The brain is too complex to have evolved (Talk.Origins)

Response ArticleThis article (The brain is too complex to have evolved (Talk.Origins)) is a response to a rebuttal of a creationist claim published by Talk.Origins Archive under the title Index to Creationist Claims.

Index

Claim CB303:

The brain is too complex to have evolved.

Source:

• Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here? Brooklyn, NY, 168-178.
• Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 7.

CreationWiki response:

(Talk.Origins quotes in blue)

1. This is an argument from incredulity. Complexity only indicates that something is difficult to understand, not that it is difficult to evolve.

First of all, the brain is not just extremely complex but also extremely organized. Random complexity occurs from natural processes all the time but it is Organized complexity that Statistical Thermodynamics and Information theory show cannot happen by natural processes.

Evolution, unlike design, is not constrained by requirements for simplicity

Design has no such constraints. A designer is free to make his design needlessly complex if he wants, and that does occur at times. Furthermore, a design often has a minimum level of complexity necessary for it to perform the function for which it was designed.

Evolution, on the other hand, is constrained by Statistical Thermodynamics and Information theory, which show that Organized complexity cannot form by natural processes.

2. Brains come in many different sizes. The sea slug (Aplysia), for example, has only about 20,000 neurons in its entire nervous system. Coelenterates have an even simpler nervous system consisting of a nerve net and nothing even close to a brain. There are innumerable intermediate forms of brains between humans and brainless animals; gradual evolution of the brain presents no challenge.

The ability to have intermediate form is not at issue, rather the ability to produce the extreme level of Organized complexity that is found in the human brain. Statistical Thermodynamics and Information theory show that it cannot form by natural processes.

Talk Origins and other Evolutionists have the burden of proof to show that it can happen, and they have yet to provide any evidence that it can.