Intelligent design denied

[ExodusMe]

The point is that it is rather trivial to expand a system step by step - each step being a functional one, and then go the other way: removing parts that might be redundant or even fusing parts together. The total function of the system remains virtually unchanged, but due to removal of redundancy and / or fusing together of things, you can easily end up with an "irreducibly complex" system. While at no point in its entire history, would that have been a problem to get to the end result, one step at a time.

To draw a (not so perfect) analogy with software engineering... we'ld call that the process of "refactoring".

As time goes on, we develop and develop and develop more and more features. There is a serious build up of code left and right. At some point, you end up with redundant code or simply code that isn't that elegant / efficient / performant.

At that point, we engage in code reviews and the process of refactoring. We fuse codes, build in extra layers of abstraction, remove redundant code, etc. The end result does the exact same thing, but with only half the amount of code.

It's not a perfect analogy, I know.

The point is: it's trivial to imagine a build of parts which then gets "deconstructed" into a more efficient thing with LESS parts which does the exact same thing. After this "deconstruction" / "refactoring", you end up with a system where the "irreducible complexity" is FAR higher then before it.

You don't write code for Minecraft do you?
Enlightened 'Minecraft' Character Denies Existence Of Game Designer

 

[zippy2006]

The point is: it's trivial to imagine a build of parts which then gets "deconstructed" into a more efficient thing with LESS parts which does the exact same thing. After this "deconstruction" / "refactoring", you end up with a system where the "irreducible complexity" is FAR higher then before it.

What do you mean by saying the irreducible complexity "is FAR higher than before"? For Behe, a function is either irreducibly complex or it's not. There's no in between. Therefore I will interpret you as saying that a degraded/deconstructed/refactored system will have more instances of irreducible complexity than the same system before it degraded.

But why think there would be more instances? In fact I think there would be no more instances. Let system A be a "bloated" system that has not yet degraded. Let system B be the result of system A after degradation. It is clear that the functions of system B are a subset of the functions of system A. Since all of the functions of system A were produced by evolution, none of them can be irreducibly complex (Behe's basic argument about irreducible complexity provides this conclusion). Since system B is a subset of system A, no functions in system B can be irreducibly complex. Therefore there can be no more instances of irreducible complexity in system B than there were in system A. Even if we admitted instances of irreducible complexity in system A, it still follows that system B can have no more instances than system A had.

Both you and Nihilist are accepting a premise that says system B would have more instances of irreducible complexity than system A. Since you both admit no new functions in system B, you must therefore hold that a function which existed in system A became irreducibly complex in system B. But this evidences a misunderstanding of Behe's argument. For Behe, something is irreducibly complex or it is not. If a function is irreducibly complex, then it is irreducibly complex in every system. If it is not, then it is not in every system. It is not possible for a change in context to effect a change in the irreducible complexity of a function.

 

[devolved]

How would the heart not be replicated in reproduction? This sounds like some Ray Comfort-esque "How did the first dog evolve eyes?" question. Evolution is changes in proportion over successive generations. If you want to ask an interesting question, it should be about the change from non-life to life or else from single-celled life to multi-celled life.

I really think that you should re-read what I've posted more carefully. I'm not sure how you got that out of my post.

My point was a counterpoint to software development analogy and code refactoring. It's a very poor analogy to begin with, because it assumes that there's code there to be refactored into something else, but we are talking about no code at all (to achieve certain functionality), and then a path to achieving this code... not only for localized functions, but also for interdependent functions of the body of the organism.

For example, do you know how the cells in our body know how to stop dividing?

So the process of DNA replication was reinforced and refined for billions of years in single-celled organisms before animals came about.

It's sort of like saying that if you practice playing basketball alone... that you will do well when you are dropped in a context of a team play. You likely will not. It's not a situation that you were preparing for.

Cell division of the mutlicellural organism, especially during the ebrio growth stages is quite different from any single-cell division you get. There's a great deal of chemical communication between cells that communicates to cells which part of the code to interpret and when to start and stop dividing.

. That's why there's instructions in your big toenail for how to make your eyeball.

Actually, there is no longer a core in cornified cells, which your big nail would be. So it's unlikely that you'll find instructions for building your eyes there, but I know what you are trying to say...

If we were specially created and share no common ancestor with any other animal, it would be a bizarre act of intelligent design to include this feature.

It's not bizarre at all when you consider how muti-cellular organisms replicate.

You begin with a few cells, which then divide and propagate the "blueprint" with each division, and each subsequently divided cell picks up and decodes only a part of DNA to build appropriate functional and morphological structure. It's a recursive process.

Contrary, it would be quite odd that after billions of years of single-cell function and morphology you get ever-accelerating development of unprecedented interdependent functional complexity, which takes less and less successive generations to achieve. How can that be, if the main driving factor is re-shuffling of existing information?

 

[DogmaHunter]

The problem with this approach and the software refactoring analogy is that it's not quite the way organic matter works.

I said it wasn't a perfect analogy.
The only point I was making is that it is indeed trivial to imagine a build up of parts over time, where each part is functional, after which internal changes make the entire system more efficient / less redundant, while the "irreducible complexity" factor goes way up...

Step by step progressions is exactly what evolution does.

The point about "irreducible complexity" is not merely that you can trow out a function and everything halts, but that in order for a new function to exist, it has to be "factored into" the entire system without causing a breakdown.

I disagree. Or, I'm misunderstanding what you are saying.

Simply put, what I understand by "irreducible complexity" is when you have a system that can be tore down to its bare minimum components, you end up with for example 3 parts: A, B and C. Any one of these parts' workings would depend on the other 2 parts. The idea is that if you remove one of the remaining parts - the system no longer works.

The point is, that there are pathways to get to such a system by incremental steps.

Another thing that Behe ignores is that the A-B-C system must not have always had the same function and that especially goes for each individual part.

The error is the assumption that the system as it is now, must have always been like that.

Hence, when you are talking about refactoring, you are actually arguing for some mechanism of intelligence that would supervise that refactoring.

No. The point I was making, is that there are multiple ways to accomplish the same thing, along with the idea that it really isn't hard or impossible to have incremental build ups of complexity resulting in redundancy or inefficiency, followed by an incremental teardown of removal of redundancy or inefficiency. And the end result is a far more elegant system, which (according to Behe's ideas) would have a HIGHER irreducible complexity then before.

The "intelligence" here, is covered by natural selection.

It's a real problem for evolution as a theory...

It actually isn't. Behe and his cohorts just like to pretend that it is.

 

[DogmaHunter]

What do you mean by saying the irreducible complexity "is FAR higher than before"?

In analogy to my software....

First you have a project consisting of 300k lines of code.
After you are done cleaning it up, only 150k lines remain.

But the end result does the exact same thing.

You can "reduce" the complexity of the 300k line project a lot more then you can the 150k line project.

For Behe, a function is either irreducibly complex or it's not. There's no in between. Therefore I will interpret you as saying that a degraded/deconstructed/refactored system will have more instances of irreducible complexity than the same system before it degraded.

But why think there would be more instances? In fact I think there would be no more instances. Let system A be a "bloated" system that has not yet degraded. Let system B be the result of system A after degradation. It is clear that the functions of system B are a subset of the functions of system A. Since all of the functions of system A were produced by evolution, none of them can be irreducibly complex (Behe's basic argument about irreducible complexity provides this conclusion). Since system B is a subset of system A, no functions in system B can be irreducibly complex. Therefore there can be no more instances of irreducible complexity in system B than there were in system A. Even if we admitted instances of irreducible complexity in system A, it still follows that system B can have no more instances than system A had.

Both you and Nihilist are accepting a premise that says system B would have more instances of irreducible complexity than system A. Since you both admit no new functions in system B, you must therefore hold that a function which existed in system A became irreducibly complex in system B. But this evidences a misunderstanding of Behe's argument. For Behe, something is irreducibly complex or it is not. If a function is irreducibly complex, then it is irreducibly complex in every system. If it is not, then it is not in every system. It is not possible for a change in context to effect a change in the irreducible complexity of a function.

You completely missed the point I was making.

That point being, that there ARE pathways by which to build up a system by incremental steps after which internal incremental changes would remove redundant or inneficient parts which would end up with a schematic that if you indeed remove one part, the whole thing breaks down.

In short: "irreducible complexity" is a nonsense idea - especially when talking about systems that actually change by very small incremental steps over time. It all sounds very sciency and intelligent - but it simply isn't real.

 

[zippy2006]

In analogy to my software....

First you have a project consisting of 300k lines of code.
After you are done cleaning it up, only 150k lines remain.

But the end result does the exact same thing.

You can "reduce" the complexity of the 300k line project a lot more then you can the 150k line project.

Reducing the complexity of a code project does not mean you are increasing the instances of irreducible complexity. Again, you are simply failing to understand what is meant by irreducible complexity, and you did not address my argument whatsoever.

You completely missed the point I was making.

What part of my argument is incorrect?

That point being, that there ARE pathways by which to build up a system by incremental steps after which internal incremental changes would remove redundant or inneficient parts which would end up with a schematic that if you indeed remove one part, the whole thing breaks down.

But irreducible complexity is not the opposite of redundancy or superfluity. A code refactoring decreases redundancy and superfluity, but it does not create irreducible complexity (and my argument proves this). Just because a function is unique within a system does not mean that it is irreducibly complex. For Behe, uniqueness can be accounted for by evolution while irreducible complexity cannot. Futher, redundancy does not exclude irreducible complexity. Two irreducibly complex functions could perform the same role, and a function can be irreducibly complex even if there are redundant parts. There is no reason to think that an efficient organism includes more irreducible complexity than an inefficient organism.

Interestingly enough, I think your analogy would work backwards. I think code refactoring would decrease the instances of irreducible complexity. This is because there is a negative correlation between multi-purpose functions and irreducible complexity, and refactoring increases multi-purpose functions. For example, a common instance of refactoring would be combining two similar functions which perform two different jobs into one function that performs both jobs. But having a single part that performs multiple functions means that the likelihood of it being evolved increases. A characteristic of irreducibly complex systems is single-purpose functions. This is why most critiques of Behe try to provide alternative purposes for the parts he believes constitute an irreducible complexity.

In short: "irreducible complexity" is a nonsense idea - especially when talking about systems that actually change by very small incremental steps over time. It all sounds very sciency and intelligent - but it simply isn't real.

1. If it is a nonsense idea, then you must show that it is. Simply asserting that it is nonsense is not an argument.
2. It is two different things to say that degradation contradicts Behe's argument and that irreducible complexity is a nonsense idea. Which is it? If it is nonsense then it is vacuous to say that something contradicts it.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

That's because you're particularly bad at admitting your mistakes.

You know, I was thinking about responding until I came across this gem.

In our only meaningful conversation to date, I was arguing that Gödel's theorem disproves the existence of God as he is generally defined and you were so desperate to reject my reasoning that you denied the law of excluded middle. You never presented a valid objection. You skimmed my posts toward the end and in fact you didn't even see when I discovered and explained why my reasoning was wrong. So I not only shared that, but then had to go and point you back to the post because you were still arguing with me and it was clear that you had missed it.

I won't be clicking through the "show ignored" button for a while here.

Just a heads up: soon I'll be gone for about a week.

Thanks, see you next year.

 

[ExodusMe]

@Nihilist Virus where is the discussion you were having regarding godels theorem? Thanks

 

[DogmaHunter]

Reducing the complexity of a code project does not mean you are increasing the instances of irreducible complexity. Again, you are simply failing to understand what is meant by irreducible complexity, and you did not address my argument whatsoever.

I know what IRC is. Forget the analogy.

The point is that it's perfectly possible to build up a system in incremental steps of changes in the form of adding parts, changing existing parts and removing parts and ending up with a system where removing a single part will break the entire thing. Especially if we also keep in mind that the evolving system doesn't have a predetermined goal/function, meaning that the function of the system (or the individual parts) can change as well.

This has been demonstrated time and again.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

@Nihilist Virus where is the discussion you were having regarding godels theorem? Thanks

God, Gödel, and Omniscience

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I really think that you should re-read what I've posted more carefully. I'm not sure how you got that out of my post.

My point was a counterpoint to software development analogy and code refactoring. It's a very poor analogy to begin with, because it assumes that there's code there to be refactored into something else, but we are talking about no code at all (to achieve certain functionality), and then a path to achieving this code... not only for localized functions, but also for interdependent functions of the body of the organism.

So do you have a problem with the analogy or with evolution? Or both?

For example, do you know how the cells in our body know how to stop dividing?

Learned it once... if high school biology is accurate in these matters at all. Forgot it though.

It's sort of like saying that if you practice playing basketball alone... that you will do well when you are dropped in a context of a team play. You likely will not. It's not a situation that you were preparing for.

Evolution from single cell to multiple cells is more analogous to solo practice, then practice with a partner, and so on. Why, in a discussion about evolution, would you make an analogy involving a huge leap instead of an analogy involving little steps?

Cell division of the mutlicellural organism, especially during the ebrio growth stages is quite different from any single-cell division you get. There's a great deal of chemical communication between cells that communicates to cells which part of the code to interpret and when to start and stop dividing.

Therefore what? That system could not have evolved?

Actually, there is no longer a core in cornified cells, which your big nail would be. So it's unlikely that you'll find instructions for building your eyes there, but I know what you are trying to say...

Didn't know that. But hey, I could have been referring to the underside of the nail where it is alive.

It's not bizarre at all when you consider how muti-cellular organisms replicate.

You begin with a few cells, which then divide and propagate the "blueprint" with each division, and each subsequently divided cell picks up and decodes only a part of DNA to build appropriate functional and morphological structure. It's a recursive process.

And once a clump of cells has partitioned itself, why not switch off the irrelevant genes?

Contrary, it would be quite odd that after billions of years of single-cell function and morphology you get ever-accelerating development of unprecedented interdependent functional complexity, which takes less and less successive generations to achieve. How can that be, if the main driving factor is re-shuffling of existing information?

Why is it odd that this level of sophistication took over a billion years? You think we could never get here naturally?

 

[zippy2006]

The point is that it's perfectly possible to build up a system in incremental steps of changes in the form of adding parts, changing existing parts and removing parts and ending up with a system where removing a single part will break the entire thing.

But irreducible complexity is not the opposite of redundancy or superfluity. A code refactoring decreases redundancy and superfluity, but it does not create irreducible complexity (and my argument proves this). Just because a function is unique within a system does not mean that it is irreducibly complex. For Behe, uniqueness can be accounted for by evolution while irreducible complexity cannot. Futher, redundancy does not exclude irreducible complexity. Two irreducibly complex functions could perform the same role, and a function can be irreducibly complex even if there are redundant parts. There is no reason to think that an efficient organism includes more irreducible complexity than an inefficient organism.

(Just because a system exists where removing a single part will break the whole thing, does not mean that the system is irreducibly complex.)

 

[zippy2006]

You know, I was thinking about responding until I came across this gem.

You throw punches and whine when you're poked with a toothpick. I've shown your position here to be false, and it is clear for everyone to see. It doesn't matter to me whether you reply.

 

[Follower3]

Absolutely it does, I don't see how anyone can look at life, or DNA, or a flagellum, and think it just happened to form by itself. The same way a ford truck would not just make it self out in the middle of the desert simply because you are pouring metal parts together. Even if you end up with a motor, a suspension with wheels, a battery, these things would not necessarily be connected together properly, (and if they were life forms they would not last very long)

The main argument atheists have against this is, then how did God get created from nothing?
Not to mention don't you need RNA to make RNA ? I think that may have converted a few atheists to at least agnostic right there.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Absolutely it does, I don't see how anyone can look at life, or DNA, or a flagellum, and think it just happened to form by itself. The same way a ford truck would not just make it self out in the middle of the desert simply because you are pouring metal parts together. Even if you end up with a motor, a suspension with wheels, a battery, these things would not necessarily be connected together properly, (and if they were life forms they would not last very long)

The main argument atheists have against this is, then how did God get created from nothing?
Not to mention don't you need RNA to make RNA ? I think that may have converted a few atheists to at least agnostic right there.

Did you read the OP or did you just read the title?

 

[Follower3]

Did you read the OP or did you just read the title?

I read op, and watched the clip, or at least the clip from 20

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I read op, and watched the clip, or at least the clip from 20

Thanks... do you have comments on it or are you here to talk about intelligent design in a broader scope?

 

[PhantomGaze]

I don't think Behe is saying what you think he is saying. You seem to think he was saying that a precursor could evolve without design, then lose parts to become irreducibly complex. It sounds to me however that he was saying a beneficial mutation could occur when parts and complexity are lost from a system that itself came through the original process of design. In this situation he's assuming the precursor did not come about "naturally".

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I don't think Behe is saying what you think he is saying. You seem to think he was saying that a precursor could evolve without design, then lose parts to become irreducibly complex. It sounds to me however that he was saying a beneficial mutation could occur when parts and complexity are lost from a system that itself came through the original process of design. In this situation he's assuming the precursor did not come about "naturally".

I don't see how anything you said here is accurate.