Evidence for Design #1 - Complexity, irreducible and otherwise

[abu afak]

Irreducible complexity​

Irreducible complexity - RationalWiki

rationalwiki.org

​

“”So I'm going to give you a condensed version of an Intelligent Design creationist lecture. It'll be very entertaining: "Complexity, complexity, complexity complexity. Oh look, there's a pathway — it's very complicated. Complexity! Complexity, complexity complexity — complexity. And did you know that cells are really, really complicated? But we're not done — complexity! Complexity (complexity complexity). And you're gonna be blown away by the bacterial flagellum — it's like a little machine! And it's really, really complicated! Complexity-complexity complexity. Complexity. We need more cells, they're really complicated. You just get blown away by these things, they are just so amazingly complicated. Complexity. Therefore; design." You've heard it all now — that's the root of their argument.

—P.Z. Myers

Irreducible complexity is a concept popularized by noted Pseudoscientist Michael Behe in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box to support intelligent design. Intelligent design pushers argue that while some systems and organs can be explained by evolution, those that are irreducibly complex cannot, and therefore an intelligent designer must be responsible.[2] Irreducible complexity stems from the claim that some biological systems appear to be too complex to have arisen by natural selection. Specifically, it argues that if you take a part away from an organism and it stops functioning (analogous to taking the engine out of a car) then it must be irreducibly complex and cannot have evolved. It is one of the main arguments of the Intelligent Design movement. The concept is considered to be mostly bollocks when applied to evolution because it fails to take into account numerous other pathways that a particular ability can evolve through — it assumes that evolution must go through "additive" processes to achieve its conclusion and this isn't the case. Most evolutionary biologists do Not consider it science by any stretch of the imagination because the idea relies on personal incredulity and unwarranted assumptions.""" Have another nice page! `

 

[alang1216]

According to Darwinists evolution isn't random but happens for logical reasons.

That is a new one to me. There is no logic involved, only natural systems following natural laws.

 

[frigidweirdo]

The basic idea of complexity as an argument in favor of design, and against the random mutations required by Darwinism is that random processes do not create complex systems that work together.

Suppose you wrote a thousand basic English words on individual cards. Then you write the conjugations of all the verbs, all the pronoun forms, and say the top two hundred first names, on separate cards. So you would get maybe three thousand cards (a guess).

Randomly pull any two cards and line them up in the order you pulled them and a non-zero percent of the time, you will get a complete sentence that makes sense. "John works." "She smiles." "Cats fight." etc. Mainly you will get unusable sentence fragments "Purple tire," "Happy stripe," "brick bumper," etc.

Make it three cards and the percent of three card sequences that create a sentence will sharply drop. Four, five, six, and so on, the percent approaches zero very rapidly. You'll wear out your arm drawing cards waiting for a sentence to appear.

Darwin's theory consists of confidence that such random process improbabilities have occurred over and over, literally billions of times. It could have happened, sure. It's nearly impossible for one person to win the lotto twice, but some guy in Maryland did it recently.

But "could happen," is a far cry from "did happen," and an even further cry from "Of course it happened, and only a religious fanatic would even dare doubt that it happened FOR SURE!"

It is far more likely that the evolutionary process was guided by design.

Michael Behe wrote about "irreducible complexity," at the molecular level in living organisms. I feel that I can understand his argument, but I'm not sure if I could explain it, particularly to the members of this forum. So I'll quote him and you can judge for yourself.

I defined an irreducibly complex system as: a single system which is necessarily composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. (Behe 2001)

As an example of an irreducibly complex system from everyday life, I pointed to a mechanical mousetrap such as one finds in a hardware store. Typically such traps have a number of parts: a spring, wooden platform, hammer, and other pieces. If one removes a piece from the trap, it can’t catch mice.

Irreducibly complex systems seem very difficult to fit into a Darwinian framework, for a reason insisted upon by Darwin himself. In the Origin Darwin wrote that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

The question then becomes, are there any irreducibly complex systems in the cell? Are there any irreducibly complex molecular machines? Yes, there are many. In Darwin’s Black Box I discussed several biochemical systems as examples of irreducible complexity: the eukaryotic cilium; the intracellular transport system; and more. Here I will just briefly describe the bacterial flagellum (DeRosier 1998; Shapiro 1995), since its structure makes the difficulty for Darwinian evolution easy to see. (Figure 19.1) The flagellum can be thought of as an outboard motor that bacteria use to swim. It was the first truly rotary structure discovered in nature. It consists of a long filamentous tail that acts as a propeller; when it is spun it pushes against the liquid medium and can propel the bacterium forward. The propeller is attached to the drive shaft indirectly through something called the hook region, which acts as a universal joint. The drive shaft is attached to the motor, which uses a flow of acid or sodium ions from the outside of the cell to the inside to power rotation. Just as an outboard motor has to be kept stationary on a motorboat while the propeller turns, there are proteins which act as a stator structure to keep the flagellum in place. Other proteins act as bushings to permit the drive shaft to pass through the bacterial membrane. Studies have shown that 30-40 proteins are required to produce a functioning flagellum in the cell. About half of the proteins are components of the finished structure, while the others are necessary for the construction of the flagellum.

View attachment 597891

https://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/Faculty/Behe/PDF/Behe_chapter.pdf

So, if you need a God to create something complex, then who created God?

 

[ding]

That is a new one to me. There is no logic involved, only natural systems following natural laws.

logical REASONS

 

[Woodznutz]

Irreducible complexity​

Irreducible complexity - RationalWiki

rationalwiki.org

​

“”So I'm going to give you a condensed version of an Intelligent Design creationist lecture. It'll be very entertaining: "Complexity, complexity, complexity complexity. Oh look, there's a pathway — it's very complicated. Complexity! Complexity, complexity complexity — complexity. And did you know that cells are really, really complicated? But we're not done — complexity! Complexity (complexity complexity). And you're gonna be blown away by the bacterial flagellum — it's like a little machine! And it's really, really complicated! Complexity-complexity complexity. Complexity. We need more cells, they're really complicated. You just get blown away by these things, they are just so amazingly complicated. Complexity. Therefore; design." You've heard it all now — that's the root of their argument.

—P.Z. Myers

Irreducible complexity is a concept popularized by noted Pseudoscientist Michael Behe in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box to support intelligent design. Intelligent design pushers argue that while some systems and organs can be explained by evolution, those that are irreducibly complex cannot, and therefore an intelligent designer must be responsible.[2] Irreducible complexity stems from the claim that some biological systems appear to be too complex to have arisen by natural selection. Specifically, it argues that if you take a part away from an organism and it stops functioning (analogous to taking the engine out of a car) then it must be irreducibly complex and cannot have evolved. It is one of the main arguments of the Intelligent Design movement. The concept is considered to be mostly bollocks when applied to evolution because it fails to take into account numerous other pathways that a particular ability can evolve through — it assumes that evolution must go through "additive" processes to achieve its conclusion and this isn't the case. Most evolutionary biologists do Not consider it science by any stretch of the imagination because the idea relies on personal incredulity and unwarranted assumptions.""" Have another nice page! `

It's in the eye of the beholder. To an evolutionary scientist organisms appear to have evolved. To a creationist they appear to have been designed.

 

[Hollie]

It's in the eye of the beholder. To an evolutionary scientist organisms appear to have evolved. To a creationist they appear to have been designed.

That's not accurate. We know with certainty that biological organisms evolve. It's fine to reject that for religious reasons but that doesn't change the fact of biological evolution.

Can you identify what, specifically, appears to be the product of supernatural design?

What supernatural designer do you attribute as the designer of supernatural design?

 

[Woodznutz]

That's not accurate. We know with certainty that biological organisms evolve. It's fine to reject that for religious reasons but that doesn't change the fact of biological evolution.

Can you identify what, specifically, appears to be the product of supernatural design?

What supernatural designer do you attribute as the designer of supernatural design?

I rejected evolution long before I became religious. It never made sense to me, and it makes even less sense to me today.

Every material thing that exists reveals design, if not the outward appearance certainly the material it is made of.

The God of the Christian bible is the closest fit.

 

[Hollie]

I rejected evolution long before I became religious. It never made sense to me.

Every material thing that exists reveals design.

The God of the Christian bible is the closest fit.

I'm making a presumption that you were born and raised in the West which is why the Christian gods would be the culturally correct gods.

Other religions make the same claim about their gods being the designer gods. We seem to be on the horns of a dilemma such that geographic location decides the gods that people inherit.

I'm still not clear how every material thing that exists reveals design. Do floods, disease, tornadoes, etc. reveal design?

 

[Woodznutz]

I'm making a presumption that you were born and raised in the West which is why the Christian gods would be the culturally correct gods.

Other religions make the same claim about their gods being the designer gods. We seem to be on the horns of a dilemma such that geographic location decides the gods that people inherit.

I'm still not clear how every material thing that exists reveals design. Do floods, disease, tornadoes, etc. reveal design?

Reread post #47.

God as designer is pretty universal. However, most primitive's god's more closely resemble the biblical Satan than the biblical God in another form. One has a giant reptile whose writhing casts up the mountains. Biblically this would suggest the destruction wrought by the casting down of Lucifer. Lucifer/Satan is suggested in many of the 'gods' of primitive peoples.

 

[Seymour Flops]

So, if you need a God to create something complex, then who created God?

I don't know that it was a God, that's not my argument.

You have a point but only so far. No purely naturalistic theory explains how life began in the first place. Darwinian theory (neo Darwinism anyway) relies on DNA and RNA as a START point. But it is a big leap from non living Earth to DNA that can reproduce and evolve.

No naturalistic theory explain why there is a finite universe in the first place and why it is as it is.

So lack of an explanation for origin does not disqualify design theory unless you say that it also disqualifies Darwinian theory.

 

[abu afak]

No naturalistic theory explain why there is a finite universe in the first place and why it is as it is.

So lack of an explanation for origin does not disqualify design theory unless you say that it also disqualifies Darwinian theory.

1. Evolution does not deal with the Universe.

2. Lack of an origin for the universe or life has Nothing to do with Darwin.
Nor the reason other ignorants made up gods for what they didn't understand.
Turned out there WAS a natural explanation explanation for Fire., Lightning, etc and after 10,000 of such 'gogs'; have been flushed down the drain we (many of us) understand 'god of the Gaps' is/was never a good wat to explain anything, nor stop trying to find a Real explanation.

3. Evolution starts immediately after life does No matter how it started.

4. Evolution has Overwhelming EVIDENCE, design-designER/creation/god has None.

`

 

[Woodznutz]

Let's see who believes what concerning the subject.

40% of Americans Believe in Creationism

Four in 10 Americans have a creationist view of human origins, while 33% believe humans evolved with God's guidance and 22% without it.

news.gallup.com

 

[alang1216]

logical REASONS

Does the rain fall for 'logical REASONS'? If you say yes, I may take issue with your semantics but not your point.

 

[ding]

Does the rain fall for 'logical REASONS'? If you say yes, I may take issue with your semantics but not your point.

Absolutely. But getting back to evolution, logic is inherent in natural selection as natural selection is based upon functional advantage.

 

[alang1216]

Absolutely. But getting back to evolution, logic is inherent in natural selection as natural selection is based upon functional advantage.

I'm not sure I'd refer to any natural phenomena as 'logical'. Are there any illogical natural phenomena?

 

[Hollie]

Reread post #47.

God as designer is pretty universal. However, most primitive's god's more closely resemble the biblical Satan than the biblical God in another form. One has a giant reptile whose writhing casts up the mountains. Biblically this would suggest the destruction wrought by the casting down of Lucifer. Lucifer/Satan is suggested in many of the 'gods' of primitive peoples.

I’m not clear how your gods are universal. The triune gods of Christianity are clearly not the gods of Hinduism for example which is much older than Christianity.

The last "major" religion to be invented was islamism which is a syncretic faith. Most of its core ritual and god (as well as most of its theology) is stolen from the preceeding Abrahamic faiths and from Arab paganism. Christianity borrowed heavily from Judaism even including the OT.

 

[ding]

I'm not sure I'd refer to any natural phenomena as 'logical'. Are there any illogical natural phenomena?

None that I am aware of. Everything happens for a reason. We live in a logical universe where every effect had a cause.

Science is the study of nature to discover the order within nature so as to be able to make predictions of nature.

 

[Seymour Flops]

1. Evolution does not deal with the Universe.

Neither does design theory.

The End

. . .
`

 

[alang1216]

Everything happens for a reason. We live in a logical universe where every effect had a cause.

That is not 'logical' unless you can posit an illogical universe. Cause and effect is just natural laws at work.

 

[ding]

Cause and effect is just natural laws at work.

And the epitome of logic.