to survive, while the others die (duh!). So what happens is that populations pretty soon get filled up with the animals better adapted to survive in the environment.

- (Here comes the creationist big mouth) Creationism argues that random mutations can't give rise to new species just like that, some supernatural entity must help do so.
Answer: Wrong! Didn't you read what I wrote? I said natural selection chooses who live and who doesn't, of course mutations at random can't produce anything, but with selection, the better mutations become cumulative, and adds to the progress of the organism.

- Creationism argues that there is not enough time for living things to evolve.
Answer: Wrong again! Of course if those idiots think that the Earth was only 6000 years old, living things can't evolve, the point is that it isn't (geology points the other way with radioactive dating, and no radioactive decay doesn't change speed), the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. It took only about 50,000 years for Homo sapient (us) to evolve. And after you finished counting in thousands, don't forget you still have to deal with millions.

- Creationism argues that evolution can't be right because at some point, life will have to be created.
Answer: Evolution doesn't tell us anything about life being created, its just explains how humans and other complex living things can be formed from simpler things like bacteria (technically, we're still clumps of bacteria, but you do see the difference between us and them, right?) For a description of how life started, look up for abiogenesis, and don't disturb evolution.

- Creationism argues that there is no evidence of evolution in action
Answer: Well just because you didn't see them doesn't mean that those events didn't occur. Usually they require much patience to be observe, and a little luck. The most famous example is the butterflies during the industrial revolution turned black in colour due to the sootier environment (no, no one painted them, neither did the soot made them black), but after some environmental efforts, the air was cleared and they became mostly white again. However a more recent example is that of a butterfly being parasited by a bacteria, killing most of its male population, leaving the sex ratio 99 female: 1 male (lucky guys!), but suddenly a mutation occur, and the butterfly became immune to it. In just one year, the sex ratio returned to 50-50.

2. A conclusion of evolution is that we evolved from apes, that evolved from monkeys
- Creationism argues that if we evolve from them, why are they still there?
Answer: Wow, this is a no-brainer question. Simple, because we did not compete with the apes and monkey for survival, for example a group of monkeys might be isolated from one another, one group then evolving into apes.

3. Evolution is based on fossils dug up from up till 500 million years ago, dated by radioactive dating of many different radioactive isotopes, confirmed by plate tectonics, embryonic development (babies in mother's stomach start of just like fish with gills in first few weeks after fertilisation), DNA mapping, and possibly common sense.
- Creationism argues that it is more true as it has evidence from a book written about 2000 years ago
Answer: I don't think I need to say anything.

So what did I do? I asked the teacher to stop saying the word 'assume' when talking about the proofs of evolution, after all she doesn't give a better suggestion of a proof (scientists can all agree on what will it take to change their minds, and nothing tested so far have done so), surprisingly she agreed. Although she still doesn't think that humans came from monkeys.

However, what she doesn't realise is that evolution, though having gaps here and there in fossils (you can't really expect every animal to fossilise right? If just ever single person ever lived was fossilised, we would need a space larger than the thickness of the Earth's crust), gives the only workable solution for life, all other explanations have so far been empty of evidence and hence are not Science.