A lot has been argued about Irreducible Complexity. Here is a proposed solution to the conundrum.
- Darwin’s call to challengers is absurd. In The Origin of Species (1859), he wrote, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.” This is NOT how science works! You do not get to formulate whatever fantastic theory you please that then stands until someone disproves it in the exact manner you specify. Instead, it is your duty to prove your claims. This case shows that, when the foregone conclusions fit the religious views of its proponents, the scientific rigor is often cast aside.
- Ignorance cuts both ways. Irreducible Complexity was called the “argument from personal incredulity” or “argument from ignorance”. This is indeed correct. And because of this, Irreducible Complexity is flawed… as are all arguments for “evolution”… given an argument from ignorance asserts that “a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false [“evolution”] or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true [irreducible complexity]”. Evolutionists (Darwin’s quote in particular) err by claiming the unknown supports “evolution”. We certainly do not know the origin of the eye, much less have seen any eye “evolve”. Yet a just-so story of eye “evolution” has been put together by imaginarily linking disparate optical sensors designs. Therefore, if Irreducible Complexity is a bad argument, so is “evolution” itself.
- Michael Behe engages in a game rigged against him. There are many and much better ways to show “evolution” impossible. Irreducible complexity is an argument against imagination. And imagination always wins because it is infinite. But the game is further rigged. When Michael Behe used the mousetrap as an illustrative example of this concept, Kenneth R. Miller challenged him by observing he can use the mousetrap components to make a spitball launcher (catapult), a tie clip, key chain, clipboard, tooth pick. Yet, by “nonfunctional”, Behe does not mean that the precursor cannot serve any function – a mousetrap missing its spring can still act as a paperweight. It just cannot serve the specific function (catching mice) by means of the same mechanism (a spring-loaded hammer slamming down upon the mouse). A function is obviously not the same as a specific
- Asymmetry improves Behe’s argument. Degradation to new function is much easier done than buildup to new function. If you have an optimized mousetrap and need an ad-hoc catapult / tie clip / key chain / clipboard / tooth pick, all you need is to remove some parts. That’s almost instantaneous and effortlessly. But if you have an optimized catapult / tie clip / key chain / clipboard / tooth pick, you need a lot of engineering to make an ad-hoc mouse trap out of those. Even if you have them all at once which is impossible in real life. Why optimized? Because that’s what “natural selection” creates… presumably. This doesn’t prove Irreducible Complexity, however. Because, as shown, the argument is flawed and the game is rigged.
- The impossible changeover further improves Behe’s argument. The “evolution” model demands continuous improvement every generation and a slow, multigenerational incremental process. Or as Darwin put it: “numerous, successive, slight modifications “. However, this cannot be done when changing function as the old function must degrade well before the new function is developed. Manufacturing changeover works because it is done within a fraction of a generation. Still, the process is interrupted and the system goes through a loss of function during the changeover. Generally, an inventory is built up in anticipation while extra resources are thrown in long before and after the actual changeover to limit the impact. If extra resources were not available, or an inventory buildup were not possible, or organizational capability were lost in a long process (who would stick around for decades even paid for idleness?), then the enterprise would not survive (extinction event in biology). The mousetrap example fits perfectly. Once it starts to be dismantled and before the catapult / tie clip / key chain / clipboard / tooth pick becomes functional, for a while, the system has no function whatsoever. This time would actually be multigenerational in real life biologic systems that, being functionless, would go extinct and thus never get to the other side (the new function). Now take the bacterial flagellar motor, and the bacterial injectisome. If either one “evolved” into the other, at some point one function would be lost before the other would become available, thus leaving the bacteria without either function, and thus at a competitive disadvantage to the original. The “innovator” would go extinct before having a chance to compete. And having both systems functional at the same time before renouncing the old one wouldn’t work because real life resources are limited as opposed to infinite when imagined. And how would – whichever came first – have happened from scratch is, once again, left to imagination.
- Are “phlogiston” and “ether” teaching us anything? Let’s compare and contrast. “Phlogiston” and “ether” were bad theories like “evolution” that were eventually abandoned. Which is exactly what will happen to “evolution” too. They were disproved by whatever means possible, not by a prescribed method proposed by their proponents as Darwin’s. They were tested against the claims and implication of those theories and were found lacking. In the case of ether, by their own supporters, Michelson and Morley. In the same manner, we can test the positive claims of “evolution” from “gradualism” to “fitness”, “divergence of character”, “natural selection”, etc. And all fail. So there is no need to follow Darwin’s guidance on how to disprove his theory especially when febrile imagination is the only support offered in a rigged game.
Links:
https://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/MillerID-Collapse.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
https://www.gotquestions.org/irreducible-complexity.html
Wrong. It was genocide.
Genocide is the intentional action to destroy a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part.
The Nazi policy and its implementation certainly qualifies but there have been others. Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge comes to mind. Rwanda. The “ethnic cleansing” that went on in Yugoslavia was more recent. Perhaps the oppression of the Uighurs by the RPC government and its agents isn’t intended to destroy the Uighurs physically, just to destroy their freedom and aspirations for self determination. But so long as you are not either Uighur or sympathetic to their plight, what does it matter?
Not that this has much to do with arguments from complexity. I see Eric Holloway is trying to claim detection of GM genes in testing “GMO free” foodstuffs is “Design Detection” rather than pattern matching.
In any case, whether genocide constitutes an instance of natural selection or not (you can definitely view it that way) wouldn’t make it morally right.
That something conforms conceptually to an instance/occurrence of natural selection does not constitute a sound moral justification for murder. That would be a textbook example of the naturalistic fallacy.
Phoodoo sounds like a person who has not had the slightest contact with any work in moral philosophy, and is instead just trying to smear the field of evolutionary biology with Nazism.
The man is just a desperate clown totally outside of his intellectual depth.
Rumraket,
I am not saying the gassing of millions of Jews was right or wrong, I am not making a value judgement, I am just talking about the science, biological science.
I know some here have referred to this culling of an ethnic group as misguided, but I am just talking about the natural selection aspect of it. Science.
Alan Fox,
Have you forgotten the niche?
Really? Have you no opinion on the industrial-scale killings of six million people whose only fault was their ethnicity (not forgetting gypsies, homosexuals and the disabled)?
Alan Fox,
I don’t think science judges natural selection.
So you are skipping over whether you have any opinion on the holocaust.
So why do you say “I don’t think science judges natural selection”. I mean, who does? You are doing synecdoche again.
I understand. That would open the door to my asking your opinion on this Guardian article.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/11/if-you-enter-a-camp-you-never-come-out-inside-chinas-war-on-islam
Alan Fox,
You also didn’t tell me your opinion about Tesla. Or gay marriage?
Oh. So it’s all just an unfortunate misunderstanding? Lots of people think so including church leaders. I used to think so too. But then I changed my mind. Not because of any theological reasons. But because scientifically, “evolution” just doesn’t make any sense.
You see? Many see a religion vs science conflict. Not me. All I see is science vs “evolution” (aka pseudo-science) conflict.
You understand little to nothing about design. Just curious, have you ever designed something in your life? Because if you had, you would know that you don’t need perfect understanding. Which is unattainable btw. Just enough to make it work. Seriously, you should consider taking some introductory course in engineering design.
As per above, I posit “no distinction”. Your move.
I am published on the internet including here at TSZ. Or is there some other, special publishing that is linked more tightly to intelligence? Can you point to the study linking that special kind of non-publishing to an intelligence scale?
There’s more to “artificial selection” (the only kind) than “un/biased sampling”. And anyway, I said he was the designer. Which you confirmed.
People,
Let’s not forget the topic here:
1. If an “argument from personal incredulity” works against irreducible complexity, doesn’t it work equally well against arguments for “evolution”?
2. Is the game rigged against Behe? Yes or no? With proofs please.
3. Does asymmetry improve Behe’s argument?
4. Does the impossible changeover further improve Behe’s argument?
5. Are “phlogiston” and “ether” teaching us anything on this argument?
Just about the only objection here was against Darwin’s absurd call to challengers. Does anyone read beyond the first paragraph these days? Or once you see red (black?) you can’t read anymore?
OMagain also asked a good question. And he got a satisfactory reply: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/irreducible-complexity-a-weak-argument/comment-page-1/#comment-283216
Nonlin.org,
Alan doesn’t care about topics. Talk anything you want here- John Wayne Gacy, Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian kids, Monica Seles, penis enlargement products, vegan recipes, ….
The new Alan is up for it all.
Do you want to know? Same-sex marriage is fine by me. Tesla needs sub-categories. Tesla engineers seem a pretty bright bunch.
I understand if you have to be careful publishing anything that might offend those keeping an eye on you.
Some things interest me more than others. Whilst there’s no off-topic rule as such, there’s always the opportunity for anyone here to start a new thread rather than go off on a tangent.
Alan Fox,
You are the one going off on tangents.
How about Israelis killing Palestinian children? No opinion?
The designer of the experiment. I suspect you don’t know how the experiment works. Twelve pure strains of E. coli were chosen and incubated in flasks containing an identical nutrient medium, incubated at 37°C and samples extracted and pipetted into a fresh flask of broth every 24 hours. There is no selection by the researchers. There is a website giving information in great detail. Have a look, understand what is actually going on, then criticize.
You are the troll here.
The current Israeli Government would do better to invest more money and effort in negotiation. The US government could (and now hopefully will) use its influence to re-initiate some genuine process for an equitable and lasting peace.
Just as PRC government should be encouraged to accommodate the Uighur people rather than “re-educate” them.
Alan Fox,
So your opinion about the Israeli government killing innocent children is they should invest more money? Interesting.
The admin calling people trolls. Also very interesting.
And effort in negotiation. The Irish troubles were eventually resolved (at least the violence has stopped) by parties accepting the only way forward was genuine negotiation.
Regarding kids getting shot, there are parallels with youngsters throwing rocks to provoke a reaction that the security forces are willing to provide. Palestinians seem, in one respect, to be in a similar situation to the Uighur minority in China, having no genuine opportunity to negotiate an equitable and lasting solution to their plight.
Both the Israeli government and the PRC government seem determined to continue their current policies unfortunately.
I called you a troll. You can take it as a compliment. There’s no rule against trollery here and no rule against pointing out when someone is trolling.
Nope, promotion of commercial products of any kind would be spamming.
Perhaps you could supply the list of things which you would like us to condemn before we are finally allowed to have a view on China’s treatment of minorities?
You point out all these things like we don’t think they are also terrible things. But the fact is that no matter what else happens in the world what is happening in China remains wrong.
I agree with this.
It’s good to know you are not OK with all murder. Presumably adults of the right ethnicity can be murdered without concern in your view? As that’s the argument you seem to be making. When Israeli soldiers shoot kids, it’s murder. When China orphans children, it’s all good.
Well, at least we are in agreement, what the Us does is abominable, and what Israel does is likewise. I guess the other things we will just have to disagree with. At least there is some common ground, troll.
I am sorry, but given your exceedlingly poor grasp of basic biology and statistics AND your continuous insistence that evolution is an atheist idea, I have some problems swallowing your narrative. What I did notice is that a lot of creationists tell very similar “sudden conversion” stories. You guys have no background whatsoever in any relevant discipline, but you suddenly decide on purely scientific grounds that evolutionary theory is not a sound concept. I believe that EricMH even claimed that he was converted from atheism by this scientific insight.
tl;dr: Not buying it.
BTW: I may be breaking a TSZ rule here. Apologies if I do, but these conversion stories are a bit too transparently nonsensical.
You get lessons in animal breeding in engineering design classes? Who knew?
In answer to your query: yes, I have designed and built things in my own amateurish fashion. In addition I believe I am one of the few members here that has performed artificial selection experiments. Breeding is nothing like designing organisms. Your conflation of these concepts is completely and utterly nonsensical.
I hereby nominate Nonlin for the Irony of the Year Award. There’s plenty to choose.
Anyway, as I said about the first “point” in the OP:
So, if Nonlin could not get that one right, why should we imagine that Nonlin got the rest right?
I did read beyond and found that Nonlin’s complains against evolution rely entirely on Nonlin’s own failure to read 490 pages of text surrounding that quote, text containing other things that could falsify Darwin’s theory, and a lot more consisting on presenting evidence. Thus Nonlin’s claim that Darwin proposed a crazy theory, with no evidence, and then “challenged” others to prove him wrong, admitting only a single piece of contradictory evidence, is a combination of quote mining and failure to read for comprehension. Nothing else.
So, again, why should we trust anything else by such an illiterate buffoon as Nonlin?
If anybody had any doubt about Nonlin’s illiteracy, take, by way of example, Nonlin’s definition for “satisfactory.” That word certainly doesn’t mean the same thing for Nonlin as for everybody else. I’m giving Nonlin the benefit of the doubt on the meaning of “question.”
It would be a lot easier to trust you on this, if you hadn’t insisted on demonstrating that you have no idea of the meaning of reasons, science, evolution, and making sense. Your ignorance and illiteracy are so profound, that I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t know what theological means either.
People with nothing interesting to say have a hard time finding an audience for what they are saying.
Sometimes it is the audience’s fault.
More often, however, it is correct to laugh at Bozo the clown.
So, Bozo, clap clap dance for me! Dance I say!
Why don’t you say what those “other things” are?
And those other things, it’s not “things we will just have to disagree with”. It’s not just us, here. It’s many people all over the world. Turning against this behavior. Behavior that you condone and are a (seemingly) paid apologist for. A paid collaborator.
OMagain,
Holy crap. I didn’t know Nonlin had to take and ace intelligence tests before being allowed to write blog entries. I suppose Nonlin keeps those tests at hand in case we doubt that (s)he had to take tests nobody else is required to take. After all, there’s plenty of reasons to doubt Nonlin’s honesty.
Yes. Give me one of those.
Yes. What I said. The designer.
What “conversion”? Do you ever NOT miss the point? It’s just that the stupid “evolution” story is told so often that I didn’t bother to doublecheck for a long while. Here’s exactly how a famous Darwinist put it:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie…”
But now I started doublechecking. And you know what? The stupid “evolution” story doesn’t hold. I find leaks all over. And more than leaks. There’s nothing there.
Artificial is the only way to go. And designer dogs loudly disagree with you.
Then you do know you can design without completely (sometimes barely) understanding what goes on? And that when designing you harness forces beyond your control?
Lots of people knew. Agricultural Engineers for instance.
I wasn’t aware that Joseph Goebbels was a “Darwinist”. Since you are so fond of quotes, do you recognize this one?
This is getting ridiculous, Nonlin. Agricultural engineers design agricultural machinery or devise methods for optimal production and storage of agricultural products.
They don’t design cows!.
This seems more interesting. Could you tell about the time that you decided to start your crusade against evolution? What set it off exactly? I am genuinely interested.
You cannot see the problem with isolating a quote from a 460 pages book and pretending that the quote is the sum total of the book. I doubt you’d be able to find a leak in your kitchen if it was splashing water at your face. Maybe you should restrain yourself from calling anything stupid until after you ensure you’re not stupid yourself. I keep wondering if you ever read that thing about the beam in thy own eye.
@ Nonlin
Above, I wrote that Richard Lenski (and Zachary Blount and others of Lenski’s team) is
I see you have not responded seriously to my suggestion you might familiarize yourself with Lenski’s long-term evolutionary experiment (LTEE) before dismissing it. Your equivocation on designers makes me think this will be a waste of time but I’ll post something on the LTEE in case I’m under-estimating you.
What comparison? It’s a direct quote.
You don’t think plant and animal stock progress is just random, do you? Anyway, the methods and titles change, but goals are the same. Biologic engineering. Which has yet to produce any “evolution”.
Can’t remember any specific trigger. More of a “what’s really going on” step by step.
I read and know what matters. First of all, e coli in, e coli out. No “evolution”, no “LTEE”. Second, if you design your experiment in a certain way, that experiment will produce results in accordance with your design. Even if you refrain from certain actions. It doesn’t take much to have an impact. Only an imbecile like Dawkins writes a program that he then sells to the gullible as “undirected evolution”. WTF is wrong with you people?!?
But what is “really going on”?
Do you think human DNA is being manipulated by outside forces? Aliens? God?
So nothing has changed?
The experiment continues to produce “results”. Multiple “results”. Which of those was it designed to produce? How was that managed?
What actions were refrained from? What actions were took that had an impact?
It seems to me they made a warm place for stuff to live then kept it alive, and sampled it occasionally. What “actions” did they take beyond that? Accidentally “Intelligent Design” some DNA with their minds, like the aliens do?
Do you have a quote? Can you back up your claim? Are you wearing clean pants?
Then allow me to directly quote an enormous nincompoop:
I don’t think I ever claimed it was. So do you believe that each and every aspect in which domesticated species differ from their ancestors was planned beforehand?
Can you tell me what you did to find out what’s really going on? What sources did you consult? What books did you read?
That’s not how my experiments behaved. Just curious, have you ever designed and executed an experiment in your whole life?
I say one thing, you equivocate with something different. Why do Darwinistas have a problem with precise language?
You confuse “exactly what I wanted” with “in accordance with”.
I don’t believe I insulted you or your fellow Darwinistas. Not recently at least 🙂
There’s some distance from “animal stock progress is not random” to “every aspect… was planned beforehand”. This clearly shows your misunderstanding of how design works.
Just started to apply critical thinking. Which is not usually done on random topics but becomes SOP once those turn into topics of interest. You do the same, right?
As far as sources, no, not Answers in Genesis, but Darwin’s book and all modern arguments. Which are like 90% pro Darwin and at most 10% opposed.
So you can have change without evolution? Is that what you are getting at? Why can’t you just say what you mean?
So something did change? How did that change come about? Was it inherited?
Can you use those phrases in a whole sentence perhaps? Once that might explain what your objection is?
And if all experiments produce results in accordance with their design, why bother to do them at all and instead why not just design them and then use the results you know must follow from the design?
Given Lenski’s setup, what must follow from that design? At what generation do you predict the ability to utilize citrate will be found?
If you can’t say that disproves everything you’ve said, right?
How does “design work”? Please explain. That’s the missing piece here, an actual explanation of how “design works” to achieve, well, anything at all really.
What is the origin of species according to “design” nonlin?
For the interested this is likely how nonlin became infected in the first place.
https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5
The trick is to ask questions, and when people “find” the answers that “finding” process releases dopamine as a reward and the “answer” they found becomes more deeply fixed. It’s how the whole Q thing was set up.
https://www.wired.com/story/qanon-most-dangerous-multiplatform-game/
So at some point nonlin encountered someone “just asking questions and went and “found” per-prepared answers and is trying to do the same to others now.
By encouraging you to
All you have to do is “apply critical thinking”. He won’t give a source, he won’t give the answers. That’s not how he was recruited!
Name something. Get specific.
You called the Nazi minister of propaganda “a famous Darwinist”, but further everything is just peachy.
I take it “Darwinistas” is a pet name?
Or perhaps I understand perfectly well how design works and am trying to draw your attention to the fact that progress does not encompass all change. So how are we going to call all the unplanned non-progress change that occurred? Change without intent cannot be claimed to be design.
Sure, but why did evolution, of all topics, suddenly catch your interest? You must have encountered it somewhere.
Heh, I was convinced you learned it at AIG.
So you read “On the Origin of Species”, right? Where did you learn about modern arguments? Not from “Nuttypedia”, I presume?
According to the OP, Nonlin only missed around 460 pages of what the book contained. Got just one sentence, which Nonlin interpreted to mean: “the only way my theory could be falsified is t this.” So, I’d say that “read” is too strong a word for whatever Nonlin did with the book. At best Nonlin knows that the book exists.
Sorry, ~490 pages.
ETA: Unless OP Nonlin and coments Nonlin are not the same, since they disagree with each other.
Yes. And? He was 100% committed to “survival of the fittest” last I checked.
You lost me. Are you referring to something real from this planet or recollecting a dream of yours? Be specific.
What do you mean “somewhere”? It’s everywhere. Only I started paying attention. OK. Enough of this psychoanalysis bullshit, Dr. Fraud.
OMagain,
You ask a lot of silly questions. Repeatedly. Why don’t you think a bit and focus on one or two (even three if possible) good questions? And when you get an answer, even if you don’t like what you read, maybe not repeat the same question over and over hoping for the answer to change?
No, he wasn’t. Goebbels was an antisemite; He hated jews.
We were talking about breeding? You conceded that not every aspect was planned beforehand? Remember?
If a domesticated animal was changed in a way that was not intended by the breeder, do you still call that “design”?
Most people do not start an entire website filled to the brim with creationist screeds. It’s hard to believe that came from the blue. That interests me.
You appear to have missed my question about what sources you consulted. Am I right in guessing that you skimmed “On the Origin of Species” but never read it cover to cover? Am I right in guessing that everything you know about modern theory came from online sources including “Nuttypedia”?
What is the origin of species according to “design” nonlin?