Letter: Let's not make a deity

From John Postgate

I am surprised that your correspondents let Stuart Kauffman off so lightly (7 June, p 22). Surely a glaring flaw in his article (10 May, p 52) was the ambiguity of “creativity”.

Creativity in both science and the humanities is a consequence of individual reflection on experiences and sensations, past and present, as well as on the future. Creativity is deliberate and has objectives, such as love, communication, enlightenment, pleasure or money-making.

Natural selection is a random, purposeless process, which has by chance generated a biosphere which, rightly, seems marvellous to us humans. Equally, the abiotic environment we see around us, and which we so rightly find awe-inspiring, is the fortuitous product of energy fluxes. Creativity has not played and does not play any part.

Kauffman ascribing “ceaseless creativity” or “lawless creativity” to such natural processes adds nothing but a touch of mysticism. It is like ascribing a principle of “aquosity” to explain the nature of water, to recycle the Victorian biologist T. H. Huxley’s put-down of vitalism.

Lewes, Sussex, UK