Hello all evolutionists out there. Could someone please tell me in as few words as possible, what irreducible complexity is, and why you believe it to be wrong.
thanks,
J.M.N.W.
thanks,
J.M.N.W.
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irreducible complexity
- Thread starter 3Amig(o)s
- Start date
FSTDT
Yahweh
Irreducible complexity is supposed to be the idea that all the components in a particular biological function must work together perfectly, and that the removal of any component would make that biological function cease to function. A non-biological example might be a three-legged stool, where the removal of any of the legs or the seat could cause the whole structure to collapse (although, strictly speaking, Behe has conceded that this is not an IC system as a block of wood sitting on the floor serves the function of a raised seat).3Amig(o)s said:
The problem with irreducible complexity is that no one actually cares whether the removal of a part from a biological structure will cause it to cease functioning altogether, the real question should be whether the biological functions can come together from successive changes in the first place. Irreducibly complex systems can evolve, usually because a non-irreducible system loses its redundant parts (comparable to the way that an arch starts out as a reducibly complex system with scaffolding, but as soon as the scaffolding is removed the arch system becomes IC - we know this because the removal of the keystone or any other stone would cause all the other pieces of the arch to fall into itself).
A few examples of this happening can be found at How can evolution cause irreducibly complex systems:
So, its not really a problem that IC systems exist, because it has already been shown that these systems can evolve in a fairly straightforward manner. The eye, beetles, sexual production, venus fly traps, flagella, etc. all have served as IC systems, but the formation of these systems can be shown in a series of successive steps.
Irreducible complexity is a misnomer in a sense, because IC says that the removal of any part from a biological structure causes that structure to loose its function - if that is the accepted definition, then plenty of IC systems exist. However, if irreducible complexity is understood in the sense that there are no successive steps that lead up to formation of any particular biological structure or function, then this is simply untrue, and there is no such thing as this kind of IC system in biology.
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FSTDT said:
Not exactly. Almost got it right. IC doesn't say 'all the components', but rather, certain 'critical characteristics' within a functioning system. An IC system would be described as having more than one critical characteristic, where if any of those critical characteristics were to not be present, then the whole system would not function. It is being able to identify those 'critical characteristics' that would lend credibility to design. For example, a car's function is for travel. If you remove one spark plug wire in the car, or the wiper blades do not work, the car will still function and travel. As you see, there are certain characteristics to a system that when absent, will not take away function to that system. Now take out the starter, or the fuel pump. The car will not function--travel. The starter and the fuel pump would be the 'critical characteristics' that when if either one is eliminated, would cause the system to be non-functional. You may also say that the spark plugs may have a further irreducible core, that which would indicate as evidence for design.
In other words, you don't care about the other side.
That's a good question. How about you and all of the other evolutionists try and figure that one out. Since natural selection has never been shown to produce novel 'irreducibly complex' biochemical systems, your whole arguments are based on the same metaphysics as the ID crowd. You can think things up that fit your paradigm, but it's all would-be, could-be, 'just so' stories.
Scaffolding in your example may be 'irreducibly complex', tainting your whole argument. If you take away the redundant parts to the scaffolding, once you get to a point, the scaffolding will no longer function as scaffolding, and the arch will tumble down if all the stones are not in place.
On paper, you sound real good.
Not just 'any part', but 'critical characteristics' of a given system. There are instances, where the removal of one part will not eliminate function, however, an irreducibly complex system will have a number of 'critical characteristics', where the removal of any one of those specific parts will render the system nonfunctional.
Appeal to authority and wishful thinking. If there is more than one 'critical characteristic' to a system, then each of your 'critical characteristics' will have to evolve simultaneously to get that system to function. Good luck, god will not help you on that one.
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Grengor said:
systems with multiple 'critical characteristics' will be tough to evolve. You think natural selection is magic. More power to you.
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TheIntelligentDesigner said:
What say you to the possibility that a caricteristic or piece of a system was at one time only adventagious, but has now evolved to a point where it is nessisary?
Does that sound like magic?
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Politics rears its ugly head. Id expect no less from an ID advocate. After all, taking sides is required; winning a (contrived) cultural war is the goal.TheIntelligentDesigner said:
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FSTDT
Yahweh
*spits out words put into my mouth*TheIntelligentDesigner said:
You've missed my point, which was that no one doubts that there are some systems which if some part were removed then the entire system would collapse - but the mere existence of those systems isnt the crux of the IC argument. The point of the IC argument has nothing to do with the fact that with whether the parts in place right now could be successfully removed, but whether the parts could have been put into place by natural selection (this is precisely why I appended my comment with "the real question should be whether the biological functions can come together from successive changes in the first place").
I had a quote by Behe which reiterated the same point I made originally almost verbatim, but unfortunately every google search I've tried to locate it turns up millions of pages that tell me everything I want to know about Behe except for the quote I'm looking for (I'm sure you've had this happen to you plenty of times). However, what I've said is part of the accepted ID literature that I'm aware of, namely the consensus that the argument for IC is more than just the existence of systems where any removed parts would destroy the system, but that it has to be shown that natural selection cannot account for those parts being put into place at all.
This vacuous to the extreme of being laughable. Exactly what metaphysics are you talking about is anyone guess (although my informed guess tells me that you could be referring to metaphysical claims that precisely no one holds rather than attacking the claims that evolution actually makes).
In fact, your next comment betrays one origin of irreducible complexity, namely the reduction of redundant parts to its critical components can create an IC system. You mentioned that this can be done with scaffolding, so here is an example of how the same reduction of parts to the critical components works in biology: take the Venus Fly Trap (please dont mind that this description of its evolution is glib):
1. in the beginning there were plants in nitrogen-deficient soil
2. then, one of those plants produced from its leaves a sticky substance that captured insects, where their decomposed and dissolved remains contributed to enrich the nitrogen as well as protecting the plant from being eaten before it had time to reproduce (good selective advantage)
3. an improvement can be made in which the plant, if it doesnt already smell nice, produces a sweet smell to attract more insects to eat. Another improvement could be the development of tendrils to increase the surface area of sticky glue production.
4. then, in some plants, it formed a dish or tube shape from its leaves to trap more insects more efficiently
5. in those plants, the leaves would then form in such a way that they close around insects in case some insects escaped before being rendered totally immobile (especialy large insects). Steps 4 and 5 may have looked like this:
6. the plant is already a pretty effective killing machine, and as the leaves closing around the insect accomplishes the same task as holding the insect in place with sticky glue, it would be beneficial for the plant to conserve energy by ridding itself of the need to produce glue and stick and retain its ability for the leaves to close.
7. Naturally, the leaves of the plant can be improved by simple natural selection, such as refining its tendrils into fine "teeth" to prevent small insects from escaping. The end result is this:
Now, you have an system where if any of its critical characterists were removed (the "teeth", production of sweet nectar, trigger hairs, the closing action, the strange flat leaves), the whole system would fail. But, while the existence of this fits the definition of an IC system as you defined it ("An IC system would be described as having more than one critical characteristic, where if any of those critical characteristics were to not be present, then the whole system would not function"), however its origin doesnt require postulating that it fell out of the sky as God spoke "let there be weird looking plants that eat bugs!" nor any metaphysical speculating on the part of science.
No kidding if you take away all the redundant parts of a system that it gets to a point where if you took away anymore that it would collapse. No one denies that such systems exist.
This is empirically false, as evidenced by the fly trap example above and the spider example in my previous post. I mentioned before, it isnt so much that critical characteristics already exist that makes the argument for IC, but rather its concerned with whether natural selection account for how they got there in the first place.
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variant said:
If any one of the critical characteristics were removed, the system would not function, so you would have to evolve multiple critical characteristics simultaneously so as to establish and continue function within an irredicibly complex system. A gradual step-by-step process will not due in this case, multiple well matched parts must precisely fit to the system together to come up with the whole function. This is the direct challenge to evolution. 'Just so' stories is all they have to counter.
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Intelligent design has always been, and will always be, a god-of-the-gaps argument. It cannot - it can NEVER - say "this cannot have come into being naturally". The most it can EVER say is "this cannot have come into being naturally BY ANY PROCESS OF WHICH WE KNOW". Which is precisely a god-of-the-gaps argument. We don't know...therefore god.
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TheIntelligentDesigner said:
Have you ever seen anybody build a bridge?
I your world, it would be impossible.
Are you simply ignoring the examples of the evolution of IC that you have been shown already?
Please point out the flaws in the following:
http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html
Please be specific. You suggest that this is a 'just so' story. You should be able to demonstrate it.
I await your reasoned and detailed response and trust that it will not just be filled with more assertions without support or poor logic.
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notto said:
No I have never seen a bridge built. If there was no record of the builder, I would still conclude based on what I know about designed systems, the bridge was caused into existence by intelligent agency.
Ad Hominen.
"However, published attempts to explain flagellar origins suffer from vagueness and are inconsistent with recent discoveries and the constraints imposed by Brownian motion."
This sentence is very important in the link that you have provided. Please show me or provide me with a link to a peer reviewed paper instead, which shows a working model that provides change in molecular machines such as the flagellum. There are none that show any increase in complexity or function. Engineering diagrams are now an excellent way to study the flagellum. At least they were honest in that link.
"A new model is proposed based on two major arguments."
The very next sentence of that paper is now trying to tell you--even though we don't have any peer reviewed working models of evolution taking place at the molecular machine level, we will now tell you how we at talkorigins think it happened (with no testing of any change that actually takes place in reality). It is pointless to even propose a model such as the one presented because ultimately the driving force behind biochemical systems is the code. Where did you get this chemical code from?--And why is there informational pathways built into the circuitry of the cell? Hmm...Something is afoot here.
This is a 'just so' story because no published papers have been cited for the evolution of biochemical machines such as the flagellum. Your link was a 'just so' story, without any direct evidence, much to the surprise of the design theorists.
You have not demonstrated anything, nor did that paper when it comes to empirical testing. You have not observed any change at the molecular machine level that will yield an increase in function. That paper can be summed up in this sentence:
"The transition between each stage is bridgeable by the evolution of a single new binding site, coupling two pre-existing subsystems, followed by coevolutionary optimization of components."
Where did the information for the pre-existing subsystems come from? An undirected process or natural law? Me thinks not. This sentence is really the predetermined conclusion, which was thought on paper only, void of any empirical detection, much like a designer.
Please define for me what : "coevolutionary optimatization of components" refers to. Please give me an example.
Logic would dictate that information is the product of intelligent causation, not an undirected set of processes or natural laws. Right now, you have no current mechanism to account for molecular machines (natural selection and gobbled mutations will not do my friend), such as the flagellum, or other information rich structures. All of that falls back onto our respective genetic codes, which code for the proteins, although not limited to that ability. Codes do not exist without intelligent causation. Please present to me evidence that a code will be produced without intelligent causation. That would be the falsification test for ID.
Logic does not trust a hypothesis that makes no predictions about biochemical machines, where the origin of such systems cannot be tested empirically.
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Design101 said:
You just keep asserting this. You are no closer to actually showing it than you were when you said it a hundred times ago.
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What a joke. The other day you claimed we had built in design detectors. Now you appeal to logic. Which is it Mr. BanMeDaily? Logic or instinct?Design101 said:
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I don't need to read further than this. You are telling me that there is no peer reviewed research, apparantly basing your statement only on the abstract, when the peer reviewed research is all referenced below the paper (chapter six, appropriately called 'references'. You sir, are a joke.Design101 said:
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