Intelligent Design - another failure

Light in the Darkness · Apr 24, 2004

mythbuster said:
...my motorcycle engine...

We know that's a designed object - it was designed by a human.

Now, would you care to provide an example of an "irreducibly complicated" object that isn't known to have been created by humans?

mythbuster · Apr 24, 2004

Light in the Darkness said:
We know that's a designed object - it was designed by a human.

Now, would you care to provide an example of an "irreducibly complicated" object that isn't known to have been created by humans?

But do you agree in principle that the human designed engine, or anything, is irreducibly complex?

pollo · Apr 24, 2004

I can make an argument that almost everything is irreducibly complex. See that rock? The cuts on it could never have been made by nature and must have been done by an intelligent designer.

Light in the Darkness · Apr 24, 2004

mythbuster said:
But do you agree in principle that the human designed engine, or anything, is irreducibly complex?

So complex that it absolutely must have been created by an intelligent designer?

No.

lucaspa · Apr 24, 2004

Western Deity said:
Oh pick me!! Eye do!! Eye do!!

Sorry, not that one. Climbing Mt. Improbable has the intermediates in the evolution of the eye. The vertebrate eye is not irreducible complex.

mythbuster · Apr 24, 2004

Light in Darkness,

My question is: can anything be irreducibly complex? Not: are some things really complicated? If you do not think so then there is no point in giving examples in nature

lucaspa · Apr 24, 2004

mythbuster said:
But do you agree in principle that the human designed engine, or anything, is irreducibly complex?

The engine isn't. I showed that. Even Behe's mousetrap isn't irreducibly complex. Kenneth Miller removed two pieces from it and it works perfectly fine -- as a tiepin!

Myth, Behe made a strawman out of natural selection. He thinks natural selection works only one way -- by gradually adding parts to an existing structure. But it turns out that there are 4 routes by which natural selection works. Virtually any structure, no matter how complex or supposedly irreducibly complex can be reached by one or a combination of those 4 routes. You can read about them here: http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/staff/dave/articles/jtb.pdf

I mentioned one of them with the mousetrap and tiepin: exaptation or cooption from another function. That is, the structure evolves step by step for one purpose but then also serves another purpose. Insect wings and bird wings are an example of that. If Behe would have read all of Origin of the Species the 6th edition, he would have found that and known he was wrong from the start. Instead, we now have to waste time correcting what Behe should have found out for himself.

lucaspa · Apr 24, 2004

mythbuster said:
Light in Darkness,

My question is: can anything be irreducibly complex? Not: are some things really complicated? If you do not think so then there is no point in giving examples in nature

That's not the only question. The question also is: can irreducibly complexity arise by chance? If it can, then you can't claim that only intelligence can give rise to IC. Since Behe admits that IC can arise by chance, the use of IC in ID is down the tubes.

mythbuster · Apr 24, 2004

mythbuster · Apr 24, 2004

pollo said:
I can make an argument that almost everything is irreducibly complex. See that rock? The cuts on it could never have been made by nature and must have been done by an intelligent designer.

A pile of leaves is complicated and so is a rock and so are the words on this screen. But not irreducibly so.

lucaspa · Apr 24, 2004

mythbuster said:
But I would like to ask the question. For you, what is the design limit of natural selection? Is there any level of engineering sophistication beyond which you would rule out RM&NS doing all the work?

There is none. Again, I would point you to http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/staff/dave/articles/jtb.pdf There is nothing that is not accessible by one or a combination of two or more routes of Darwinian selection. What's worse, as I pointed out above, simple IC is accessible by chance. Now, once you have a simple IC system, then even Behe's RM&NS can make it as complicated as you want.

Lets use my motorcycle engine (since you did not like my car) , fewer cylinders, same principle.

And lets say to function we need a crank, piston, rods, cylinder, bearings, valves and so on. Maybe 20-30 specific parts, or whatever minimum such that absent any one part and the motor will not work.

It is clear that the crank is worthless by itself, is very specified, and was assembled in a specific order. All the functioning parts together point to design.

Why is the crank worthless by itself? If this isn't powered by gasoline, you don't need valves, bearings, cylinder, or piston. All you need is the crank and the waterwheel. And you get an engine! It doesn't run a motorcycle, but it is an engine. Or rather, it could if you had a big tank of water to pour over the water wheel. Take out everything but the crank, modify it so it has pedals, and you have a bicycle!. It has a crank, but none of the other things. So the motorcycle engine isn't irreducibly complex.

mythbuster · Apr 24, 2004

lucaspa

So in other words, for you, there is nothing nature can not do, no level of sophistication that a creator, if one existed, that would impress you?

mythbuster · Apr 24, 2004

lucaspa said:
... All you need is the crank and the waterwheel. And you get an engine! It doesn't run a motorcycle, but it is an engine. Or rather, it could if you had a big tank of water to pour over the water wheel. Take out everything but the crank, modify it so it has pedals, and you have a bicycle!. It has a crank, but none of the other things. So the motorcycle engine isn't irreducibly complex.

Well it sure wouldn't be any fun riding around on a motorcycle powered with water running over a wheel! But a lot less expensive to operate. I did look at your recomended site but I had to disagree with the opening statement about Paley's watch argument being fallacious, and went downhill from there.

Peace be multiplied, peace in dB, 10 log (peace units) = dBp

pollo · Apr 24, 2004

SO were you going to say anything?

hordeprime · Apr 25, 2004

mythbuster said:
Light in Darkness,

My question is: can anything be irreducibly complex? Not: are some things really complicated? If you do not think so then there is no point in giving examples in nature

Sniff. Sniff. I smell someone avoiding the issue!

Jet Black · Apr 25, 2004

mythbuster said:
Well it sure wouldn't be any fun riding around on a motorcycle powered with water running over a wheel! But a lot less expensive to operate. I did look at your recomended site but I had to disagree with the opening statement about Paley's watch argument being fallacious, and went downhill from there.

Peace be multiplied, peace in dB, 10 log (peace units) = dBp

look the IC thing is pointless. If you looked at what I said, a motorbike could not exist without metalworking, but metalworking does not need a motorbike to exist. while a motorbike itself is IC, this doesn't mean there is no way for a motorbike to come about other than some caveman staring at the mud thinking "how am I going to make a motorbike"

nature is much like that. things get co-opted for other things.

lucaspa · Apr 25, 2004

mythbuster said:
Well it sure wouldn't be any fun riding around on a motorcycle powered with water running over a wheel! But a lot less expensive to operate. I did look at your recomended site but I had to disagree with the opening statement about Paley's watch argument being fallacious, and went downhill from there.

The argument is fallacious, because Paley doesn't look at the environment even tho he specifically says "watch on the heath".

Now, just how did it go "downhill"? Please be specific. Blanket denial isn't discussion. It looks like you are using the debating trick of synecdoche. I hope I'm wrong.

lucaspa · Apr 25, 2004

mythbuster said:
lucaspa

So in other words, for you, there is nothing nature can not do, no level of sophistication that a creator, if one existed, that would impress you?

Let's put it this way, there is nothing Darwinian selection can't do.

Let me explain that. Darwinian selection is the ONLY way to get design. The question is simply whether that process is done in the mind of an intelligent entity or whether it happens outside such a mind. Think about it. "Design" involves mentally formulating variations and then testing them against the environment of what you want the artifact to be and do. Those variations that don't fit the testing are discarded; the one or ones that best fit the environment are kept. Then new mental variations are made on that design and again tested against the environment of what the intelligent entity wants to do. At some point the design is deemed good enough to manufacture, at which point you have an artifact. Then the artifact is tested in reality. Flaws are found, and the mental Darwinian process starts all over again.

Look at any human artifact, including your motorcycle, and you will see that this is so. Motorcycles come from putting an internal combustion engine on a bicycle. Both have a long design evolutionary history. Someone pointed out to you the design evolution of the internal combustion engine. The design history of the bicycle can be found easily on the web. Even once you have the motorcycle, its design has evolved as you look at the early motorcycles and compare them to the ones today.

What you have to convince me is not that there are manufactured artifacts (what you mistakenly call designs) out there, but that the designs in plants and animals cannot possibly have arisen by Darwinian selection. That you can't do. Partly because the designs in plants and animals are so often such jury-rigged poor ones that even human intelligence could have done them better.

BTW, realize that humans use Darwinian selection when the design problem is too tough for them. So Darwinian selection is much smarter than we are.

lucaspa · Apr 25, 2004

mythbuster said:
A pile of leaves is complicated and so is a rock and so are the words on this screen. But not irreducibly so.

Myth, remember Behe states that irreducibly complex systems do not require an intelligence:

"Let me inject a note of caution: some systems require several pieces but not ones that need to be closely matched. For example, suppose you were walking in the woods and came across an old log, where the wind had blown a tree branch onto it, and the branch was perpendicular to the log. Here you have an irreducibly complex system -- a lever and a fulcrum. If there were a boulder nearby, you possibly could use the lever and fulcrum to move it. So some systems require several parts but not closely matched ones." Michael Behe, Intelligent design theory as a tool for analyzing biochemical systems in Mere Creation, Science, Faith, and Intelligent Design edited by William A. Dembski, 1998, page 179

Now, tell us how we can recognize that a complex, well-matched IC system did not arise thru a combination of chance -- to give you the not well matched IC system to begin with -- and Darwinian selection -- to make the parts well-matched and add complexity?

Anytime.

Light in the Darkness · Apr 25, 2004

mythbuster said:
Light in Darkness,

My question is: can anything be irreducibly complex? Not: are some things really complicated? If you do not think so then there is no point in giving examples in nature

You seem to be under the impression that I misunderstood your question. I did not. You asked whether I think that a motorcycle engine (or anything) is irreducibly complex.

I do not think that the motorcycle engine is, and I cannot say that I currently think that anything else is irreducibly complex. However, I would love to hear your natural examples.

Intelligent Design - another failure

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