Entropy-defying complex systems? Sounds like something Obama administration might find helpful.
Be that as it may, Ridley says that
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Living beings are eddies in the stream of entropy. That is to say, while the universe gradually becomes more homogeneous and disordered, little parts of it can reverse the trend and become briefly more ordered and complex by capturing packets of energy.
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“Little parts of it can reverse the trend”? Nonsense. Perhaps he missed the physics lesson on the 2lot. But then the typical neo-Darwinian’s understanding of entropy and 2lot generally seems to be superficial at best. Entropy, simply, inexorably, increases.
Apparently Ridley feels that saying life is the result of bottom up emergence is somehow superior to saying it’s the result of top-down dirigisme, but neither sentiment is terribly explanatory or meaningful. We find ourselves in a finely tuned universe only b/c entropy, inexplicably, is as low as it is/was. The mystery is how entropy ever got to be so low in the first place, thereby making it possible for life to emerge . . . regardless of one’s sentiments regarding bottom up or top down notions.
Ridley also says that “On the internet Darwinian unordained order is now ubiquitous as never before,” but the reality is that the internet, perhaps somewhat similar to the domestication of plants and animals, is far more a product of order imposed by intelligent, sentient beings, albeit, admittedly, not necessarily beings in conscious accord.