My Irreducible Complexity Challenge

[mnorian]

Why? I am satisfied that He designed the variation and selection process to work properly in the first place; I don't think He has to tinker with the product.

Which ever way; God created it.

 

[mnorian]

How does one test to determine, if IC is present, that is a falsifiable test?

Ah; you got me; how?

 

[bhsmte]

Ah; you got me; how?

That is the point, you can't.

 

[mnorian]

That is the point, you can't.

You said a "falsifiable" test. Seeing as how Karl Popper's "falsificationism" stresses demarcation (the unscientific distinguished from the scientific) wouldn't you want a "unfalsifiable" test seeing as evolution is pseudoscience?

 

[Gene2memE]

seeing as evolution is pseudoscience?

Support this claim please. With evidence.

 

[mnorian]

Support this claim please. With evidence.

Is evolution pseudoscience?
by Mark Johansen

The Skeptic’s Dictionary contains an entry on ‘pseudoscience’ that includes ten characteristic fallacies of pseudoscientific theories.1 The list’s compiler clearly did not have evolution in mind, as the very first group the article identifies as pseudoscientific is ‘creationists’. Ironically, evolution has almost every characteristic on this list. Let’s look at how evolution exhibits the fallacies listed by these self-proclaimed skeptics, with just one example of each.

1. Some pseudoscientific theories are based upon an authoritative text rather than observation or empirical investigation.
   

• In almost every debate about origins, the first argument given by the evolutionists is an appeal to authority. The National Academy of Sciences flatly asserts, ‘While the mechanisms of evolution are still under investigation, scientists universally accept that the cosmos, our planet, and life evolved and continue to evolve.’2 [our emphasis]

We are supposed to respect these scientists because science has proven so powerful. But the people who preach evolution didn’t discover gravity or pasteurization or semiconductors. They just call themselves by the same name, ‘scientist’.
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Because of the 20% rule; if you want to see the rest of this very good article; you will have to go to the site:

http://creation.com/is-evolution-pseudoscience

 

[mnorian]

I think this wont break the bank; and it speaks to the "falsifiable" test:

• 5.--Some theories have been empirically tested and rather than being confirmed they seem either to have been falsified or to require numerous ad hoc hypotheses to sustain them.

Evolutionists are forced to admit that the fossil evidence for their theory is slim to non-existent. For example, almost all major groups of creatures appear in the fossil record with no evolutionary past. ‘Something quite bizarre happened at the end of the Precambrian Era. Rocks from that time show evidence of an astounding variety of multicelled and hard-shelled life forms that seemingly appeared all at once. Scientists have long pondered the causes of this sudden appearance of new life forms, known as the Cambrian explosion.’6

So the evolutionists offer ad hoc hypotheses to explain the lack of evidence. One popular theory is ‘punctuated equilibrium’, which says that sometimes evolution happens so fast that there are too few ‘intermediate’ generations for any to have much chance of being fossilized.

We cannot see evolution happening today because it goes so slowly, and we cannot see evidence of it in the past because it happened too quickly!

 

[Gene2memE]

Creation.com - looks like an unbiased source. Afterall, this is in their statement of belief:

1. The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the Earth and the universe.
2. The various original life forms (kinds), including mankind, were made by direct creative acts of God. The living descendants of any of the original kinds (apart from man) may represent more than one species today, reflecting the genetic potential within the original kind. Only limited biological changes (including mutational deterioration) have occurred naturally within each kind since Creation.
3. The great Flood of Genesis was an actual historic event, worldwide (global) in its extent and effect.
4. The special creation of Adam (the first man) and Eve (the first woman), and their subsequent fall into sin, is the basis for the necessity of salvation for mankind.
   
   

Seems legit

Besides, none of what you presented is actual evidence that the Theory of Evolution is pseudoscience.

What you've presented is an ineffective appeal to the argument from authority and a mild critique of the paucity of the fossil record.

The first fails as appeal to authority is only fallacious when the authority cited isn't actually an expert in their field. In the case of evolution, the overwhelming majority of experts with relevant expertise support evolution. Those that don't generally (but not always) have ulterior motives for doing so.

The second point - the comparative paucity of the fossil record - is a physical fact of reality. The conditions that result in fossils and other types of impressions are comparatively rare - so much so that estimates are that anywhere from 95% to 80% of all the species that have existed through the history of earth will be undiscoverable to us. That being said, there are a little bit more than 365,000 different fossil taxa that have been discovered by human, and more than 1.3 million described fossils. This includes around 12,000 different hominids (read: recent human ancestors) that are between 6.5 million and 150,000 years old. There are at least 6 million other fossils that are catalogued, but not described, and we're adding to that number faster than ever before - although its mostly bugs and horseshoe crabs

Oh, and the Cambridge Explosion is increasingly less mysterious, as we discover and analyse more fossils from the period. Creation.com's representation of the Cambrian is misleading in the extreme - the 'explosion' happened over at least 20 million years and rapid diversifications of body plan and other biological novel structures are commonplace in the fossil record.

 

[Kylie]

For those of you who like to argue against Irreducible Complexity, please post an emoticon of your expression if you are on a 747 and saw a part fall off while the plane is flying down the runway.

What in the world does one have to do with the other?

Or are you misunderstanding/misrepresenting science again?

 

[Kylie]

That's true - but imagine if clocks could evolve from random assemblies of springs, gears, ratchets and hands...

Quoting this because the video is AWESOME!

 

[Kylie]

Is evolution pseudoscience?
by Mark Johansen

The Skeptic’s Dictionary contains an entry on ‘pseudoscience’ that includes ten characteristic fallacies of pseudoscientific theories.1 The list’s compiler clearly did not have evolution in mind, as the very first group the article identifies as pseudoscientific is ‘creationists’. Ironically, evolution has almost every characteristic on this list. Let’s look at how evolution exhibits the fallacies listed by these self-proclaimed skeptics, with just one example of each.

1. Some pseudoscientific theories are based upon an authoritative text rather than observation or empirical investigation.

• In almost every debate about origins, the first argument given by the evolutionists is an appeal to authority. The National Academy of Sciences flatly asserts, ‘While the mechanisms of evolution are still under investigation, scientists universally accept that the cosmos, our planet, and life evolved and continue to evolve.’2 [our emphasis]

We are supposed to respect these scientists because science has proven so powerful. But the people who preach evolution didn’t discover gravity or pasteurization or semiconductors. They just call themselves by the same name, ‘scientist’.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Because of the 20% rule; if you want to see the rest of this very good article; you will have to go to the site:

http://creation.com/is-evolution-pseudoscience

That article is complete nonsense...

Some pseudoscientific theories are based upon an authoritative text rather than observation or empirical investigation.

In almost every debate about origins, the first argument given by the evolutionists is an appeal to authority. The National Academy of Sciences flatly asserts, ‘While the mechanisms of evolution are still under investigation, scientists universally accept that the cosmos, our planet, and life evolved and continue to evolve.’2 [our emphasis]

We are supposed to respect these scientists because science has proven so powerful. But the people who preach evolution didn’t discover gravity or pasteurization or semiconductors. They just call themselves by the same name, ‘scientist’.

Yeah, it's a shame that no experiments have been done to investigate evolution, like these ones...

http://faculty.washington.edu/toby/pubs/Angert 2008 Evolution Selection on Ml Mc F3s.pdf
http://cssf.usc.edu/History/2006/Projects/S0405.pdf
http://cssf.usc.edu/History/2008/Projects/S0413.pdf
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Genom_p012.shtml
http://www.anbg.gov.au/cpbr/summer-scholarship/2005-projects/reekie-tristan-rust/index.html
http://www.evolbio.mpg.de/16534/group_experimentalevolution
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538455/

Oh, and let's not forget this... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

Some pseudoscientific theories explain what non-believers cannot even observe.

The web site of the US Department of Energy admits that no one has observed evolution happen in nature or the laboratory, but explains, ‘As for the fact that we haven’t made evolving life in the laboratory yet, I think that you’re expecting too much of your species. Let’s say, as a first guess, that it took blind Nature a billion years to make evolving life on earth. … How much faster do you want us to go? Even if you give us an advantage of a factor of a MILLION in speed, it would still take us a thousand years to catch up … ’.3

So it is totally unrealistic to expect to actually observe evolution, even under artificially accelerated conditions.

Richard Dawkins, Professor of Zoology, Oxford University, said, ‘Evolution has been observed. It’s just that it has not been observed while it’s happening.’4

This is a ridiculous argument.

We can't observe the continents moving either. All we can do is measure their position at one point in time, and then measure again at a later point and say that the continent moved a particular distance in that time. No one can actually go and say, "Yes, I can see australia moving to the north... There's one micrometer... two micrometers... three micrometers..." This is just an unreasonable criticism.

Some can’t be tested because they are consistent with every imaginable state of affairs in the empirical world.

The next is essentially the same:

There are many things which could conceivably be found which are entirely INconsistent with evolution. Finding fossil rabbits in the precambrian, for example.

… [or] are so vague and malleable that anything relevant can be shoehorned to fit the theory.

Evolutionists are always ready with a story to explain any observed trait of a species. Why do some birds, like peacocks and birds of paradise, have beautiful and elaborate tails? Evolutionists explain, ‘If a peacock can … find food and evade predators while dragging around a bigger and more conspicuous tail than his rivals do’ this demonstrates that he is particularly strong and capable, and thus makes a better mate. So evolution selects females that prefer males with the most elaborate tails.5

But the same article also says, ‘it’s hard to figure what possible advantage these eye-catching but burdensome appendages offer … in the grim business of survival.’ If peacocks had small, streamlined tails, evolutionist would surely be explaining that an efficient tail gives an advantage in the struggle for survival (in escaping from predators, for example).

Evolution is just as good at ‘predicting’ things that never happened as it is at predicting things that actually did happen. A theory that can explain anything, predicts nothing and proves nothing.

Sexual selection is quite well understood.

Male has traits controlled by genes, such as a long tail. Female, as a result of the genes she has, finds the male's trait attractive. Female mates with male, produces offspring. Offspring has the genes that produce trait in male, and also the genes that produce attraction to trait in female. Thus, if offspring is male, he will likely have the trait. If offspring is female, she will likely be attracted to that trait.

This is not a difficult concept.

Some theories have been empirically tested and rather than being confirmed they seem either to have been falsified or to require numerous ad hoc hypotheses to sustain them.

Evolutionists are forced to admit that the fossil evidence for their theory is slim to non-existent. For example, almost all major groups of creatures appear in the fossil record with no evolutionary past. ‘Something quite bizarre happened at the end of the Precambrian Era. Rocks from that time show evidence of an astounding variety of multicelled and hard-shelled life forms that seemingly appeared all at once. Scientists have long pondered the causes of this sudden appearance of new life forms, known as the Cambrian explosion.’6

So the evolutionists offer ad hoc hypotheses to explain the lack of evidence. One popular theory is ‘punctuated equilibrium’, which says that sometimes evolution happens so fast that there are too few ‘intermediate’ generations for any to have much chance of being fossilized.

We cannot see evolution happening today because it goes so slowly, and we cannot see evidence of it in the past because it happened too quickly!

The apparent explosion of life at the end of the Cambrian is a bad argument, for several reasons.

Firstly, it happened over a long time, several million years.

Secondly, fossilization is a rare event, and before the Cambrian explosion, life was generally soft and squidgy, and thus was much less likely to become fossilized. In other words, it was not a suddenly proliferation of life, it was a sudden proliferation of easily fossilized bodies - shells and the like.

Thirdly, intermediate stages of evolution between two species can happen very quickly. The video about clocks shows how quickly those intermediate stages are.

Some pseudoscientific theories rely on ancient myths and legends …

Okay, one that doesn’t particularly describe evolution, although evolutionary notions can be traced back to ancient pagan Greek philosophers such as Empedocles (c. 490–430 BC).7

That's right, this doesn't even come close to applying to evolution. (Neither do the others, but that doesn't stop these guys from trying...)

Some pseudoscientific theories are supported mainly by selective use of anecdotes, intuition, and examples of confirming instances.

Evolutionists try to find animals that fit into their ‘evolutionary tree’. In the classic ‘horse story’, they arrange a group of animals with similar body shapes in order by size and say it shows the evolution of the horse. But is this actual ancestry or just a contrived arrangement? Except for the supposed ‘first horse’, which it probably isn’t, far from being an example of evolution, the fossils show the wide variation within a created kind. As the biologist Heribert-Nilsson said, ‘The family tree of the horse is beautiful and continuous only in the textbooks’.8

Most of the creatures that would have had to exist if evolution were true have never been found, and some creatures have been found that don’t fit in the evolutionary tree at all, like the platypus. But evolutionists seize on a few creatures that sort of look like they might be halfway between a badger and a horse, or between a reptile and a bird. These rare apparent fits ‘prove’ evolution as much as occasional good guesses by a psychic ‘prove’ that he can read your mind.

Yeah, that is easily tested. Have a look at the ages of the fossils. If the more primitive ones are the oldest, and they get progressively more modern as they get younger, then this is not just an arbitrary arrangement, but an accurate representation of how the horse form evolved over time.

And why should scientists ever find something halfway between a badger and a horse? Horses did not evolve from badgers. Once again, the concept of a common ancestor seems to be either too complicated for creationists, or just ignored.

And as for the creature halfway between a reptile and a bird, they were called dinosaurs.

Some pseudoscientific theories confuse metaphysical claims with empirical claims.

Some evolutionists insist that evolution has no metaphysical implications. ‘Evolution does not have moral consequences, and does not make cosmic purpose impossible.’9

But others make dogmatic metaphysical applications. The American Academy for the Advancement of Science website includes a whole section on ‘Science, Ethics, and Religion’, with statements like, ‘Evolution is the creation myth of our age. By telling us our origins it shapes our views of what we are. … In calling it a myth I am not saying that it is a false story. I mean that it has great symbolic power, which is independent of its truth. Is the word religion appropriate to it? This depends on the sense in which we understand that very elastic word. I have chosen it deliberately.’10

Richard Dawkins said that ‘Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist’.11

Irrelevant. Science deals with the "how things work" part. It does not and has never claimed to deal with the "How we should use it" part. The closest it can come to that is by showing us that we are not just living on this world, but we are a part of it.

Some pseudoscientific theories … contradict known scientific laws and use ad hoc hypotheses to explain their belief.

A pro-evolution web site states, ‘Until the 19th century, it was commonly believed that life frequently arose from non-life under certain circumstances, a process known as “spontaneous generation”. This belief was due to the common observation that maggots or mould appeared to arise spontaneously when organic matter was left exposed. It was later discovered that under all these circumstances commonly observed, life only arises from life. … No life has ever been observed to arise from dead matter.’12

But evolutionists dismiss the fact that their theory requires the violation of this well-established law of science. ‘Did [Pasteur] prove that no life can ever come from non-living things? No, he didn’t, and this is because you cannot disprove something like that experimentally … ’.13

The fact that all the experimental evidence of the past 200 years contradicts their theory is irrelevant, because they speculate that it’spossible that there is some experiment that no one has yet tried where it might work.

Is this serious?

It was science that disproved the idea that life could come from non-life in this way. They got some meat, left one bit uncovered, and put the other in a container where it was covered by gauze so air could get at it, but nothing else. The maggots appeared on the uncovered meat, but not the covered meat. This proved that something other than the meat was required for the formation of maggots. The idea of "Spontaneous Generation" was NEVER a well-established law of science. (Once again, creationists using a strawman!)

Pseudoscientists claim to base their theories on empirical evidence, and they may even use some scientific methods, though often their understanding of a controlled experiment is inadequate.

Evolutionists claim that their theory is science, but the National Center for Science Education, which is an anti-creationist lobbying group, admits that there’s a problem: ‘The failure of many students to understand and accept the fact of evolution is often a consequence of the naïve views they hold of the nature of science … . According to this naïve view, the key to the unique success of science at producing true knowledge is “The Scientific Method”, which, on the standard account, involves formulating hypotheses, making predictions, and then going into the laboratory to perform the crucial experiment. … In contrast, the work of many evolutionary biologists involves the reconstruction of the past. The methods they use do not conform to the standard view of “The Scientific Method”.’14

So if you can’t actually prove your theory using the scientific method, which actually uses controlled experiment, as distinct from plausible story telling, simply declare that only ‘naïve’ people think that the scientific method has anything to do with ‘science’.

Yeah, like that Lenski experiment, which has been going on for close to 30 years now.

Oh, and he's perfectly happy to share the data with anyone who asks. He is also happy to share the actual bacteria used so people in properly equipped labs can run the experiments for themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia#Lenski_dialogue

But yeah, I'm sure he doesn't know what a control is.

 

[mnorian]

Creation.com - looks like an unbiased source. Afterall, this is in their statement of belief:

1. The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the Earth and the universe.
2. The various original life forms (kinds), including mankind, were made by direct creative acts of God. The living descendants of any of the original kinds (apart from man) may represent more than one species today, reflecting the genetic potential within the original kind. Only limited biological changes (including mutational deterioration) have occurred naturally within each kind since Creation.
3. The great Flood of Genesis was an actual historic event, worldwide (global) in its extent and effect.
4. The special creation of Adam (the first man) and Eve (the first woman), and their subsequent fall into sin, is the basis for the necessity of salvation for mankind.

Seems legit

Sounds good to me!

 

[bhsmte]

Sounds good to me!

Confirmation bias usually does, when getting to the truth, doesn't matter.

 

[mnorian]

Seems that we have got some people all in a tither.

 

[mark kennedy]

For those of you who like to argue against Irreducible Complexity, please post an emoticon of your expression if you are on a 747 and saw a part fall off while the plane is flying down the runway.

Take the engine away and you have a big box, same with the elements of the bacteria flagellum that God Behe started.

 

[Gene2memE]

Sounds good to me!

Assuming the truth at the outset and then seeking to confirm it suits you? Then you've got about 250 years of human progress to unwind, I'm afraid.

Starting with the answer and then developing the explanation is a characteristic of a psudeoscience. As you referenced the Skeptics Dictionary, I'll take you back there:

Some pseudoscientific claims are based on an authoritative text rather than observation or empirical investigation. Creation science devotees, for example, make observations only to confirm dogmas, not to discover the truth about the natural world. Such dogmas are static and lead to no new scientific discoveries or enhancement of our understanding of the natural world. The main purpose of creationism and intelligent design is to defend a set of religious beliefs.​

 

[MasonP]

Sounds good to me!

Of course it does because it was purposely designed to sound good to believers like you, be honest, they can tell you anything and you will believe it, ask yourself, what could they tell you that you would not believe? you already believe the most fantastically impossible things as it is a few more won't sink the boat?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

For those of you who like to argue against Irreducible Complexity, please post an emoticon of your expression if you are on a 747 and saw a part fall off while the plane is flying down the runway.

Unsurprisingly, this seems like having nothing whatsoever to do with "irreducible complexity".

Maybe you should first look up what it is about, before creating rather stupid "challenges" about it.

 

[AV1611VET]

Maybe you should first look up what it is about, before creating rather stupid "challenges" about it.

If I remember correctly, the argument against Irreducible Complexity says that Irreducible Complexity is a poor argument because you can remove a piece from a mousetrap and use it as a tie clip.

Well ... if that's so ... let's see the expression on the faces of those who argue against Irreducible Complexity if they see a piece of a 747 removed from a plane they are on.

I'll bet they'd scramble for the exits if the plane stopped.

 

[AV1611VET]

For those of you who think Irreducible Complexity is a joke, let's see the expression on your face when you order a pizza and it comes with a piece missing.