Cronic said:
So if a tree trunk falls in the right way to bridge a gap it was actually just put there by an inteligent designer?
I as a scientist would examine the area around the bridge and gap. Since I know of some naturalistic forces such as wind that could carry the potential of downing a said tree, then in order to say that the bridge may have been put there by intelligent causation, I would have to look to the splintering in the bend/break. If the bend/break in the tree possessed random, jagged splintering, then it was most likely the result of a natural force. Upon further examination in the lab, by testing the splintered parts I would most likely then check for any kind of disease, which would then make the cause both intelligent causation (pestilence), and blind random force (wind, rain). Still another possibility may be that you find fine-grained wood shavings in piles under the bend/break in evenly distributed mound piles. This would lend great credibility to intelligent agency as the cause behind creating a bridge-over-gap function.
You need to have a tree in the right distance from the gap. A wind blowing in the right direction. The trunk must be long enough. And the force of the impact must be just right so the tree doesn't split in two. Therefore a tree falling to form a bridge has an inteligent designer. Isn't that what ID says? If you take out one part of the system the rest will colapse therefore aliensdidit.
In your example however, the tree, is an example of an irreducibly complex biological metabolic machine, which would become evident as you investigate and unlock the visiblility at the molecular level, quite possibly being defined as the biochemical systems' 'irreducible core', that being the genetic code and subsequent machinery. To sum this up, intelligent causation may have been behind the bridge function, or it may not, depending on the 'empirical evidence' which I gave examples of, but not limited to those. Ultimately however, the bridge is intelligently designed because I can examine the tree and find ordered cells which contain a coded sequence that stores the information which produces all of the characteristics in biological organisms. Throughout all of observable history (including all devices that allow observation into things that are not readily visible) information in the form of a specified sequence that expresses meaningful chracteristics, has only been known by humans to be created or produced into existence through intelligent causation, not any unguided process or natural law.
Isn't the tree trunk bridge an irreducibly complex system?
Yes. A code requires intelligent causation. The chemical genetic code of each subsequent organism would likewise require such an event in the past.
Genetic Code- The sequence (order) of DNA bases in a gene, which make up the instructions for a particular characteristic.
A coded sequence of chemical instructions that provide informational meaning.
