Regulation - Complexity sidebar

[Slawbug]

Gah.

[Student of Trinity]

Looks like we are all responding to an irreducibility argument that Stillness did not intend to make, or that he once advanced but has now withdrawn. This irreducibility argument is that certain complex structures are so complex and interdependent that they cannot possibly be altered even microscopically without total failure.

 

I think it's too bad that this does not seem now to be Stillness's irreducibility argument, because this argument is the best one ID has. As far as I know it is the only ID argument that is valid, meaning that its conclusions really do follow from its premises. If there truly were any such structures, evolution could not explain them. But this argument is unsound, meaning that its premises are not true: in fact there do not exist any such structures. Very small and gradual alteration of even the most complicated interdependent system can easily change it, eventually dramatically, without any sudden loss of functionality.

 

Anyway, what I now understand Stillness to be saying is that he doesn't mean this microscopic irreducibility argument, but only something much more trivial. He identifies modular interdependency, which is how he now defines irreducible complexity, as one particular property observed in modern organisms, and which has not been directly observed to develop by evolution.

 

Of course there are zillions of other properties of which the same can be said. Having big wide ears is a property observed in modern elephants, and evolution of big wide ears has never been observed. Purely as a problem for evolution, modular interdependence is nothing special. Stillness does not seem to be claiming, now, that modular interdependence is any harder in principle to evolve than big wide ears, or long necks, or whatever. He is only claiming that, like those other properties, its evolution has not been directly observed.

 

The reason Stillness picks on this one particular property of modular interdependence seems to be just that, unlike long necks and big wide ears, it is a property of many designed objects. So he considers this to be not just a problem for evolution, but also an argument in favor of intelligent design.

 

Stillness, is this really what you are now trying to say when you write about irreducible complexity?

[Stillness]

A quote from Behe:

 

" In Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution I coined the term “irreducible complexity” in order to point out an apparent problem for the Darwinian evolution of some biochemical and cellular systems. In brief, an irreducibly complex system is one that needs several well-matched parts, all working together, to perform its function. The reason that such systems are headaches for Darwinism is that it is a gradualistic theory, wherein improvements can only be made step by tiny step, with no thought for their future utility. I argued that a number of biochemical systems, such as the blood clotting cascade, intracellular transport system, and bacterial flagellum are irreducibly complex and therefore recalcitrant to gradual construction, and so they fit poorly within a Darwinian framework. Instead I argued they are best explained as the products of deliberate intelligent design." [emphasis mine]

 

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:

Looks like we are all responding to an irreducibility argument that Stillness did not intend to make, or that he once advanced but has now withdrawn. This irreducibility argument is that certain complex structures are so complex and interdependent that they cannot possibly be altered even microscopically without total failure.

As I said before, I do believe it’s impossible for evolution to make these systems, but my argument is not “it’s impossible.” So if I said, “it can’t happen” that was not intended to be the strength of my position. Whether the system is microscopic (flagellum) or macroscopic (human vision) the problem is the same. There are no models that define it well and we don’t see it. This does not mean it didn’t happen, but simply saying matter-of-factly that it happened does not mean it did.

 

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Stillness does not seem to be claiming, now, that modular interdependence is any harder in principle to evolve than big wide ears, or long necks, or whatever. He is only claiming that, like those other properties, its evolution has not been directly observed.

Actually we have seen length and width of features like this evolve and see it all the time. So it’s not the same as having irreducible complex systems evolve. But you have hit on a problem that I have been identifying from the beginning regarding NDT/common descent. It deals with origins and is not operational science. It’s impossible to observe, there are no witnesses (at least none forthcoming), and we can’t reproduce it. As such it has to rely on analogy: We can select for long ears in dogs so nature can select for long ears in elephants. That makes sense. This is why it’s unsatisfactory to simply say “such and such happened.” You need to show how something analogous happened or have a very solid theoretical model. The bad thing about models though is that theoretical organism can do all sorts of magical things on paper that may pose difficulties in real life.

 

I’ll give you an example. Alo’s model states very simply, “Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye” and “only 364,000 years would have been needed for a camera-like eye to evolve from a light-sensitive patch.” The nautilus has an eye with no lens. Its cousin the squid does have a lens. The nautilus has a retina that would benefit from this “simple” change. It has supposedly been in existence for millions of years, so where is it’s lens (the very next step from the retina in alo's model) if this is such a simple process that only takes a few hundred thousand years? Might this process be a bit more complex than some of us think?

[Slawbug]

Quote:

Originally written by Stillness:
As I said before, I do believe it’s impossible for evolution to make these systems, but my argument is not “it’s impossible.” So if I said, “it can’t happen” that was not intended to be the strength of my position.

AHA!

Okay, now this makes sense. Correct me if I'm wrong Stillness, but basically, you keep track of what you believe separately from what you argue in the debate. That makes sense. It's very reasonable to say "I believe X and Y, but on the strength of evidence I can only argue Y."

The only problem is that you tend to mention your beliefs in the same breath as your argument, which makes it hard for others to distinguish between them.

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But you have hit on a problem that I have been identifying from the beginning regarding NDT/common descent. It deals with origins and is not operational science. It’s impossible to observe, there are no witnesses (at least none forthcoming), and we can’t reproduce it...

Putting aside several issues related to how evolution is being evaluated here, I really have to ask: how the heck does intelligent design seem more plausible or likely (as you have been arguing) under these criteria? When have we observed intelligent design of species? (Don't say we've observed humans designing things and that's analagous to ID, because we've also observed speciation analogous to common descent.) Where are the witnesses? How can we reproduce it?

[Stillness]

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Originally written by Yama:
The only problem is that you tend to mention your beliefs in the same breath as your argument, which makes it hard for others to distinguish between them.

If I keep insisting that something is my argument based on logic and observation, then that is a strong hint that it is my argument no matter how much others insist it's not. We're human, so in a discussion beliefs will creep in. The question is are these beliefs reasonable and based in reality or simply something we feel because it's what we've been told or it fits our world view better. It's the foundations that are the key. I believe common descent didnt happen not because I don't like it (which I don't). I believe it's a poor explanation compared to purposeful action because it doesn't seem to account well for a lot of things.

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how the heck does intelligent design seem more plausible or likely (as you have been arguing) under these criteria? When have we observed intelligent design of species? (Don't say we've observed humans designing things and that's analagous to ID, because we've also observed speciation analogous to common descent.) Where are the witnesses? How can we reproduce it?

Excellent! Who said we're not getting anywhere? They are the same. We need to figure which one fits better.

[Kelandon]

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Originally written by Stillness:
What do you think Alo, is this an explicit detailed description or does it gloss over details?

If you want a gene-by-gene chart, you're not going to get one. The science hasn't advanced that far yet. Your design glosses over far more details, though, such how the heck it happens and who's doing it and if it will ever happen again (and my favorite issue, which is, if efficiency was not the designer's top priority, what the heck was his top priority).

Also, you're about two pages behind right now (which is why I'm dragging up an issue from a page ago). Catch up to the objection that has been made with regard to interdependent parts.

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Originally written by Student of Trinity:
Yes, there are several large modules in the visual system, and abruptly removing any one of them makes it all useless. But this is absolutely not irreducibility in any sense relevant to evolution, because evolution is about changes far more gradual than anything as gross as abruptly removing an entire module.

Harping on about how removing nerves or lenses or retinas makes eyes fail, and calling that irreducible complexity, is sheer dodge. It has nothing to do with the actual issue at hand. I mean, congratulations: you've proven that eyes can't evolve by having modern lenses suddenly pop into modern eyes that were only missing lenses. If you can possibly find anyone who thinks eyes could develop that way, you can really set them straight. But if you imagined that scenario had anything to do with evolution, you were really out of touch.

To summarize: Interdependent parts do not make something irreducible by evolutionary standards. Evolution doesn't work by evolving one part and then another completely separately; it works by evolving both parts into primitive forms and then more complex forms.

Your objection (that you "have seen no detailed theory as to how such a thing could occur") isn't really adequate. You have to show, in order to prove your point, that any such model is a worse explanation than design.

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Originally written by Kelandon:
You're again making the leap from "We haven't seen it in our lifetimes" to "It didn't ever happen" (or at the very least "It probably didn't ever happen"). That leap is, as we have said over and over again, unjustified.

That is, we have every reason to believe that the complex evolutions that you're objecting to could happen in principle, since we see the baby steps of them all the time.

[Slawbug]

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Originally written by Stillness:

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how the heck does intelligent design seem more plausible or likely (as you have been arguing) under these criteria? When have we observed intelligent design of species? (Don't say we've observed humans designing things and that's analagous to ID, because we've also observed speciation analogous to common descent.) Where are the witnesses? How can we reproduce it?

Excellent! Who said we're not getting anywhere? They are the same. We need to figure which one fits better.

You cut off the first part of my first sentence! That's why it seems like we're getting somewhere! If you put that back in, it's pretty clear that I do not agree with a statement like "They are the same." But if you feel they are the same in terms of observable evidence, why have you been arguing that the evidence better supports ID?

[Stillness]

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Originally written by Kelandon:
Catch up to the objection that has been made with regard to interdependent parts.

I didn’t miss it, I just didn’t see anything that wasn’t addressed in the other posts. It sounds like your argument is semantic - you oppose the word “irreducible” in favor of “interdependent.” This is not like your “mistake” over “error” argument though, because I think there is a difference. I think that interdependent parts of a system can actually accomplish something without some of the parts. If that’s wrong then it doesn’t really matter to me which is used. Call it what you like. The problem is the same.

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Evolution doesn't work by evolving one part and then another completely separately; it works by evolving both parts into primitive forms and then more complex forms.
Your objection (that you "have seen no detailed theory as to how such a thing could occur") isn't really adequate. You have to show, in order to prove your point, that any such model is a worse explanation than design.[/QB]

It sounds like you’re pushing the problem back in time. What more primitive forms? This is exactly the problem. These descriptions are always vague. I mentioned earlier that the retina is probably some of the most complex tissue in the human body and afterward the model presented for vision says, “Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye.” I really appreciate at least something being presented. But by no stretch of the imagination does this explain much.

This model is not as good as design because right off the bat it doesn’t deal with the parts that actually make vision irreducible. It only deals with one part. And even that is vague. We all know that someone with substantial intelligence can put parts together to make a machine work. We don’t see nature doing it though. Concluding that because you see change nature can build these sorts of structures is like concluding that I can fly because you’ve seen me jump. (that may be a sorry analogy but I’ve gotta go and it was all I could think of, the point is that it’s not good logical progression)

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Originally written by Yama:
You cut off the first part of my first sentence! That's why it seems like we're getting somewhere! If you put that back in, it's pretty clear that I do not agree with a statement like "They are the same." But if you feel they are the same in terms of observable evidence, why have you been arguing that the evidence better supports ID?

I wasn’t cutting it off to misquote. I only ever cut out for economy. I certainly don’t mean they have the same relevance, nor was I implying that you did. I mean they both deal with unseen origins and as such both rely on analogy and causality. In terms of observable evidence purposeful agency is clearly superior! If I didn’t think it was I would have never engaged in this discussion.

[Alorael at Large]

You're using "irreducibly complex" to mean something that the words don't mean, but that's fine. What isn't fine is that you're using it differently from other IDers, including Michael Behe. If you're going to borrow a term, you can't alter the meaning! I now declare by fiat that your complaint is "irreducible modularity" for clarity.

 

The argument makes no sense, though. Everything is irreducibily modular from interdependence. Eyes can't function without brains. Brains can't function without circulation. Circulation requires eukaryotic cells. Those cells need mitochondria. Mitochondria require proteins. Proteins don't work if you remove some amino acids. Amino acids can't exist if you, oh, rip off the amino group. Carbon atoms are irreducibly modular: they cannot act as carbon if you remove a proton.

 

To address accumulation of advantages: Yes, it's possible for genetic drift to cause very uncommon but slightly beneficial alleles to disappear. They need to last long enough to evolve into something more beneficial or they need to stay in the population randomly.

 

On lack of squid retina: The fact that something is advantageous does not mean it will evolve. It's random, remember? In this case, though, you're simply wrong. Squid do indeed have lenses in their eyes.

 

—Alorael, who thinks you're being vague now. The retina is just many photoreceptors. Remove some and you still get an image, it just has lower resolution. Remove all but one and you just get a light/dark signal. How is one photoreceptor irreducibly modular in a meaningful sense?

[Slawbug]

Quote:

Originally written by Stillness:
This model is not as good as design because right off the bat it doesn’t deal with the parts that actually make vision irreducible. It only deals with one part. And even that is vague. We all know that someone with substantial intelligence can put parts together to make a machine work. We don’t see nature doing it though... (snip)

In terms of observable evidence purposeful agency is clearly superior!

But how does design/agency/whatever deal with those parts? With our current understanding of evolution, it isn't possible to explain the way things happen in sufficient detail for you. I want to hear an explanation of how design explains things in comparable detail.

I'm willing to let you off the hook for the nature of the design itself, because that's outside the scope of this discussion just like the origin of life is. My question is: once that design had been made, what actually happened in the world of physical objects to get from organisms without eyes (or whatever "irreducibly complex" characteristic you prefer) to organisms with eyes? Evolution doesn't explain those mechanisms in perfect detail, but it does attempt to explain them.

// IF your answer is "spontaneous creation of eyes" please give the evidence suggesting spontaneous creation happens. You don't contest that evolution happens on a small scale, so you agree there is an analogue for it, although you take issue with the mechanics involved in extending the analogy; fine. I contest spontaneous creation. I say it doesn't happen at all, on any scale. Prove that it happens. //

[Kelandon]

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Originally written by Stillness:

Quote:

Originally written by Kelandon:
Catch up to the objection that has been made with regard to interdependent parts.

I didn’t miss it, I just didn’t see anything that wasn’t addressed in the other posts. It sounds like your argument is semantic

You misunderstand me. "The objection that has been made with regard to interdependent parts" is the rest of the post, not the post that that preceded it.

Yes, the post that preceded it made a point that was semantic, but I was merely pointing out that you have no grounds for being frustrate with people who don't understand you when you're actually mis-speaking.

This post is solely for clarification. I'll make another, more useful post later.

[Stillness]

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Originally written by Tick tock tick tock tick tick.:
You're using "irreducibly complex" to mean something that the words don't mean, but that's fine. What isn't fine is that you're using it differently from other IDers, including Michael Behe. If you're going to borrow a term, you can't alter the meaning!

I think you’re wrong on both counts. That’s why I quoted Behe to make it clear that I was using the definition from the man who coined the phrase. Irreducibly complex means exactly what it says. If you “reduce” said “complex” system by removing one of the parts it fails.

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Everything is irreducibily modular from interdependence.

I don’t know your definition of the term you placed upon me, but in this instance I’m going to insist that we use the established term. You all just need to understand it. Everything is not irreducibly complex, but a whole lot of stuff is.

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On lack of squid retina: The fact that something is advantageous does not mean it will evolve. It's random, remember? In this case, though, you're simply wrong. Squid do indeed have lenses in their eyes.

First it is the nautilus that lacks the lens. You misread. I can accept the point though. My real objection is to the simplistic terms used for something extraordinarily complex. It’s common for Darwinists to minimize complexity.

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How is one photoreceptor irreducibly modular in a meaningful sense?

It’s not the photoreceptor that irreducibly complex, but the whole system of vision. You can have a being covered with photoreceptors, but unless he has all the hardware and software to interpret it he won’t see.

I’ll be offline for a day or two. In the meantime maybe Kelandon can give us the examples of natural objects with specified complexity. I can't wait to see them when I come back on!

[potznorton]

Stillness wrote:

Quote:

A quote from Behe:

 

" In Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution I coined the term “irreducible complexity” in order to point out an apparent problem for the Darwinian evolution of some biochemical and cellular systems. In brief, an irreducibly complex system is one that needs several well-matched parts, all working together, to perform its function. The reason that such systems are headaches for Darwinism is that it is a gradualistic theory, wherein improvements can only be made step by tiny step, with no thought for their future utility. I argued that a number of biochemical systems, such as the blood clotting cascade, intracellular transport system, and bacterial flagellum are irreducibly complex and therefore recalcitrant to gradual construction, and so they fit poorly within a Darwinian framework. Instead I argued they are best explained as the products of deliberate intelligent design." [emphasis mine]

Behe's numbers have been thoroughly discredited. His "irreducible complexity" relied on very flawed assumptions, an assumption of point mutations only, ignoring the many other types of mutation that are well known to occur.

 

His biochemistry may be acceptable (he hasn't done much for a long time, however), but his grasp of genetics is deeply flawed.

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Tick tock tick tock tick tick.:
The argument makes no sense, though. Everything is irreducibily modular from interdependence. Eyes can't function without brains. Brains can't function without circulation. Circulation requires eukaryotic cells. Those cells need mitochondria. Mitochondria require proteins. Proteins don't work if you remove some amino acids. Amino acids can't exist if you, oh, rip off the amino group. Carbon atoms are irreducibly modular: they cannot act as carbon if you remove a proton.

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Originally written by Stillness:

Quote:

Everything is irreducibily modular from interdependence.

I don’t know your definition of the term you placed upon me, but in this instance I’m going to insist that we use the established term. You all just need to understand it. Everything is not irreducibly complex, but a whole lot of stuff is.

This is my problem with the way that Stillness argues. This response completely missed the point of the objection to which he pretends that he's responding. This is how we can talk for twenty-three pages and get nowhere, which does not happen in any other discussion on these boards.

I give up. Stillness, you're either a really good troll or completely daft. I can't figure out which one, and I'm tired of trying.

[Alorael at Large]

Kel has just said what I was going to say, so I'll add just a few things:

 

1. I have read Behe. You're using only one part of his irreducible complexity argument. It's actually a weaker argument, too, but don't be surprised that we're all defending common descent against Behe and not against you when you adopt his language.

 

2. System of vision: You start with a photoreceptor. More photoreceptors means more perception, so you get a kind of proto-retina. The proto-retina is moved into a pit for protection and directional perception. The pit's opening narrows and you have even more protection, more directionality, and crude pinhole camera focus. Closing the pit entirely with a transparent cover gives yet more protection and may improve eye cleaning. Changes of the humor inside the enclosed pit can improve imaging, and outgrowths of the transparent covering makes lenses that bring the image into sharper and sharper focus.

 

(more detail here .)

 

You've accepted the photoreceptors as a start. Which step doesn't work for you and why?

 

—Alorael, who would like to know if glycine is irreducibly complex. Or, for a simpler example, is a four-legged table irreducibly complex since it obviously doesn't work if it's missing a leg?

[Student of Trinity]

I'd really like to hear a serious answer to this last post by Alorael.

 

At the moment I have the impression that Stillness is simply confused by his own term, 'irreducible complexity'. The term has a strong definition, including the impossibility of development by gradual advantageous stages. And for Stillness at least it also has a weak definition, which includes only modular interdependence of modern biological structures. The strong form of irreducible complexity has strong implications for evolution, but not even its plausibility, and far less its truth, can be demonstrated. The weak form of irreducible complexity is a banality with no implications for evolution or design, but it is undeniably true.

 

Stillness seems to be trying to have his cake and eat it too, by claiming the consequences of strong irreducible complexity, while only offering to defend the weak version.

 

If this is not the case, then what Stillness needs to do is state clearly and plainly:

1) exactly what properties of 'irreducible complexity' he means to draw logical conclusions from;

2) what his conclusions from those premises are; and

3) how he thinks those conclusions follow logically from his premises.

 

It's time to cut through ambiguous terminology, and commit to a clear logical argument.

[Stillness]

I had a paragraph here addressing the claim that I duck and ignore important points and am a troll or a fool, but decided to ignore it and replace it with this one.

 

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Originally written by Yama:

But how does design/agency/whatever deal with those parts? … once that design had been made, what actually happened in the world of physical objects to get from organisms without eyes (or whatever "irreducibly complex" characteristic you prefer) to organisms with eyes?

Slarty, this is unknowable unless it was witnessed or explained by the one who put the design into action. That is why I was trying to show the sameness in our two beliefs. They deal in origins before man. I would guess you believe that birds come from reptiles (although I don’t think all Darwinists do). I wouldn’t say your theory is bad because you can’t describe or produce every animal that comes in that sequence. That’s impossible. Even if you’re right and I’m wrong those animals have come and gone without a trace. If I'm right and you're wrong, how would I be able answer your question?

 

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Evolution doesn't explain those mechanisms in perfect detail, but it does attempt to explain them.

 

// IF your answer is "spontaneous creation of eyes" please give the evidence suggesting spontaneous creation happens. You don't contest that evolution happens on a small scale, so you agree there is an analogue for it, although you take issue with the mechanics involved in extending the analogy; fine. I contest spontaneous creation. I say it doesn't happen at all, on any scale. Prove that it happens.

It’s incumbent on Darwinists to explain the mechanism and model for common descent because there is analogy for natural change, but not all the change that would be necessary to get what we see. We see changes to existing coding but not creation of the code itself (ignore this if you think the first life had this coding as this would deal with biogenesis). We see changes to structures and systems, but not natural creation of irreducibly complex systems. Unless there is an a priori rejection of something beyond natural causes, why else would we accept this?

 

“Spontaneous creation” of irreducible systems does happen. Mankind does it all the time. That is the analogy for creating irreducibly complex systems like vision. The problem with explaining a mechanism is that the technology to do it is beyond ours. Even if witnessed that doesn’t mean we could reproduce it or describe it. We can clone sheep, go to the moon, and split the atom, but we can’t make a living cell. The analogy is there though.

[Stillness]

Quote:

Originally written by There were only six words left.:
1. I have read Behe. You're using only one part of his irreducible complexity argument. It's actually a weaker argument, too, but don't be surprised that we're all defending common descent against Behe and not against you when you adopt his language.

Behe’s beliefs are different from mine, just as yours no doubt differ from other Darwinists. Does that mean you can’t use scientific terms that they’ve coined to express yourself? His use of irreducible complexity and mine describe the same thing from what I’ve read from him. I’ve given a quote to show that. Until you show differently, I’ll have to assume you’re wrong. Even if I am wrong (which I doubt), why don’t you simply address my position as I have presented it as opposed to wrangling over semantics and talking about what people who aren’t in our discussion believe?

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You start with a photoreceptor. More photoreceptors means more perception, so you get a kind of proto-retina…You've accepted the photoreceptors as a start. Which step doesn't work for you and why?

I know we’re all a bit tired of this discussion and have probably decided to leave off from responding multiple times. I think it’s starting to show, because we are getting some serious communication failures. The eye by itself is not the irreducible system in question. All of the photoreceptors in the world won’t make a blind organism see. And I didn’t accept photoreceptors as a start. Where do they come from? I asked how to go from an organism that doesn’t sense light to one that sees like us, describing all the systems involved while accounting for advantage and disadvantage. I know that’s hard to do and I’m not trying to work you. This is what your theory requires though.

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is a four-legged table irreducibly complex since it obviously doesn't work if it's missing a leg?

It works if you take all four away, because you can still set stuff on the top. An irreducible system functions in such a way that the parts only have value when together. Although your tabletop is not as high you can still set stuff on it (I’m assuming that was the purpose of your table and your system was the 4 legs and the top.) By way of contrast, an eye without the other components necessary for vision doesn’t do anything and is actually a detriment. The same goes for all parts in an irreducible system.

[Stillness]

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Originally written by Student of Trinity:
At the moment I have the impression that Stillness is simply confused by his own term, 'irreducible complexity'. The term has a strong definition, including the impossibility of development by gradual advantageous stages.

Source?

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1) exactly what properties of 'irreducible complexity' he means to draw logical conclusions from;
2) what his conclusions from those premises are; and
3) how he thinks those conclusions follow logically from his premises.

1) Such systems require multiple components/systems to be in place before functionality.
2) Irreducibly complex systems/structures in living things are a result of purposeful action.
3) Irreducibly complex systems/structures are only observed to be made by purposeful action.
a. Mutations are observed to bring beneficial change, but not to create irreducibly complex systems. (This is true even in bacteria which can go through hundreds of thousands of generations for every single human generation).

[Alorael at Large]

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Originally written by Stillness:

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Originally written by Student of Trinity:
At the moment I have the impression that Stillness is simply confused by his own term, 'irreducible complexity'. The term has a strong definition, including the impossibility of development by gradual advantageous stages.

Source?

Behe. I'm not going to bother explaining how you've gotten one of the fathers of modern ID wrong, but you did. Your quote isn't everything he has to say on the subject.

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1) Such systems require multiple components/systems to be in place before functionality.
2) Irreducibly complex systems/structures in living things are a result of purposeful action.
3) Irreducibly complex systems/structures are only observed to be made by purposeful action.
a. Mutations are observed to bring beneficial change, but not to create irreducibly complex systems. (This is true even in bacteria which can go through hundreds of thousands of generations for every single human generation).

Are you familiar with formal logic at all? You've just committed egregious question begging. 3 is the same as 2, and neither follow from 1. How about trying again, this time laying out all assumptions, all reasoning that stems from them, and the conclusions you reach?

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...photoreceptors...

You're moving the goal posts. I've explained how you get from photoreceptors to eyes. Either admit that the problem must lie with photoreceptors or complain now, please.

Talking about the evolution of photoreceptive cells is hard because it's ancient. It's also necessarily a detailed problem of molecular biology and biochemistry. I'm not equipped to weigh in on the subject. I will say, though, that it doesn't seem like an insurmountable barrier.

Even the most primitive cells must have a way to respond to stimuli. Light sensitivity just means a way to trigger the signal pathway for response based on a light stimulus. All that really takes is one light-sensitive protein. If bacteria can evolve means of metabolizing new sugars, surely they can evolve means of responding to new signals.

—Alorael, who should point out that sugars are, in fact, just signals. Metabolizing them means recognizing them when they were previously unrecognizable.

[Student of Trinity]

What Stillness has really said is this:

 

1) The particular property of his kind of irreducible complexity upon which he intends to argue further is, that it is only observed now to arise through purposeful action.

 

2) The conclusion he wishes to draw from this premise is that his kind of irreducible complexity can only have arisen at any time, or over any time period however long, through purposeful action.

 

3) Stillness has not actually said why he thinks 2) follows from 1), but he seems to be implicitly assuming that nothing can happen on very long time scales that is not observed on short time scales today. Stillness needs this assumption, because without it his 2) does not follow at all from his 1). But this assumption is, of course, tantamount to simply assuming that evolution has not occurred.

 

So the only real role played by irreducible complexity in this argument by Stillness is to throw the spoils to design after evolution has been slain by assumption.

[Stillness]

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Originally written by Perejil:

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Originally written by Stillness:

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Originally written by Student of Trinity:
At the moment I have the impression that Stillness is simply confused by his own term, 'irreducible complexity'. The term has a strong definition, including the impossibility of development by gradual advantageous stages.

Source?

Behe. I'm not going to bother explaining how you've gotten one of the fathers of modern ID wrong, but you did. Your quote isn't everything he has to say on the subject.

The issue is my definition, not “everything Behe has to say.”

Quote:

Are you familiar with formal logic at all? You've just committed egregious question begging. 3 is the same as 2, and neither follow from 1. How about trying again, this time laying out all assumptions, all reasoning that stems from them, and the conclusions you reach?

Maybe you don’t think it follows because you didn’t read well. I know you didn’t because you claim 3 is the same as 2 and it’s not. The first sentence is different and there is a second. The idea behind the second in 3 is that one might conclude that because an organism is seen to have one trait change to make it more fit for an environment it can have 10 traits adapt in a stepwise fashion. The same logic does not follow when a trait requires many other well-fitted traits/structures to be in place before any of them add an advantage. This is not to say it’s not impossible in a naturalistic framework, but how? Simply insisting it’s possible isn’t enough. Better yet show us one that we can verify has been created naturally.

I think human vision is throwing you off because of the macroscopic parts. The problem is really the same as the one for the microscopic electric-motor-driven bacterial flagellum which requires many proteins organized in the correct way to be in place before it works. (Man, you should look at these things. They have some of the same parts that we use for motors!)

Quote:

You're moving the goal posts. I've explained how you get from photoreceptors to eyes. Either admit that the problem must lie with photoreceptors or complain now, please.

Quote:

Originally written by Stillness May 11, 2007 11:19 AM:

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
You do not seem to be thinking through your own arguments, Stillness. Removing a retina from a human eye no doubt renders it useless.

Not just the eye, but also the lateral geniculate nucleus and the optic chiasm become useless. That is what makes it part of an irreducibly complex system. Until I see how small stepwise changes can make a system like this from scratch (organism that can’t sense visible light at all to human vision) while at the same time giving advantages that surpass disadvantages I have no reason to think life is different from non-life in that systems with such complexity are made with intelligence. I can’t imagine it and I have never seen a model that explicitly and quantitatively details such changes.

Quote:

Originally written by Stillness May 4, 2007 (I pulled this Word file from the other thread):
You say all kinds of light-reacting systems are advantageous. But why? Because the creature can translate the presence of light into the need for action and has the ability to act. That takes sophisticated programming and machinery. Without that the light sensitive spot has no value. Without the light-sensitive spot the programming to interpret it has no value. So which comes first?

So how am I moving any goalposts? The system in question is vision as a whole. It always has been. I have no clue how you got the idea that it’s photoreceptors or the eye by itself. I certainly never said that.

Quote:

Light sensitivity just means a way to trigger the signal pathway for response based on a light stimulus. All that really takes is one light-sensitive protein. If bacteria can evolve means of metabolizing new sugars, surely they can evolve means of responding to new signals.

And you were getting on me about failure in logic. One light sensitive protein doesn’t do anything. How would this “means of responding to new signals” work? Why would the bacteria evolve this protein without the means to use it first? Why would it develop the means to interpret light without the protein to use this means?

[Stillness]

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
What Stillness has really said is this:

1) The particular property of his kind of irreducible complexity upon which he intends to argue further is, that it is only observed now to arise through purposeful action.

2) The conclusion he wishes to draw from this premise is that his kind of irreducible complexity can only have arisen at any time, or over any time period however long, through purposeful action.

3) Stillness has not actually said why he thinks 2) follows from 1), but he seems to be implicitly assuming that nothing can happen on very long time scales that is not observed on short time scales today. Stillness needs this assumption, because without it his 2) does not follow at all from his 1). But this assumption is, of course, tantamount to simply assuming that evolution has not occurred.

So the only real role played by irreducible complexity in this argument by Stillness is to throw the spoils to design after evolution has been slain by assumption.

I love how you guys put words in my mouth. I would have actually placed 2 before 3 in my response, but I followed your questions as you asked them. Switch the positioning and you get my logical development. Your claim of what I said is different. I’ll put mine here in logical order.

1) [irreducibly complex] systems require multiple components/systems to be in place before functionality.
2) Irreducibly complex systems/structures are only observed to be made by purposeful action.
a. Mutations are observed to bring beneficial change, but not to create irreducibly complex systems. (This is true even in bacteria which can go through hundreds of thousands of generations for every single human generation).
3) Irreducibly complex systems/structures in living things are a result of purposeful action.

I’m not assuming anything about long time scales. You are. My conclusions are based off of observation. If you claim time changes anything you need to show how. Irreducibly complex systems serve to point to design by way of analogy and to place a hurdle in the way of stepwise advance. If you think unguided nature can jump then explain.

[Student of Trinity]

Sorry to put words in your mouth, Stillness, but I'm afraid you need some help in making your own logic clear.

 

Your point 1) is not actually used in any of the rest of your logic, so you should not list it. Your point 2) is what actually serves the logical purpose of being a premise in your argument. In your mind you may think of 1) as a reason why 2) is true, but you have never actually argued from 1) to 2). Nor do you need to; everyone will, I think, agree that 2) is empirically true. So your logic starts from 2) as its premise, which is what I said.

 

Your point a) serves no logical purpose in your argument, either. The proposition that mutations are not observed to produce X is already implied by your 2), that only purposeful action is observed to produce X. Nothing can follow from a) that does not already follow from 2), so you should not list a).

 

Your point 3) does not logically follow from your 2). Saying this is not a subjective judgement on my part; it is a simple fact. Consult any logician you like, and they will all agree. Creationist logicians may agree with you that 3) is true, but they will still tell you that it does not follow from 2) alone. If you do not understand this, please ask about it and I will try to explain further.

 

If you do not simply mean to assume 3), then you must somehow show that 3) follows logically from some premise other than itself. This you have not yet done, so at present your 3) stands as a pure assumption on your part.

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Stillness:
Switch the positioning and you get my logical development. Your claim of what I said is different.

Logically speaking, this is untrue. In formal argumentation, order does not matter at all; the distinction between premises, assumptions, and conclusions matters. As long as you plainly state which is which and account for everything that you need to, order doesn't matter at all.

Quote:

I’m not assuming anything about long time scales. You are. My conclusions are based off of observation.

Strictly speaking, what you need in order for 3) to follow from 2) is something like this: "Things that are observed to happen only in one way cannot ever have happened in any other way." This is the assumption to which I've been objecting for a couple of pages now.

[Alorael at Large]

A primitive species of bacteria is sensitive to chemicals. That means it has receptors that detect those chemicals' presence and activates some signalling pathway to promote a response. Now the receptor protein mutates so that it has a light-sensitive domain. Maybe it's now no longer a good chemoreceptor. Maybe it's not able to carry out its previous function at all. Whichever is the case, the bacteria are now responsive to light.

 

Once you have localized light sensitivity on a multicellular organism you can have those first proto-retinas, and then the evolutionary chain to eyes is as I already said. Again, where specifically is the problem?

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think he can go back any farther evolutionarily. Some systems are too basic to be understood because nobody knows how or if life worked before they existed. Sense-response mechanisms are one of them.

[Stillness]

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
Your point 1) is not actually used in any of the rest of your logic, so you should not list it.

Your question to me was “exactly what properties of 'irreducible complexity' [do you mean] to draw logical conclusions from.” I assumed you were asking me this to provide a definition. My answer was “Such systems require multiple components/systems to be in place before functionality.” I said this to show what about these systems makes them irreducibly complex, because there still seemed to be confusion as to the definition. If there is finally general acceptance of this simple truth now, we can drop “1” as it is implied. Don't get funny on me for answering your question though, especially when I had to repeatedly restate this simple definition because of you all's wrangling.

Where this property comes into play is again analogy – the heart of both our arguments. This is why I said “Irreducibly complex systems serve to point to design by way of analogy and to place a hurdle in the way of stepwise advance. If you think unguided nature can jump then explain.”

Quote:

Your point 3) does not logically follow from your 2). Saying this is not a subjective judgement on my part; it is a simple fact. Consult any logician you like, and they will all agree.

No need. I agree as well.

Let’s say we’re looking for a planet. We see a neighboring star wobble as it would if there were a Jupiter-like planet in orbit. What would we conclude? Here is how the logic looks:

1) We only observe stars to wobble as Star X if a planet is in orbit.
2) Star X has a planet in orbit.

Is that what astronomers do? Absolutely! Is that flawed logic. Yes. Let’s say that someone comes along and points this out. He says, “But wait! There could be a man on Star X with an anti-gravity anti-heat suit heavy enough so that coupled with the star's rotational velocity causes wobble. Prove that there’s not and every other possible theory besides your crazy planet theory before you jump to conclusions.” This man would be laughed out of the room. Why? We know there are planets even though we don’t see the one around Star X. If the astronomers were patient, they might say, “please explain why your Star X man is a better explaination when we don’t know of any such things.” Maybe the man would say, “There are men and they make suits.” Would that be logical?

This is what I’m saying: We can observe purpose driven action make irreducibly complex systems. We know for a fact that it does, just as we know planets orbit stars and cause wobble. If we see wobble we go with what we know. If we go with what we know in the case of irreducibly complex systems we come to one conclusion – intelligent purpose driven action. Simply stating that there is change and it can make organisms more fit just doesn’t do it anymore than saying men make suits. We need to be shown how something that is not based on observation happens. So for the zillionth time please give a step-by-step explanation of how mutations and natural selection can create irreducibly complex systems. Use analogy if you have to. Behe used the mousetrap as you all probably know. Use that. Or come up with something different. Get frustrated and quit the discussion and then come back. Your choice. But as I said, you’re living in Bizarro world if you expect me to argue against infinite possibilities when you haven't presented one detailed theoretical or analogous explanation or an example.

[Stillness]

Quote:

Originally written by Perejil:
A primitive species of bacteria is sensitive to chemicals. That means it has receptors that detect those chemicals' presence and activates some signalling pathway to promote a response. Now the receptor protein mutates so that it has a light-sensitive domain. Maybe it's now no longer a good chemoreceptor. Maybe it's not able to carry out its previous function at all. Whichever is the case, the bacteria are now responsive to light.

OK, let's work with this. As we get answers we'll build on our model.

1) How does a protein that's sensitive to chemicals mutate to become sensitive to light? Is there a likely protien capable of such a mutation?
2) How does a light sensitive protein make the bacteria responsive to light?

[Kelandon]

For your argument to make sense, you accept as a premise, "It is most reasonable to conclude, in general, that things that are observed to happen only in one way did not ever happen in any other way." I think you've acknowledged this and are now trying to defend that premise.

 

Do you acknowledge that this statement is vital to your argument and, if shown false, would invalidate your conclusion?

[Stillness]

Quote:

Originally written by Kelandon:
For your argument to make sense, you accept as a premise, "It is most reasonable to conclude, in general, that things that are observed to happen only in one way did not ever happen in any other way." I think you've acknowledged this and are now trying to defend that premise.

Do you acknowledge that this statement is vital to your argument and, if shown false, would invalidate your conclusion?

No, my argument is what I said it is, not what you would like it to be.

[Alorael at Large]

Your 1 is a definition that we may not all agree with still, but it doesn't matter. You never refer to it in your logical argument, so it's irrelevant.

 

Your example of astronomy still isn't logical either. Here's one that is:

 

1. All stars that wobble have orbiting planets.

2. Star X wobbles.

3. Star X has a planet.

 

Step two is critical or your argument makes no sense.

 

More generally, this is a modus ponens argument:

1. If P, then Q

2. P

3. Therefore Q

 

If P is true, Q must be true unless proposition 1 is false. Thus, your crackpot astronomer. We know that stars must wobble if they have planets, but the crackpot asserts that not all wobbles must come from planets. In other words, he's saying that the standard argument is this:

 

1. All stars with orbiting planets wobble. (This is not the same as the first proposition above!)

2. Star X wobbles.

3. Therefore Star X has a planet

 

But this has a different form:

 

1. P implies Q

2. Q

3. Therefore P.

 

That's false.

 

So the question is how we know how to formulate the first proposition so it is true. We know how planets cause wobble. We don't know how anti-gravity could be caused.

 

Evolution is not the same. We know how it can, in theory, happen naturally despite long odds. We do not know, and you have admitted that we do not know, how design could take place. We have no evidence of a designer. Intelligent design is, in this case, the man claiming anti-gravity suits.

 

(As an aside, irreducible complexity is not used as a criterion for judging anything in any field except ID-partisan evolutionary biology. It cannot be evidence for design or a designer because it is itself the conclusion of arguments that use design and designers as premises.)

 

As for photoreceptors, I have no answer to question 1. It's not my area of expertise. Any protein can mutate into any other protein; it's a matter of odds. I don't know which proteins are the best candidates. Question 2 is easy, and I already answered it. Start with a protein that takes a stimulus and responds with a signal. Change the stimulus to light, and you still have the signal.

 

Ultimately, though, I think this is irrelevant. The macroscopic eye is a much better example: it's irreducibly complex, yet I explained how it could evolve. The fact that the photoreceptors from which they evolved are also complicated doesn't change that. As I've said, I think everything is irreducibly complex by your definition; you've picked one system, I've explained it, and you have offered no counter.

 

—Alorael, who will take a crack at stating your argument later if nobody else deciphers it.

[Student of Trinity]

Stillness, right now I am just trying to figure out what your logic acually is.

 

As far as I can tell, you have an extra premise that gets you from 2) to 3). The closest you get to articulating this premise is to describe a principle that 'we go with what we know'. I am not at all sure what this means, though. Can you not articulate this more explicitly? Under what principle do you conclude, from the fact that the only interdependent structures whose development we have witnessed have been designed by humans, that all interdependent structures must be products of design?

 

It would be also be nice if you stated plainly how important it is to you whether evolving interdependent structures is in principle difficult, as opposed to merely not being directly observed. At the moment you seem to be arguing only from absence of direct observations, and do not seem to be basing anything logically upon this difficulty proposition; but on the other hand you do seem to suggest that the difficulty exists, and perhaps adds weight to your argument. Since you are only defending a notion of irreducible complexity that has to do with large abrupt changes to a system, whereas evolution is about very gradual changes, I do not see how your kind of irreducible complexity poses any difficulty for evolution. So it would be nice if you either explained why you think your IC is hard to evolve, or stopped mentioning this issue of difficulty. If you read my recent posts you'll see that I have been trying to get you to clear this up for some time now.

 

I can perhaps try to help by analyzing the example you provide, of inferring extrasolar planets from stellar wobbles. As you might imagine from remembering my numerous posts on the topic in the previous thread, Bayesian inference from accurate prediction is once again the key here.

 

Newtonian gravity makes precise, quantitative predictions for the motion of a star perturbed by a large orbiting planet. The planet's mass and orbit parameters are used as free fitting parameters, but Keppler's Laws still provide a very enormous constraint upon a priori arbitrary motion. The orbiting planet theory of stellar wobble is inconsistent with anything but elliptical motion with a particular fixed relationship between radius and velocity.

 

The stellar wobbles that we see obey these constraints, and this provides very strong empirical support for the orbiting planet theory. Astronomers base their inference of planets on this quantitative fulfillment of prediction, not on 'flawed logic' or any vague principle of 'going with what we know'. I don't see that your design theory can claim anything similar here, so I don't see how the astronomical reasoning can provide a parallel to yours.

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Stillness:
No, my argument is what I said it is, not what you would like it to be.

No, it isn't what you've said it is, because you still haven't articulated it!

Quote:

Originally written by Stillness:

Quote:

Your point 3) does not logically follow from your 2). Saying this is not a subjective judgement on my part; it is a simple fact. Consult any logician you like, and they will all agree.

No need. I agree as well.

Then you need another premise to get from 2) to 3). State it in your own words, then, but state it explicitly, so that we can know what you're thinking and not have to guess.

Your attempted analogy is no substitute for a clear statement of what you actually mean.

[Randomizer]

Stillness - I posted this before but it is more relevant now.

 

How the information goes from the eye to the brain . This site has a refutation of Behe's argument that the pathway from the eye to the brain is too complex to have evolved. Basically it shows that in the simplest organisms that have some type of photorecptor system for light detection the method is simple ion transfer chemistry and not a complex protien system. The current complex protien system that we use is a later evolved system, but we can still tranfer information using a more primitive system.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Kelandon:
Then you need another premise to get from 2) to 3).

Only if he thinks that having a logically valid argument to support his position is important, which he evidently doesn't.

[Student of Trinity]

This is indeed a bit dismaying. The point is not at all that we are demanding that Stillness prove his position is true. He can state any premises he wants, so there is no reason he can't produce a valid argument from those premises to whatever conclusions he wants. That's not proof, because we will probably not all agree that those premises are true. But it will clarify greatly what Stillness is really trying to say.

 

Normally in a discussion one does not bother with quite this level of logical pedantry, but it is very helpful in cases where the two sides are having difficulty establishing common language. Stillness's use of the term 'irreducible complexity' has puzzled and frustrated the rest of us, in that his definitions of the term do not seem to us to jibe with the conclusions he draws from it.

 

Laying out a valid logical argument, with conclusions all following from premises, cuts through communication problems and terminological confusion. There is no need to keep wondering about what exactly a given term might mean, when we can see exactly what it has to mean for the argument in which it is used to be valid.

 

And it's an exercise that is worth going through occasionally, for anyone. It is all too easy to lull oneself into confidence in a conclusion, with rhetoric and friendly audiences. Perhaps if popular science writers did this kind of thing more often, instead of writing so many gee-whiz texts for the choir, we would have fewer smart people wasting their talents on pseudoscience.

[Stillness]

1) Irreducibly complex systems are a result of purposeful agency.

2) Living things have irreducibly complex systems.

3) Irreducibly complex systems in living things are a result of purposeful agency.

 

If our discussion on logic is going to continue, my request is that you show me yours since I've shown mine. What would be your argument for common descent as the cause of all variety in life? If we'll stop here with the logic, then don't worry about it.

 

I am intrigued by Randomizer's post. I'd like to discuss that as well as Alo's model as these are challenges to the observed. Be patient if you don't here from me much over the next few days. I'm a bit tied up until tomorow night so probably won't post until Wednesday, but can't promise as this week is busy for me.

 

Since Kel is back on board maybe he will list his examples of specified complexity for my edification, though I'm starting to suspect that he doesn't really have any as he is ignoring my repeated requests to back up his statement. *dissapointed graemlin* (Sorry if I haven't been using smilies Kel. I feel, not just inadequate as a communicator if I have to use them, but somehow unmanly. Don't ask me why).

[Student of Trinity]

This thread is the complexity sidebar, and the appeal to irreducible complexity is your argument, Stillness. If you want to make another thread about the logic of evolution, go ahead. But let's keep this one about your complexity argument. Not keeping focus until a conclusion is reached is what lets this discussion drag on inconclusively.

 

What you have presented now is indeed a valid syllogism, but what it does is to establish trivial points, given a premise which is itself the entire thing that we asked you to explain logically:

Why do you think that anything you class as irreducibly complex can only have resulted from purposeful agency?

 

What we have been pressing you to do for several posts now is to break down your current 1) into a multi-step logical argument, or else admit that you are simply assuming that evolution is false. What you have been doing for several posts now looks like really blatant ducking and stalling, in the face of a very simple and basic question, several times repeated.

[Kelandon]

Quote:

Originally written by Stillness:
If our discussion on logic is going to continue, my request is that you show me yours since I've shown mine. What would be your argument for common descent as the cause of all variety in life?

Given that yours is so bad — as SoT has pointed out, 1) is the problem, since you're pretty near to assuming what you're trying to prove — you might want to keep working on your argument before saying that it has reached a definitive form, or else you run the risk of being demolished.

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
Why do you think that anything you class as irreducibly complex can only have resulted from purposeful agency?

He has answered this question, you know. His answer is that it has only been observed to happen this way. Of course, the obvious answer has already been given: the fastest way for it happen is this way, but we have every reason to believe that it can happen via evolution, too, given enough time (and here a few decades and a few thousand generations of fruit flies really won't cut it — we need drastic environmental changes and a few thousand years, together with a little bit of luck). We've asked for reasons why, in principle, incremental changes won't work, and he's given a sort of answer to that, too.

His objection to incremental changes has been two-fold and rather poor: first, that the parts all need each other right now to function — but, the counter-argument goes, evolution was not so crude as to develop one part and then another, but to develop all of the parts together, at which he has flailed but never really responded — and second, that he has not seen any explanation of how it could happen that meets his satisfaction — which is an argument from ignorance, no more.

I'm not sure that he has ever really given a good answer to the question, why can't all of the parts in these structures develop increasing complexity together? The normal model is not to grow one part and then another (first retina, then lens, then optic nerve) but to grow them all together (primitive nerve, then primitive lens, then more advanced lens, then more advanced nerve, something like that — though perhaps not that exact pathway). Why is this in principle problematic?

EDIT: Cut out a bit because it's best not to get distracted here.

[Student of Trinity]

That is the very question that I asked Stillness somewhere around page 2 of the first, more general incarnation of this thread. He never has answered it in any way I've been able to recognize. Since 'we have only observed X to happen this way' has no implications by itself for whether or not X has ever happened otherwise in the past, I am trying to figure out what additional premises Stillness is using to reach his conclusion.

 

As far as I can see, he admired Behe's irreducible complexity argument, which is understandable. He wished to retreat from Behe's indefensibly extreme irreducibility premise, which was wise. So he declared a premise about a much looser kind of irreducible complexity, which was conveniently easy to defend; but it has turned out not to be strong enough to imply his desired conclusion.

 

It seems to me that if Stillness actually had a clear argument to connect his weak premise and his objective, he would immediately have appreciated the questions we were raising, and brought his clear argument forth to answer them, with all the enthusiasm of a mousetrap inventor asked about mice. From the awkward way in which he is instead shifting to question-begging premises, excusing himself from good logic by alleging bad logic in astronomy, and demanding that we formalize our own arguments on other lines instead of looking too closely at his complexity argument, I infer that Stillness does not have as good an argument as he thought he did when he raised the complexity line, and is having trouble improvising a better argument under pressure.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, and he has a good argument, but our language difficulties have prevented him from appreciating what we have been asking, or presenting his answers in a way we can understand. If so I invite him to try again.

 

If I'm right, though, he should simply confess this and give up the complexity line of argument, reserving the right to raise it again in the future if he later thinks he can get it working properly. Losing a battle isn't losing a war. I know lots of true things, for which I also know some failed arguments. These arguments seem strong at first glance, but when you really dig into them, they fall apart. Nevertheless the conclusions they were trying to establish are true, and are supported well by other arguments. There are, for example, very many invalid proofs of Fermat's Last Theorem, many of which looked promising at one time. There is also one valid proof, and that is enough.

 

Even if Stillness eventually he finds himself left with no good arguments for design against evolution, this doesn't mean he has to be come an enthusiastic neo-Darwinist. He could perfectly well say, even in that worst case, that he doesn't like NDT and feels in his heart that it must be wrong, even though at the moment he can't muster a good scientific argument against it. I have some similar attitudes to current cosmology, and I know a recent Nobel laureate in physics whose attitude to quantum mechanics is similar as well.

[Kelandon]

Yeah. There's a pretty big difference between saying, "I believe that God created all life as-is," and saying, "I believe that the evidence shows that God created all life as-is."

 

EDIT: But if we're being realistic here, I don't think that Stillness realizes just how different his latest 1) is from his previous 2). His current 1) is not one upon which we can all agree, and it requires justification in itself. His previous 2) was a premise that was considerably easier to accept (with perhaps some provisos).

 

If he can get from his old 2) to his new 1) without serious problems, he'd be set, but I don't think he can.

[Alorael at Large]

I'm still not even convinced that intelligence produces irreducible complexity. Well, okay, it can in what I think is the Stillness sense, but not in the mainstream sense. I'd like an example of a human invention that is irreducibly complex and I'd like to take a crack at reducing it to simple components.

 

Those components are also irreducibly complex, of course, but that's another problem.

 

—Alorael, who may just be suffering from temporary ignorance. On the other hand, what human devices have been created from parts that had no previous use or existence? Progress seems to be parts created to fill needs and then new needs filled by existing parts. New needs getting new parts are exceptionally rare.

[Stillness]

Kelandon, it was big of you to point out that I had given answers to the questions that SoT claimed I was ducking, even though you made it clear that my answer is sorry in your eyes. I’m really impressed. That’s the kind of good sportsmanship that makes me want to continue discussing with you all.

[Stillness]

I was treating this as the replacement to the original regulation thread. I know that there is an actual replacement, but I prefer this. I don’t have the energy to engage in discussion on multiple threads. I think I have been fairly accommodating to requests and don’t see my request for your argument presented in logical form (as you have requested of me and I have given you) to be unreasonable. Show me please, then we can continue with discussions about logic if you like. What is the logical argument for evolution accounting for all the variety in life?

 

Here’s a recap for those whose memory seems to have disappeared with the original thread. Why an intelligent agent is a better explanation for life than common descent by mutations and natural selection:

 

Information

1) Mutations are overwhelmingly neutral or harmful. Even when they are beneficial they are generally deleterious (i.e. antibiotic resistant bacteria, wingless beetles). This is not the increase in information needed to go from “simple” proto-life to people.

 

2) Some single-celled organisms have the ability to generate beneficial mutations without loss of information. It is a special ability of these organisms (possibly analogous to hypermutation) and not the kind of mutation needed for common descent, as it is an exclusive ability.

 

3) Other claimed examples of Darwinian evolution while appearing to be addition of information fall short upon closer examination. Some may be actual increases but these are at best extraordinarily rare and not seen in multicellular organisms (i.e. the literally millions of mutations of fruit flies last century).

 

4) An amazing quality of all life is that it contains language – arbitrary quatranomial code written in every cell. (see paramecium for the same code with a different convention) It requires an “agreement” on the code convention before it is ever used. Such programming is best understood as originating with an intelligent programmer.

 

Patterns/Fossils

5) The testimony of the fossil record is repeatedly the same: types of organisms appear suddenly with no connection to anything that went before them. This is harmonious with the understanding that living things were made by type with the ability to vary within those types. While not necessarily disproving common descent the fossil record certainly is not supportive of it.

 

6) Life, in the fossil record and now, corresponds to a nested hierarchy. This pattern is consistent with typology, but again not supportive of common descent. It is actually somewhat problematic as common descent requires gradual stepwise change. Lack of distinction and blurring between divisions would be ideal for common descent.

 

7) Genetic machinery has self-corrective mechanisms to preserve the kind of organism for which it codes. In the case of d. melanogaster mutants normal flies arose from the mutants in a few generations. Cyanobacteria are the same today after supposed tens of trillions of generations over billions of years. There’s no evidence that any organism has the plasticity to account for all the variety in the biosphere. The evidence is in fact the opposite.

 

8) Discontinuity in distribution of traits in the biosphere (i.e. vivipary, eye designs, hemoglobin) is easily understood from the perspective of a creator that placed these traits wherever it was seen as desirable.

 

Complexity

9) Life has a quality distinguishing it from other natural phenomena – specified complexity. Living things share this quality with things only know to be made from purposeful action. By analogy we can conclude that living things are also made this way.

 

10) Living things have irreducibly complex structures. Such structures are only observed to be made by purposeful action. They also place a hurdle before conclusion that stepwise increases in complexity by mutations account for all of the ingenious devices seen nature as such change has never been observed (even in bacteria which can experience hundreds of thousands of generations for every single human generation).

 

I’ll stop at 10 – it’s a nice round number. So when you think to yourself, “Stillness just feels in his heart that God did it with no real reasons why” you may refer to this thread.

[Stillness]

Alo,

You keep saying that eyes are the irreducible system in question. Are you changing the discussion or misunderstanding me? While eyes may be irreducible, I am speaking about vision (we’ve been saying human, but any vertebrate is fine), which of course includes the eye, but involves other important parts as well.

 

You and the others keep asking me what the problem is with evolution of certain systems. The problem is that simply saying it can happen is not enough. If I’m not mistaken, it was you earlier told me that a copy my truck could spontaneously appear fully formed from nothing. By that reasoning anything is certainly possible. Science losses all meaning though if simply asserting that something is possible and telling just-so stories account for proof. This is especially true when another explanation fits the evidence better. Randomizer’s link is more descriptive but if I’m not mistaken suffers from the same lack of explicitness (unfortunately the page is down at the time of my writing this…I still want to discuss it later when it comes back).

 

I have mentioned two irreducibly complex structures – the car and Behe’s mousetrap. There are tons of them though. The problem with you all is that you amazingly still don’t get the definition of irreducible complexity. I’m truly at a loss as to how to make you understand it. You seem to be making some distinction between the way I’m using it and some other usage. That let’s me know you don’t get it. I’ve actually posted the definition from the man who coined the term and a leader in ID studies and you all are still are missing something.

[Slawbug]

[Stillness]

[Stillness]

Randomizer’s site is back up. Here is the conclusion:

 

“Behe is wrong, it is quite possible to evolve the visual system in small, selectable steps. The restoration of visual signals in blind mice, and production of light responses in the nerves of worms, all from the simple addition of a single ancestral rhodopsin show how the visual system can evolve.”

 

Placing a part from a supposed ancestral creature into a more complex one and getting some response would be like me placing the battery from my Focus into my F-150 and getting response. I can’t say my pick-up evolved from cars because the batteries are somewhat interchangeable.

 

Also the worm response doesn’t tell us much. I’d have a lot of questions, starting with: Did the response make the worms more fit?

[Stillness]

I want to address the T. Rex chicken issue because I think it so well illustrates what I have been saying from the beginning of this discussion. First of all the similarity based off of the tissue is 58% - hardly anything to get excited about. The real issue that reveals the heart of the problem as the evolutionary bias in biology is the view of the age of these bones. Some scientists don’t believe this is T. Rex tissue. Why? It’s 68 million years old!

 

“Preservation of organic material over such a vast period of time should not be possible.”

“The accepted viewpoint is that collagen, like other organic molecules, will degrade relatively rapidly, so that after a maximum of about a hundred thousand years nothing will remain.”

“I know of no other research group that has been able to extract—let alone sequence—indigenous proteins from fossils older than a million years.”

 

So what we really have here is two vastly differing accounts of the age of this bone. Is this simple obvious fact acknowledged? Absolutely not! We get the same type of evolutionist stories and reasoning that have no basis in reality.

 

“But when conditions for preservation are just right, she said, ‘degradation rates may differ from predictions.’”

"That doesn't mean they are wrong. But if they are right, then we all need to rethink how molecules survive in the geological environment."

“Schweitzer and her collaborators, including paleontologist John Horner of Montana State University, agree that their discovery should prompt such a rethinking, which could lead to changes in how fieldwork is conducted.”

 

So why is there no mention that the 68 million year age may be wrong? Because you all require humungous amounts of time for your theory, so that alternative is not even a consideration. Instead we have to rethink how we view soft tissue degradation. If I didn't see it all the time it would be incredible.

 

I know that unless this nonsensical circular reasoning is stopped that we’ll soon start seeing any dissent silenced on this issue and eventually presence of soft tissue will start to be seen as harmonious with long ages. And we will have that much more backward thinking to undo once NDT is exposed.

[Kelandon]

The problem, Stillness, is that the argument that you are now making is not the argument that you were making before. You keep changing your argument. Trying to pin down what you are saying is like nailing jello to the wall.

 

Before you say that you've been saying points 1-10 since the beginning, note that you didn't say them when asked exactly what your premises were and exactly what your conclusions were from those premises. You presented a fundamentally different argument.

 

You seem to have given up on answering the question as to what your premises and conclusions are, because the 1-10 that you presented does not by any stretch of the imagination give a argument that is sound in its formal logic.

 

Let's not give up on logic, because it would reveal at least what your argument is, which to this point has been obscure. Can you use the premises you've presented, particularly 9) and 10), to present a logically valid argument that produces your subsidiary conclusion 1) above ("Irreducibly complex systems are a result of purposeful agency"), making clear what all your premises, assumptions, and conclusions are?