Irreducible complication

The E wrote:
SNIP

Then explain why Intelligent Design has not yielded a single proof. Explain why it has never been peer reviewed, why its proponents have not shown a single piece of experimental or archeological proof (unlike the theory of evolution, which has been proven experimentally).

By your own standards, ID is unproven. Why doesn't that bother you?

Do you mean paleo or arche? Darwin stated that the absence of transitional forms made problems for his theory. Today, around 150 year later, with thousands more fossils known, the pattern known is not of a branching tree, but of nested clusters separated by the gaps seen by Darwin which are still there. The best suggested transitional forms are archaopteryx and the duck billed platypus. The suggested missing links fall primarily into one or another group, with a few odd features.

Non-harmful mutations occur at less than one per thousand reproductions. (Harmful ones are much more frequent.) So, consider any organism which deposits irritating or poisonous material through the skin. They need 1)something to produce the material, 2)a way to prevent it from harming the organism itself, 3)some means to get it through the skin, and 4)some cause of action. The last can be the mechanical methods in stinging nettles and jellyfish or the instinctive control methods in various insects, spiders, snakes, and at least one lizard. Without all four of these, the others are at best useless to the organism. There are many such, even mosquitoes, (which bother BJ - she gets a raised and itchy red welt about 1/8" diameter) which could not possibly have common ancestry.

The point about irreducible complications is that in order for the function to work at all, every one of the parts has to exist at the same time, in proper proportion, with proper placement, and working together. By definition, evolution is random, not guided by teleology - aiming toward a goal. A one in a thousand probability needing more than three items goes over my acceptable odds of 1 in 10^9.

From: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity

In calculating the probability for a mutation, one must consider not merely the probability that the mutation will arise, but the number of opportunities for that mutation. So if a mutation has only a one-in-a-million chance of happening, it's still very likely that the mutation will eventually occur if the species has millions of members.

Don't you also need to calculate the odds of the needed mutations arriving in a single body, either by simultaneous existence, or by genetic recombination? The article mentioned this, but did no calculations, unlike the ID people. When there is no advantage, selection is null.

Same:

The core of their argument is this; that complexity can only be created by design. That's the first premise they offer up.

No, their argument is that FUNCTIONAL complexity is from design. This quote is a straw man argument. For just complexity, produce a random distribution. For function you need interaction that works. Douglas Axe did solid research and calculations on the odds of any functional protein being made by chance.

Can there be any natural selection before there is a working function that changes the odds of survival? When four or more mutations are required to get a working function, the odds are too great to accept that theory. Most functions also require several structures working together to exist at all and each structure usually requires several genetic instructions. Insisting "Evolutiondidit" is as unreasoning as "Goddidit"


Evolution just requires too many causeless miracles

All you need to prove evolution is the well known experiment showing how immunities develop in bacteria; to prove ID, you need to prove God exists.

So, can you or the ID proponents you cite do that in a scientific way?

What you don't understand, DDHv, is that ID is not just not science, not just pseudoscience, but actively anti-science.

When you think it through to its ultimate conclusion, ID renders all research moot. Once you accept it, there is no reason to keep looking for answers, regardless of which field of scientific knowledge you are working in, because the inescapable conclusion is that there must be something unknowable at the core of everything.

This, to me, is unacceptable. I believe in a universe that is ultimately knowable, without some capricious entity controlling it.


I also note that you haven't answered my questions. Research into evolution has yielded new understanding in various fields, from epidemiology to algorithms; what new understanding, what new applications has ID yielded?

Now to address your latest post.

Darwin stated that the absence of transitional forms made problems for his theory. Today, around 150 year later, with thousands more fossils known, the pattern known is not of a branching tree, but of nested clusters separated by the gaps seen by Darwin which are still there. The best suggested transitional forms are archaopteryx and the duck billed platypus. The suggested missing links fall primarily into one or another group, with a few odd features.

Okay, one, the fossil record can never be complete. Fossils can only form under very specific circumstances, which may not catch each and every intermediate form. Second, fossils cannot tell us about small changes in soft tissues.

The point about irreducible complications is that in order for the function to work at all, every one of the parts has to exist at the same time, in proper proportion, with proper placement, and working together. By definition, evolution is random, not guided by teleology - aiming toward a goal. A one in a thousand probability needing more than three items goes over my acceptable odds of 1 in 10^9.

It is here that you show your lack of understanding once more. You assume that a given function has to appear at once, fully formed, with no developmental steps in between. This is simply not true (which, you know, you would be aware of if you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with the current state of the research into evolution). No species started out with a bipedal form of movement (which requires a highly developed vestibular system); the earliest amphibious animals, with their very low center of gravity, simply didn't need it. It took millions of years to get to the point where walking upright is a thing lifeforms can do, and for most of that time, those same lifeforms either retained the capability for quadrupedal motion or used other stabilization systems (read: Tails) in addition to whatever vestibular system they had.

Don't you also need to calculate the odds of the needed mutations arriving in a single body, either by simultaneous existence, or by genetic recombination? The article mentioned this, but did no calculations, unlike the ID people. When there is no advantage, selection is null.

Only if you are you (or an ID proponent) and believe that something needs to appear ex nihilo in the same form as you would see it today.

Can there be any natural selection before there is a working function that changes the odds of survival? When four or more mutations are required to get a working function, the odds are too great to accept that theory. Most functions also require several structures working together to exist at all and each structure usually requires several genetic instructions. Insisting "Evolutiondidit" is as unreasoning as "Goddidit"


Evolution just requires too many causeless miracles

And ID requires there to be an intelligent cause for miracles, but offers no compelling proof for it. It is, literally, "God did it", and that's such a monumental display of intellectual laziness that it's hard to properly describe.

In my first response I said "I know that I'm wasting my time replying as you can't counter faith with logic and facts". So being human I'll naturally waste some more time.
Do you have the faintest concept of the time, scale and complexity over which evolution works?
The whole argument of how a complex organ has to somehow just be complete or not exist is flawed. There are a myriad examples in nature across many branches of complex organs, then less, and minimal such attributes. If I thought it would start to convince you I would take the hours needed to research examples and compile a paper with each item reviewed and verified then send it to you directly.
Another separate proof is congruent evolution, with completely different organisms that are separated by oceans developing the same attributes. However you will counter that with the brilliant statement that they were designed that way by the creator, so no point.
Faith is weird to me in that I see highly critical, skeptical and technically smart people who carefully check everything in their world except that when faith is involved it just becomes Yahweh handwavium.

I should point out, well I want to, that local aboriginal legend is that the Platypus came about after a liason between a duck and a randy River Rat.
Makes about as much sense as ID.

More to the point, the platypus, and the echidna, both being egg laying milk suckling mammals, are more proof of evoloution than ID.
2 wildy disperate methods of producing young uniquely combined in just 2 animals.

Alterativelty, the Bible should read "And on the first day God created LSD"

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Oh, and DDHv, please provide a refutation or experimental falsification of this paper.

According to Darwinian theory, complexity evolves by a stepwise process of elaboration and optimization under natural selection. Biological systems composed of tightly integrated parts seem to challenge this view, because it is not obvious how any element’s function can be selected for unless the partners with which it interacts are already present. Here we demonstrate how an integrated molecular system—the specific functional interaction between the steroid hormone aldosterone and its partner the mineralocorticoid receptor—evolved by a stepwise Darwinian process. Using ancestral gene resurrection, we show that, long before the hormone evolved, the receptor’s affinity for aldosterone was present as a structural by-product of its partnership with chemically similar, more ancient ligands. Introducing two amino acid changes into the ancestral sequence recapitulates the evolution of present-day receptor specificity. Our results indicate that tight interactions can evolve by molecular exploitation—recruitment of an older molecule, previously constrained for a different role, into a new functional complex.

Oh, and here's a paper specifically addressing the evolution of ID and irreducible complexity as a pseudo-science:

The concept of Irreducible Complexity (IC) has played a pivotal role in the resurgence of the creationist movement over the past two decades. Evolutionary biologists and philosophers have unambiguously rejected the purported demonstration of “intelligent design” in nature, but there have been several, apparently contradictory, lines of criticism. We argue that this is in fact due to Michael Behe’s own incoherent definition and use of IC. This paper offers an analysis of several equivocations inherent in the concept of Irreducible Complexity and discusses the way in which advocates of the Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC) have conveniently turned IC into a moving target. An analysis of these rhetorical strategies helps us to understand why IC has gained such prominence in the IDC movement, and why, despite its complete lack of scientific merits, it has even convinced some knowledgeable persons of the impending demise of evolutionary theory.

Activating Troll Mode...

Intelligent Design is nothing of the sort, it just proves that the Supreme Creator is nothing more than a talentless hack who shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near an organic molecule!
Seriously, look at the human body and everything that goes wrong with it! No 360 degree vision to ensure we aren't pounced by tigers! Only two ears? Really? You need three for proper spatial triangulation! Eyes that come in okay, short-sighted, long-sighted and wont-even-take-in-color-properly variants? Hello! What happened to telescopic and microscopic vision! Why can't we see heat? Seriously, go back to the drawing board, God!
And the human body itself! Oh my word, what sort of moron puts the playground between the sewers? The appendix? That has to be the second most useless organ ever (the first being the mind of a religious fundamentalist. They never use it, so why do they even have it, huh?). What is the point? And then it goes wrong and needs to be removed or it kills you!
And there are so many things that can cause a human body to just stop! Why would any designer build in the potential to gain the ability to cause the body to go into shock and die from being close to a peanut?! Peanuts! One of the most innocuous foods in the world and it's lethal because of a design screwup!
But what about the other life-forms?
Variations on the theme! All mammals have pretty much the same blinking skeleton! Really, all that God really changed is the lengths and how the joints moved. Why do we not have eight-armed monkeys cartwheeling through the canopy, huh? Or take horses, Sleipnir really should exist, extra legs would allow horses to continue after an injury, thus letting them get treatment and back into full usage again.
But what else did God create? Fish? Variants again. Birds? Ditto. Insects?
Wow, God must have looooooooooooved putting legs onto a shell, there are so damned many forms of insects and arachnids?
Yepparoonie, God loves bugs and morons, that's why there's so many of the durned things!

Deactivating Troll Mode.

Yep, that was an argument about why Intelligent Design is not an Intelligent Choice.

IntDes proof Question ->"What use is half an eye?"
Evolution Answer -> There never was half an eye. It started as light-sensitive skin and added layers, growing better at its job.

The E wrote:What you don't understand, DDHv, is that ID is not just not science, not just pseudoscience, but actively anti-science.

When you think it through to its ultimate conclusion, ID renders all research moot.

snip

This, to me, is unacceptable. I believe in a universe that is ultimately knowable, without some capricious entity controlling it.

Agreed. But if you change capricious to reasonable and consistent, disagreed.

snip

Okay, one, the fossil record can never be complete.

snip

One piece of research from the ID movement is a way to roughly estimate the completeness of fossil group discovery.
Among 43 known living orders of vertebrates, 42 have been found as fossils. 97+ percent, where are the transitional orders?
At the family level, 261 of 329 > 79+%.
Similar analyses can be done with invertebrates and plants, with like results. If there is a tree of life, then there have to be many orders, families, etc. which connected the phyla. What we see is that there is a higher percentage of discovered groups as we move closer to the kingdom level. The gaps still are seen. The punctuated equilibrium theory was developed to provide an explanation not requiring intelligent design. It has its own problem in that there is no empirical evidence for it. Are we now to believe in "evolution of the gaps?"

The E wrote:

The point about irreducible complications is that in order for the function to work at all, every one of the parts has to exist at the same time, in proper proportion, with proper placement, and working together. By definition, evolution is random, not guided by teleology - aiming toward a goal. A one in a thousand probability needing more than three items goes over my acceptable odds of 1 in 10^9.

It is here that you show your lack of understanding once more. You assume that a given function has to appear at once, fully formed, with no developmental steps in between.

The assumption is that each developmental stage has to have at least enough functionality to not be culled out.

The E wrote:This is simply not true (which, you know, you would be aware of if you had taken the time to familiarize yourself with the current state of the research into evolution).

snip

in addition to whatever vestibular system they had.

But if a proto vestibular system makes no improvement, where is the selection? If the system is not there and functional, what advantage to bipedality? If something is not selected for, the proportion of a gene pool having that thing doesn't change much. Of course, you could postulate it was recessive, and only changed to dominant when it was combined with the other things needed to be functional .

The E wrote:

Don't you also need to calculate the odds of the needed mutations arriving in a single body, either by simultaneous existence, or by genetic recombination? The article mentioned this, but did no calculations, unlike the ID people. When there is no advantage, selection is null.

Only if you are you (or an ID proponent) and believe that something needs to appear ex nihilo in the same form as you would see it today.

Only those things which cannot provide some useful function at each development stage. This would be every function which does not include some appropriate control linkage between the sensor and actuator. A light sensor would have no advantage if it triggered a random response or none.

Can there be any natural selection before there is a working function that changes the odds of survival? When four or more mutations are required to get a working function, the odds are too great to accept that theory. Most functions also require several structures working together to exist at all and each structure usually requires several genetic instructions. Insisting "Evolutiondidit" is as unreasoning as "Goddidit"


Evolution just requires too many causeless miracles

AFAIK, evolutionists haven't even tackled the question of how it is possible to tell if something is designed when no one saw the design process. The ID workers have done this. Whether their solution is correct requires the research which you state ID assumptions prevent, and it is being carried out.

The E wrote:And ID requires there to be an intelligent cause for miracles, but offers no compelling proof for it. It is, literally, "God did it", and that's such a monumental display of intellectual laziness that it's hard to properly describe.

I repeat, "Evolutiondidit" is just as unreasoning as "Goddidit." In the absence of solid research, either is intellectually lazy.

The Cambrian explosion, among a number of other things, has no explanation in evolutionary theory. Whether ID research provides better evidence and theory must be determined by doing the intellectual work of comparing their results to reality, not the lazy method of assuming the science has been proven


Any historical science, since repeating experiments or observations are not possible without a past time viewer, can only be decided on the basis of best overall matching to known facts. When Ptolomaic astronomy, phlogiston, or unchangeable elements were accepted, we didn't get better approximations to reality by ignoring other ideas, but by the work of comparing the details to reality


PS I have read the http://pages.uoregon.edu/joet/bridgham- ... n-2006.pdf paper. Have you looked at his later work:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 08249.html

Joseph Thornton of the University of Oregon, a co-author of the study that appeared in Nature, told New Scientist, “Effectively, the five mutations burn the bridge evolution had just crossed.”2 Since none of the theoretical “backward” transitions produced functionality, this begs the question of whether evolution ever crossed the bridge going forward in the first place.

[/quote]
Experiments produced the result that only one of several tens of thousand of protein molecules produce stable fold forms. These are needed for enzymes.

Anyone is welcome to their assumptions. In comparing to reality, difficult questions should not be ignored, this is a definition of intellectual laziness


PPS, I studied the book on information theory that Cthia suggested. There was heavy use of probability calculations in it, and many logical proofs. If you know of any evolutionist paper where the probabilities were calculated, using known facts, please post a link to that paper so I can study it

Daryl wrote:In my first response I said "I know that I'm wasting my time replying as you can't counter faith with logic and facts". So being human I'll naturally waste some more time.
Do you have the faintest concept of the time, scale and complexity over which evolution works?

At present, the biggest suggest time is only a few tens of billions of years, the shortest suggest time unit is the plank time unit, and the most amount of matter that can be involved is less than the mass of the universe.

The whole argument of how a complex organ has to somehow just be complete or not exist is flawed. There are a myriad examples in nature across many branches of complex organs, then less, and minimal such attributes. If I thought it would start to convince you I would take the hours needed to research examples and compile a paper with each item reviewed and verified then send it to you directly.

Please post at least one paper showing a full TESTABLE linkage between simple and complex with all links functioning.

Another separate proof is congruent evolution, with completely different organisms that are separated by oceans developing the same attributes. However you will counter that with the brilliant statement that they were designed that way by the creator, so no point.

No, I just note that multiple independent occurrences increases the odds against chance plus selection being the answer.

Faith is weird to me in that I see highly critical, skeptical and technically smart people who carefully check everything in their world except that when faith is involved it just becomes Yahweh handwavium.

the E wrote:Then explain why Intelligent Design has not yielded a single proof.

The calculations needed to find the probability of a one time formation of any enzyme of even a few hundred units having each unit with the same handedness, using only peptide bonds, and having a stable folded form in a 2x10^9 year universe of the size we can see with the orbital telescopes given one variation per plank time unit using all estimated matter by chance alone has been done several times that I know about. Odds of 1:10^X00 power, X depending on whose assumptions you accept are adequate proof for me. I haven't yet seen anything showing the odds for stable forms actually being useful.

Faith is weird to me in that I see highly critical, skeptical and technically smart people who carefully check everything in their world except that when faith is involved it just becomes Evolution handwavium.

slightly changed
I agree that ideas need to be tested, especially disagreeable one. We only learn when we get a result that surprises us

DDHv wrote:One piece of research from the ID movement is a way to roughly estimate the completeness of fossil discovery.

Please link to this paper.

Among 43 known living orders of vertebrates, 42 have been found as fossils. 97+ percent, where are the transitional orders?
At the family level, 261 of 329 > 79+%.
Similar analyses can be done with invertebrates and plants, with like results. If there is a tree of life, then there have to be many orders, families, etc. which connected the phyla. What we see is that there is a higher percentage of discovered groups as we move closer to the kingdom level. The gaps still are seen. The punctuated equilibrium theory was developed to provide an explanation not requiring intelligent design. It has its own problem in that there is no empirical evidence for it. Are we now to believe in "evolution of the gaps?"

Any chance you could try to read my posts, or is that just not happening? Because you could try to address the points I make, not the ones you think you have talking points for in the ID materials you read.

The assumption is that each developmental stage has to have at least enough functionality to not be culled out.

Again, you have no understanding of evolution. Not enough to have coherent arguments against it of your own, anyway.

Mutations are either detrimental, neutral, or benefitial. Most development happens in the neutral category, until a given mutation either turns detrimental or benefitial.

But if a proto vestibular system makes no improvement, where is the selection? If the system is not there and functional, what advantage to bipedality? If something is not selected for, the proportion of a gene pool having that thing doesn't change much. Of course, you could postulate it was recessive, and only changed to dominant when it was combined with the other things needed to be functional .

Jesus Christ, it's like trying to educate a very dense wall. You do not know what you are talking about. Maybe try reading and understanding evolutionary theory before criticizing it?

Only those things which cannot provide some useful function at each development stage. This would be every function which does not include some appropriate control linkage between the sensor and actuator. A light sensor would have no advantage if it triggered a random response or none.

Except that's exactly how it works.

AFAIK, evolutionists haven't even tackled the question of how it is possible to tell if something is designed when no one saw the design process. The ID workers have done this. Whether their solution is correct requires the research which you state ID assumptions prevent, and it is being carried out.

Oh, are you saying that ID has experimental evidence for an actual act of god? That would be kind of amazing, especially if anyone can actually replicate that. Preferably someone who doesn't believe in god.

And yes, ID prevents research, because it presupposes the existance of a creator god. Any result that doesn't support this axiomatic assumption will be discarded, because ID supporters are liars and frauds. They're not interested in furthering human knowledge, because they already believe that we have all the answers.

I repeat, "Evolutiondidit" is just as unreasoning as "Goddidit." In the absence of solid research, either is intellectually lazy.

Except we have experimental evidence for evolution. No such thing exists for ID. If there is, provide a reference.

The Cambrian explosion, among a number of other things, has no explanation in evolutionary theory. Whether ID research provides better evidence and theory must be determined by doing the intellectual work of comparing their results to reality, not the lazy method of assuming the science has been proven

See, the fact that you're incapable of making good points on your own due to your lack of understanding of evolution comes through loud and clear. At this point, you're stepping through a number of ID talking points, which are tediously predictable.

The Cambrian explosion, as you would know if you had studied evolution, is a time period spanning roughly 20 to 40 million years. It's a literally unimaginably long time.
Actual biologists have developed [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion]a number of theories[/quote] why and how it happened.

Any historical science, since repeating experiments or observations are not possible without a past time viewer, can only be decided on the basis of best overall matching to known facts. When Ptolomaic astronomy, phlogiston, or unchangeable elements were accepted, we didn't get better approximations to reality by ignoring other ideas, but by the work of comparing the details to reality

So where are the repeatable experiments proving ID?

PS I have read the http://pages.uoregon.edu/joet/bridgham- ... n-2006.pdf paper. Have you looked at his later work:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 08249.html

Joseph Thornton of the University of Oregon, a co-author of the study that appeared in Nature, told New Scientist, “Effectively, the five mutations burn the bridge evolution had just crossed.”2 Since none of the theoretical “backward” transitions produced functionality, this begs the question of whether evolution ever crossed the bridge going forward in the first place.

Hah, no, that question is not being begged. At least not by Thornton et al.

Anyone is welcome to their assumptions. In comparing to reality, difficult questions should not be ignored, this is a definition of intellectual laziness

When are you going to start?