The case against ID....

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Well, if there's no designer, it MUST have arosen randomly.

I was of the impression you were trying in a tornado in the junkyard argument, saying that a complete prokaryote cell is too complex to arise via random assembly of molecules; this is what IDers and their ilk usually mean when they say cells can't arise "randomly". The point is, that's a strawman; every reasonable theory of abiogenesis involved it evolving gradually, by selection, from something simpler.

Well, a deleted or mutated part must have been added once. At least through duplication.

Um, so? The point is, irreducible complexity can evolve. In fact, it was predicted on the basis of evolutionary theory already back in the '30s that irreducibly complex biological systems should exist.

I can see that. But the new system must fall in place at a certain moment and start working. If it replaces an old part, that part must be removed at the same moment.

Um, no. Take a look at early mammaliforms. The first ones have reptilian jaw articulations. Later forms evolve mammalian ones in addition to the reptilian ones. For a while, critters run around with double sets of working jaw articulations. Then the reptilian ones gradually get lost.

Can't offhand think of an equivalent example at the cellular level, but they exist.

[Gatekeeper]

Fortunately for proponents of ID, the vast majority of education oversight panels don't have, well, educators on them. At least not in the majority.

If IDers get their way, U.S. science will suffer, and that will have ramifications far beyond the laboratories and classrooms. After all, do you really think America can keep up with the world, let alone lead it, in any science-based field if too many of its "intellectuals" are reared on pseudo-science?

Gatekeeper

[Urban Ranger]

The kangaroo court in Kansas is particuarly funny.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Last Conformist Um, so? The point is, irreducible complexity can evolve. In fact, it was predicted on the basis of evolutionary theory already back in the '30s that irreducibly complex biological systems should exist.

And if you look at the link I posted, we now have proof that irreducible complexity can arise from random mutation and natural selection.

[Whaleboy]

No, ID doesn't advocate that lesser structures cannot exist. It advocates that it's impossible to gradually evolve from a more simple structure into a more complex structure if more key elements of the more complex structure harm the entire structure if they aren't implemented all at once and would be wiped out by natural selection.

Uhh, you've just restated your argument in different terms but haven't addressed the point made against you. It is interesting you say ID "advocates" as opposed to ID "implies"... it is the difference between a marketting campaign in the first instance, and science in the second. But I digress. Remember that complexity is simply a judgement you place on something, in nature, simple causes can lead to fantastically complex outcomes. Your argument assumes an intentional course, as though the "direction" of evolution was intended, like a car with a driver. It is that intelligent design you are seeking to prove, yet you're using it as a premise. Circular logic .

But if several systems have evolved in seperated processes for different reasons and will start to work for one reason in one combined project, all systems must fall in part at once.

Again not necessarily, since you are presuming that they must all fall into place as they are today in order to fulfill today's role which is BS.

I do not.
Today is not perfection.
In fact I'm sure humans were more capable of hearing in the past. We were better protected against the sun and cancer shows that our cells do not that perfect.

Where did you got that idea?

You misunderstand. In the point I originally made, I asked you to assume, for the sake of argument, that perfection means development as of today. This makes it clear that you're not to interpret it as a value judgement or a measure of intent. To do so would suit your argument, and quality of logic, better than mine.

To put my orginal point another way;
ID assumes a given system needs to be identical to today (ignoring principle of sufficient reason which refutes ID utterly in any case). It's a misuse of the anthropic principle. What they fail to account for is that a different system could perform a similar (or even different role), and find application to todays role, for which it evolves.

Regarding irreducable complexity itself, it seems to fall down when opposed to complexity theory whereby attractors can develop a complex system in a series of steps that would otherwise seem random when given chaotic attractors... the human eye is a famous example. Indeed, self-organisation is a more compelling explanation for every example of irreducable complexity I have ever been given.

We cannot scientific prove that a designer designed us years ago, since we weren't there.
Neither can we scientific prove that [just an example] a fish evolved into land animal, since we weren't there.

Umm bollocks. A scientific theory is a testable hypothesis, with evidence, that makes predictions. ID makes no useful predictions, and evidence is subject to interpretation, unlike a good scientific theory like evolution. Not all theories are equal.. they need to be sound (good evidence) and valid (interally consistent). ID is neither.

Kuci's link Good article

[Last Conformist]

Regarding irreducable complexity itself, it seems to fall down when opposed to complexity theory whereby attractors can develop a complex system in a series of steps that would otherwise seem random when given chaotic attractors... the human eye is a famous example. Indeed, self-organisation is a more compelling explanation for every example of irreducable complexity I have ever been given.

My alphabet soup indicator went off here.

To start with, what's a "chaotic attractor"? They certainly weren't mentioned in my course on chaos and nonlinear systems.

Second, what kind of complexity theory are you talking of here? Kolmogorov information theory? Prigoginean nonequilibrium thermodynamics? Something else?

Third, what does anything of this have to do with the fact that the vertebrate eye isn't irreducibly complex? That can be realized from a basic grasp of Newtonian optics and basic ecology.

[Provost Harrison]

Re: The case against ID....

Originally posted by CyberShy
ie. the current word is: apolyton. Take any of the letters away, and there's no word at all and the entire structure of letters is worthless.

Though take away the y and make the words:
pal
toon
both words make sence, and as soon the 'y' has mutated (ie. from the 'u' which makes sence as a single word agani) all letters can start to form apolyton (not as if that's a good english word though )

This is a shocking analogy. How can you compare the evolution of a biological system to a word? This is a gross oversimplification and demonstrates your lack of understanding of any of the concepts involved.

ok, so far I understand the reasoning.
Mostly there the discussion ends. (I'm already impressed if the discussion comes that far since most of the time the AntiDesigners start to flame and insult much earlier in the debate and don't start to reason at all but just refuse to counter any ID-argument, but sometimes a more reasonable AntiIDer comes that far, which is really respected by me :! You go guys!

Flame? Exasperation would be more like it because people like you refuse to listen and don't know what you are on about, yet still believe you have authority on the subject

Now comes my question:
CyberShy: What makes all parts fall in the right position at the right time? Isn't the change for such a thing not really really small? If not impossible?
I can see how all parts could evoluve apart from each other. But 'falling into the right position' appears to be something that must happen at the same time again.

Perhaps they don't need to mutate at the same incarnation, but they do need to start to perform their needed functionality as a 'joint venture' though.

What makes 'toon' and 'pal' suddenly start to form 'apolyton' together with 'y'?

Even if all functionalities / parts of the cell could mutate at random in seperated processes, the change that all processes would be combined at the perfect right time still appear to be as impossible to me as all processes to mutate at the same incarnation.

Please shine some light for me on this subject!

Oh, and please keep the childish "IDers are pseudo scientists" or "IDers are retarted" or "Creationists are stupid" or "CyberShy you must be a total ignorant stupid monkey" one liners out of here.

I think it's time for rational modern people to stop yelling at the person who comes with the question / theory and start to counter the theories / arguments themselves.

Really, believe me. That yelling is really not better then the roman catholic church did at Galileo in the middle ages: "We refuse to you listen to your arguments, the sun orbits the earth because the bible says so and if think not you're a heathen and we will burn you and cut your head off"

Thanks for rational responses in advance though

CyberShy

Ps. please no cut and paste answers, I've typed out my question as well

Well how can we begin to explain it to you, especially when you have your own agenda? Until you understand some of the concepts of endosymbiosis (an easy one to work with) which involves the integration of the mitochondrion/chloroplast into the eukaryotic cellular structure as an organelle I don't really feel I can go any further on this topic.

Think of it this way, by that rationalisation if a eukaryotic cell is 'Apolyton' that would make a bacterium 'pltn'. Not a word, but yet a bacterium is still a perfectly functional form of organism, in fact an extremely successful one. How do you rationalise that?

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by CyberShy


Ok, you totally miss my point.
Oh, and you have too much faith in the law of the large numbers.

Now go to the beach, 1 out of every 1000 grains of sand is yellow, all others are brown.
Now you have to pick up 100 grains while you are blindfolded. All 100 must be yellow.

If you fail to pick up 100 yellow ones and 0 brown ones you succeed. If not, drop them all and try it again.
Is that impossible? Nope, the change you do it right is greater then 0. Though earth must exist for over billions times billions of years for this, so in fact the change is 0.

The discussion on this stopic is how many yellow grains of sand you need to pick up while you are blindfolded.
If the IDers are right you need to pick up about 1000 grains of yellow sand.

If the antiIDers are right you need to pick up 1000 grains of sand one by one and you can check after you picked it up afterwards and drop if it's brown and try again.

You really don't have a clue do you? To get a similar probability you should be having billions of people picking up grains of sand for billions of years. Then the chances of someone picking up 100 gains of sand in that timespan is highly probable.

Don't try playing with probabilities if you don't know what you are on about

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by CyberShy
I'm focussing on the cell.
The cell has a complex construction in which the entire construction wouldn't function anymore if one part would be removed.
That assumes that the cell couldn't have evolved gradually. Though scientists have countered that some elements of the cell have evolved in seperated processes and became a part of the cell later. Or perhaps some elements had less important purposes in the cell earlier and adapted to their current (important) purpose later. Now my question to nonIDers is: even if it's not nessecary that all elements of the cell have evolved (mutated) in the same process, how comes that all those elements started to perform their current tasks at once?

No, no, no. Initially, for example, mitochondria and the cell were unique but became integrated and at that 'point' they were separable. However over hundreds of millions of years the two have become inextricably connected that they are inseparable. The mitochondrion still possesses it's own genome which point to endosymbiosis as the origin of the mitochondrion, however now very, very little of the mitochondrions components are coded for in mitochondrial DNA, except in the nucleus. The two have become effectively one over time.

Think of yourself and your wife for example. If you'd been married together for 60 years and one dies, the other cannot go on (or at least with great, great difficulty). Does that mean that you and your wife were born together? I think not

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by CyberShy


Well, let me re-prhase: "if any of the key elements would be missing......"

A clock could have a different shape as well, and if one of the arms would be broken down it would still work. And if one of the wake up bells would be removed the clock would be still functioning.

But I did indeed ommit the word 'key'. My fault.

Stop getting lost in the analogy and consider the actual system we are looking at!

Well, if there's no designer, it MUST have arosen randomly.

And again, black and white reasoning that is just not applicable. Once the original building blocks were there and once the original precursors to life were there (the self replicating nucleic acid, the interaction of protein and nucleic acid, and eventually lipid), the rest was a relatively self-perpetuating process - survival of the fittest, the most successful, the better able to adapt. Once you had the autocatalytic nucleic acid, natural selection starts coming into effect - more effective self replication. Once the interaction with protein occurred - proteins being capable of being better catalysts than nucleic acids - another leap was obtained. Then compartmentalisation with lipid membranes. Once the ball starts rolling it is self perpetuating. There was no massively improbable collision of just the right molecules to give a primitive monocellular organism - even with the vastness of the sample involved that is so improbable as to be almost impossible - it becomes a self-perpetuating process as soon as self-replicating nucleic acids arise. Bear in mind the huge abundance of nucleotide building blocks in the primitive atmosphere and how readily they could be synthesised from inorganic components such as ammonium cyanate and a lightning discharge, the probabilities look pretty damn favourable

Of course these intermediates are supposed.
The question is not if these intermediates could exist. The question is if these intermediates could evolute from one into another.

Evolve. Yes, as has been described. I have been through endosymbiosis briefly in some of the previous posts.

Well, a deleted or mutated part must have been added once. At least through duplication.

Through duplication, yes. Look at the structure of proteins (and thus you can go back to the original coding gene itself). They are not all completely novel and unique structures. They consist of domains and regions which are common with other protein structures and this is because of duplication and this starts leading into the whole 'selfish gene' concept.

Which makes no difference to the problem, how comes intermediate A to intermediate B (which has more added parts) to intermediate C (which has some altered and deleted parts from B)

Why must evolution always be an increase in complexity and size. Look at the virus, this is most commonly postulated to have arisen from something far more complicated so in this respect is a 'backward step'. However the virus is elegant, simple and very successful. And that is the key word in natural selection: successful.

I can see that. But the new system must fall in place at a certain moment and start working. If it replaces an old part, that part must be removed at the same moment.
Not to mention that the new part must cooperate with the other parts as well.

No it doesn't. Things are far more gradual than that...

As I said, focus on the system we are dealing with, not the analogy. You're just oversimplifying. Endosymbiosis - the result of a mutually beneficial relationship. The mitochondrion is many tens of times more effective at respiration than anaerobic respiration alone (in terms of ATP generated per unit of glucose entered). The cell gets vast amounts more energy by having the mitochondrion, the mitochondrion can get all the food it needs from the cell. Similar for the chloroplast and photosynthesis. Hence the benefits are massive. But sometimes functions disappear. Look at melanin synthesis in human skin. Not beneficial in a northern climate as large amounts of tyrosine (an amino acid) are required to maintain such high levels of skin pigmentation, and food just wasn't as abundant in that climate. As there was no advantage to having such protection against harmful UV flux it actually posed an evolutionary advantage in that climate not to be pigmented.

I know. You have the preposition that all that's been said against evolution from amoebe to man is wrong anyway.

Amoeba and man are from two completely different paths.

In fact you're a evoluionistic fundamentalist.
You don't even want to talk about it or read other opinions.

...

My guess is that you guess too much.

No, ID doesn't advocate that lesser structures cannot exist. It advocates that it's impossible to gradually evolve from a more simple structure into a more complex structure if more key elements of the more complex structure harm the entire structure if they aren't implemented all at once and would be wiped out by natural selection.

And how many times must it be demonstrated that there is no reason or evidence why that must be true. ID is just an assertion.

But if several systems have evolved in seperated processes for different reasons and will start to work for one reason in one combined project, all systems must fall in part at once.

5 different systems evolving from 5 different systems could happen gradually.
All falling in place in a system in which all parts couldn't work without each other cannot happen gradually.

I've explained why not. Now give me an explanation why that is true. Not analogising with clocks, but with biological evidence and reasoning.

I do not.
Today is not perfection.
In fact I'm sure humans were more capable of hearing in the past. We were better protected against the sun and cancer shows that our cells do not that perfect.

I've just mentioned about the evolutionary pressures of skin pigmentation. Perfection is a purely human concept. Successful is what we are dealing with here.

I think that's enough for that post for now...most of your other replies fall into the categories explained above...

[molly bloom]

Really intelligent design:

The gestation period is 4 months in C. crocuta. Females usually bear twins although 1 to 4 young are possible.

The females give birth through their penis-like clitoris. During birth, the clitoris ruptures to allow the young to pass through.

The resulting wound takes several weeks to heal.

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Crocuta_crocuta.html

Would you trust your genitals to that 'intelligent' designer ?


I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours...

[Last Conformist]

Get get's even better - around 10% of C. c. females die when giving birth the first time.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Get get's even better - around 10% of C. c. females die when giving birth the first time.

But of course there's a really 'intelligent' design behind that.


We're just not intelligent enough to see it.


Probably because of our crappily designed eyes.

[Provost Harrison]

Ouch

[Sava]

I can see CyberShy's next thread:

THE CASE FOR FLAT WORLD THEORY!