Irreducible Complexity

[Jimlarmore]

One of the foremost postulates of evolution is that the changes we see in the biota have occurred naturally and over a long long period of time. For this to happen biochemically we would see that the DNA would change so new and different proteins could be made that would correspond to the new parts or organs that were being made. The problem is that DNA can only exist if there is a minimum of 75 different pre-existing proteins to produce it. Proteins can only exist if DNA and RNA exist so each needs the other to exist. Sounds like the chicken or the egg thing don't you think? Apparently the only logical explanation is that the necessary components were all there to start with at the beginning, IOW creation. This describes IC or irreducible complexity.

Irreducible complexity says all of the mechanisms of a sytem had to be there at the onset for it to function. A few decades ago a biochemist named Micheal Behe brought this idea to the table and it's been cussed and discussed since then. To be honest I think IC has a lot of credibility and this is why. Taken wholistically, the biota is full of irreducible systems especially in the cell.
For instance let's just take a very cursory look at cell division i.e. Mitosis.

Mitosis is a term to denote cell division. Nearly all plant and animal cells divide and when they do they go thru a very specific and precise set of phases that could not have just developed over a long period of time. Mitosis or Meosis is loaded with IC.

See here for a better explanation of Mitosis:

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761553491/Mitosis.html

At any one of these phases of cell division if the cell stopped there to wait for more proteins to be evolved to complete the rest of the division it would die. We are just speaking of the division itself not all of the enzymes and reactions that lead up to the actual progression of cell division.

Cell division would be necessary for the first cell to survive if that is what happened.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[pgp_protector]

 

[Mallon]

Have you ever read the work of those who have posited plausible evolutionary scenarios for DNA, Jim? If so, what do you think of their work?

 

[Jimlarmore]

Have you ever read the work of those who have posited plausible evolutionary scenarios for DNA, Jim? If so, what do you think of their work?

Some of it is pretty good work. Actually, most of it is good work. The problem is that when you start with a presume philosophy you work with essentially a closed mind. So a lot of the evidence gets interpreted on a biased slant towards macro-evolution being a fact instead of an unproven theory. The reports get slanted and some of the evidence that shows contradictory issues gets minimalized or discounted all together. You can always find a way to make something look bad or invalid if you look long enough.

For instance since we are talking about it the chirality of amino acids really point out that fortuitous origins are to say the least suspect. However, what they do to support the macro-evolutionary model is come up with astronomical ideas or other nonsence.

http://aca.mq.edu.au/Research/Research_Chirality.htm

What they don't realize is that even if homochirality was introduced by a bombardment natural reactions that produce amino acids still produce both so for the reducing enviroment of pre-biotic earth to favor the first cell it also had to favor conditons for both forms of amino acids.

Of course this has nothing to do with nucleotides which is another bag of worms for the abiogenecists.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Mallon]

Some of it is pretty good work. Actually, most of it is good work. The problem is that when you start with a presume philosophy you work with essentially a closed mind.

What philosophy are you referring to, Jim?

 

[Jimlarmore]

What philosophy are you referring to, Jim?

That macro-evolution is a fact instead of a theory.

God bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Mallon]

That macro-evolution is a fact instead of a theory.

How do you define macro-evolution?

 

[Isambard]

That macro-evolution is a fact instead of a theory.

God bless
Jim Larmore

What is the magic number of "micro-evolutions" that seperates it from macro-evolution?

 

[Jimlarmore]

How do you define macro-evolution?

Changes taxonomically up to and including kindom. After all evolutionist claim all life , plant and animal , started from a single cell.

God bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Jimlarmore]

What is the magic number of "micro-evolutions" that seperates it from macro-evolution?

Good question. I really don't know. From my study in creation research so far the ones who are really working on this don't like to accept anything above the genus line taxonomically. So really when the Bible says each kind stays with it's kind that is about as far as they want to go with it. Now , does the evidence show something different from that? In some circles we would have to say yes while in others clearly no. Interpretation of the evidence is key. For instance up until 1938 the coelacanth was considered to be extinct but one was caught by a fisherman that year and it looks just like the ones they say were around 70,000,000 years ago in the fossil record.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

I'm outta here for the weekend guys. Have a great weekend and great Sabbath rest. See ya monday

 

[Mallon]

Changes taxonomically up to and including kindom. After all evolutionist claim all life , plant and animal , started from a single cell.

Starting with what, though? At which taxonomic level does macroevolution no longer apply?

 

[pgp_protector]

Changes taxonomically up to and including kindom. After all evolutionist claim all life , plant and animal , started from a single cell.

God bless
Jim Larmore

I don't think anyone claims that all life evolved from 1 cell.

At least not in the last dozen or 2 years.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEED9143DF937A25752C0A96E948260
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/02/0617evoltion.html

(After a 5 second google search)

 

[birdan]

Behe's entire argument of Intelligent Design rests on the argument of irreducible complexity (IC). Behe describes a bio-chemical 'system' to be IC if it is "a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning".

Further, and to his argument for ID, he states that these interacting parts have no function on their own, and thus would not be 'selected' via evolution. Consequently, the IC system would have to evolve in toto, and the probability of such a complete system coming into existence via natural selection would be so small as to be effectively zero. Ergo, the only way such a system can exist is via the intervention of a designer.

This hypothesis is indeed both testable and predictive. For testability, one has to observe none of the component pieces of an IC system anywhere else. For all the given examples of IC systems (eyes, bacteria flagellum, bombadier beetles, blood clotting protein cascade, kreb's cycle, etc.), the test has failed. 'Sub-systems' for all the above are observed elsewhere in nature, though their function is completely different from the IC system in question. For example, in the bacteria flagellum, a good portion of the structure is found, intact, in the Type III Secretory System. The TTSS is used by some pathogenic bacteria to inject protein toxins into host cells. Quite a different function from the molecular motor base of the flagellum, but there it is. Additional proteins involved in the flagellum are also found elsewhere, and thus the hypothesis of IC is proved false:
Component pieces of an IC system do indeed arise independently in organisms via evolution. Which means the examples put forward are not irreducibly complex, by definition. And therefore natural selection 'explains' the examples and there is no need for a designer.

Conversely, IC predicts that since components parts of an IC system are only involved with the IC system, they should not be able to be found outside the IC system. The above paragraph shows this to be false, and thus IC fails as a hypothesis via predictability.

Similar situations have been presented for every system put forward by Behe as an IC system. The fatal flaw in the hypothesis is the assumption that the components of the IC system can have no other function than that performed within the IC system. The crystallin protein in the lens of the human eye, used to help focus light, starts out embryonically as a liver protein!

Additionally, scientists have also shown there are straightforward paths of evolution for these IC systems, and thus ID is not the only way these systems could arise, as stated by Behe.

Additionally, scientists have pointed out other similar systems to Behe's examples which perform similar functions, but are comprised of simpler components, thus negating the functional irreducibly complex aspects of his examples.

 

[juvenissun]

I don't think anyone claims that all life evolved from 1 cell.

At least not in the last dozen or 2 years.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEED9143DF937A25752C0A96E948260
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/02/0617evoltion.html

(After a 5 second google search)

Would that become more incredible?

To assemble one cell is hard enough. Are you suggesting different cells were assembled within the same period of time?

 

[juvenissun]

What is the magic number of "micro-evolutions" that seperates it from macro-evolution?

Macro- is visible by naked eye. Whatever number it takes.
I would say the micro- is something on a scale that could not be properly observed by an optical microscope (approx. 1000X )

Right?

 

[Assyrian]

Macro- is visible by naked eye. Whatever number it takes.
I would say the micro- is something on a scale that could not be properly observed by an optical microscope (approx. 1000X )

Right?

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[Assyrian]

 

[juvenissun]

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People before A.D. 1500 saw all these, but they did not have the idea of evolution until the study of paleontology showed up.

Now we have to study micro-evolution. I think the interpretation part of paleontology is going to collapse.

 

[Assyrian]

It doesn't matter when people saw these changes, by your definition they are macroevolution.

 

[juvenissun]

It doesn't matter when people saw these changes, by your definition they are macroevolution.

Fine. The emphasis is on the Macro, not on the evolution.