There is no such thing as “irreducible complexity” in biology, at least not that has ever been shown. That’s a gimmick used by ID creationists to make a religious argument, not a genuine biological phenomenon. It is not a “problem” for evolutionary theory and all of the examples which are typically brandished as illustrations of alleged IC (e.g. the eye) have been repeatedly debunked as being genuinely “irreducible.”
As far as the physical sciences go (biology, chemistry, geology, etc.) yes. They have the same definition of biological evolution and each field overwhelmingly comfirms it.
It is serious but so what? Constantly propounding an idea that is demonstrably false is also serious and either stupid, ignorant, insane or wicked. Like it or not, we all evolved from amoral beasts but the fact that some of us are now capable of morality allows us to describe such things as wicked.
Irreducible complexity was known years before Michael Behe proposed it under that name. In scientific circles, it is known (rather pejoratively) as “the god of the gaps.” Someone finds a truly complex structure and decides that is “must” have been “designed,” since it could not possibly arise through random mutations filtered through natural selection. However, further research into such irreducible complexities has consistently turned up actual pathways for evolution to have worked.
For example, Dr. Behe made much of the bacteria flagella in one of his early books, insisting that there was no way for the mutations to arise to develop that particular “device.” However, this article by Kenneth Miller provides the tale of The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of “Irreducible Complexity”
There are so many people (such as the misguided Ohio Board of Education) giving “irreducible complexity” a closer look that the Talk Origins web sit has at least two pages dedicated to it: Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe Darwin’s Black Box
Basically, Behe has looked at a few biological mechanisms and has declared that “there is no way that A can give rise to F, so God designed it.” Subsequent researchers have discovered an interim step B, at which point, Behe has declared that “there is no way that B can give rise to F, so God designed it” But wait! He had already asserted that we could not get from A to F; how can we have gotten from A to B if tere was no way to move from A? The fact that we do not yet know the evolutionary pathway does not make the evolutionary explanation incorrect, just not yet fully explored.
The Creationists are nutjobs and poor at expressing their wrong opinions, but regarding certain points they do have a message worth listening to.
Regarding the idea that life originally arose from, say, chemical soup and a bolt of lighting, there really is no proof of this, and proof is pretty much impossible until we replicate the creation process in a laboratory. And even then we would have proved that it was possible, not that certainly happened that way. Frankly, this idea arose from the a priori assumption that there is no intelligence affecting the process.
Two, although I don’t think “faith” is the right word, belief in evolution certainly requires a good amount of story-telling and myth-making. Why? Because this is how the human mind works. We arbitrarily fill in blanks and employ fuzzy logic to make sense of our world. The idea of life arising from chemical soup and heat/lightning is no less a myth than that of Zeus tossing his thunderbolt. Both myths fit the facts that the people of their eras had ascertained.
So yes, I do see what creationists mean when they talk about the “faith” involved in evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory connects the dots of fact with story-telling that has arbitrary components.
But it’s infinitely better than creationism, which ignores the dots altogether and sustitutes its own whole-cloth myth. That’s dogma. Considering that plain facts speak otherwise, it’s a lie. And, frankly, it’s intolerable bullsh*t.
So you see that he did consider all who disagree wicked. But some creationist are - the ones who fully understand what evolution says, and lie about it to forward their religious agenda. The ones who spew their lies to audiences of little children, poisoning their minds against science, which is something this country needs to suceed. But the wicked ones are a tiny minority.
Have you read any real books on evolution? Dawkins is good, and Darwin himself is impressive. Ignorance is the easiest thing in the world to correct you know.
Oh, and my definition of irreducible complexity - Behe didn’t understand it. I wish I could have used that when I was in college. “I can’t do question 3 on this problem set because it is irreducibly complex.”
Aeschines, it’s been said multiple times already in this thread ut I’ll say it again.
The origin of life has nothing to do with the evolution of life.
Evolution only concerns itself with what happened after life began. Evolutionary theory does not even try to explain how it started.
That’s not to say that any necessity has been shown for deistic involvement in abiogenesis but even if God zapped the waters to create the first replicating organisms that would not affect evolutionary theory one bit.
Your assertions about abiogenetic speculations are greatly over simplified, btw, and not as arbitrary as you seem to think.
I agree with this premise, though it does not represent my religious beliefs. Intelligent design does not exclude evolution - that could be the design, duh, and vice versa. I don’t believe in a Creator, but I do believe that there is something vastly beyond what modern science knows or can recognize.
For the record, I do believe that T=0 at one point, simply because I have yet to see an intelligent (read: not half-assed) theory otherwise. We simply don’t know enough.
Given that this is an old chestnut on the site, which I joined yesterday, the large number of responses and hits is indicative of the great interest in the subject. This isn’t surprising considering that it goes to the heart of people’s thirst for knowledge and also understanding.
Given the fact that many of the folk following this thread will have little or no idea of what Behe and others meant by irreducible complexity (we’ve heard what his opponents mean by it!), I will make a later post summarising his position.
I quite agree that Dawkins did not (I think you meant to write ‘not’) consider all who disagree with him to be wicked. That’s why I phrased my comment on his words the way I did. I think we could no longer give Dawkins the benefit of the doubt with regard to his sanity, let alone his tolerance, if he really meant that everyone who disagreed with him was wicked. Though there have been a few totalitarians down the years who have believed just that.
“The idea of life arising from chemical soup and heat/lightning is no less a myth than that of Zeus tossing his thunderbolt. Both myths fit the facts that the people of their eras had ascertained.”
But the real question remains: how did that from which life first blossomed come to be itself? How can matter appear from a void? How can somethign appear in nothingness unless someone put it there? And if someone put it there, as seems very likely, why couldn’t that someone put a load of plants and animals there too?
It is significant too that whereas the idea of someone creating the world is deemed to be “demonstrably false”, evolutionary theory is taken as pretty much read. Surely saying “the fact that we do not yet know the evolutionary pathway does not make the evolutionary explanation incorrect, just not yet fully explored” is akin to admitting that evolution is not proven to be true. Is the door open, or not?
I wish it were indeed the case that correcting ignorance was something the world found very easy. Voyager, you perhaps do not realise how rare it is to be someone who is able to admit you’re wrong and change your mind accordingly. The result of a rogue mutation, perhaps?!
That’s ok, it’s an extremely common mistake to conflate evolution and abiogenesis. I don’t think schools do a very good job of explaining the distinction because the misperception that evolutionary theory explains the origin of life is just as prevalent among non-theists (in my experience) as theists.
You’re right in your essential point that the actual origin of life is still unknown and that it is a genuine source of wonder.
First there’s no “very likely” that someone put the universe there, no evidence at all.
Plants and animals. They could have been put there spontaneously, but why then go to the bother of laying down lots of evidence that they arose and evolved over millions of years.
In fact if you’re talking those sorts of supernatural powers, why bother creating at all when it would be as easy to sustain a uniform illusion in every living person that the world is other than it appears.
That’s the nub. The faith position is one that denies there is such a thing as objective knowledge of the physical world. It denies the possibility of evidence-based science.
It’s indescribably smary to declare: “Well yes, but that is only what the evidence tells you.”
The theory of evolution is certainly not ‘taken as read’. There are many thousands of scientists examining it in great detail, devising experiments and making hypotheses about further elements of the theory, as well as having a great deal of fun analysing each other’s work and pointing out potential errors.
This is where science diverges from positions that are held from faith alone - in science the door is, in a sense, always open. There are always people with new ideas, always people looking to understand the old ideas better. If the theory of evolution by natural selection were faulty, there’d be a whole lot of scientists out there happily pulling it to pieces. However, it’s stood up to these frequent assaults very well.
If you mean by ‘take it as read’ that many scientists have moved on from the basic principle of evolution by natural selection and are now adding new theories, like punctuated equilibrium, that would be true. It’s the same kind of thing that has happened with every scientific theory in history. For example, Einstein’s theory of relativity is well proven, and so scientists can use it as the basis for further work.
We know Behe’s position well. I suggest you take a look at tomndebb’s links to the Talkorigins pages on Behe before you attempt to take up his cause on this board. Ripping apart Behe is something of a sport around here. If you read the Talkorigins stuff you might be able to get a heads up on how IC will be assaulted and prepare your surrebuttals accordingly.
All of these questions are unrelated to evolution. Perhaps you meant to ask a different question in your OP? More along the lines of a cosmological argument, for instance?
The statement was that special creation was demonstrably false, not theistic creation in a broader sense. “Special creation” has a specific meaning in these kinds of discussions, namely that living species were “created” simultaneously and separately rather than evolving from a common ancestor. Common descent is a rock solid fact so special creation is demonstrably false but that’s not the same as saying no theistic creation is possible in an absolute sense. To simplify: it cannot be demonstrated that God did not create the universe. It can be demonstrated that living species did not arise simultaneously and that they have a common ancestor.
Not. The questions that remain are not critical to the integrity of the theory as a whole. It is a demonstrable fact that evolution occurs. It has been directly observed. We don’t know every single step of every species but we don’t have to in order to know that evolution occurs.
“The faith position is one that denies there is such a thing as objective knowledge of the physical world. It denies the possibility of evidence-based science.”
Not my faith. Perhaps you misunderstand faith as badly as I misundersatand science!
If I were shown the creature that is half chimp-half man (skeletal evidence, fossils, whatever), I’d be inclined to believe that we were descended from chimps. Same goes for gorillas, orang utans, etc.
Perhaps I wasn’t as clear as I might have been. I intend to summarise Behe for the benefit of the people who are viewing the debate as much as (in fact more than) for those who are taking part in it. Readers will be able to decide whether Behe’s position is defensible or not.
Questions of origin may be kept distinct from questions of evolution, which is why I didn’t link them. But it’s interesting to note the “fact” that it is by definition difficult to explain origins by evolution. Difficult because it takes you into an infinite regress. So, that means that some kind of creation enters the picture (whether deliberate or random - if such can be imagined). (If one doesn’t call it creation, what else does one call it? Manufacture?)
With creation in the frame from the beginning, it’s not unreasonable to believe that it might have a larger part to play in the physical world. You disagree and beleive that ‘it can be demonstrated that living species … have a common ancestor’. What was this common ancestor?
Seriously, bodswood, take a look at the talk.origins site. We’re not asking that you give up your faith, but the arguments that you’re throwing up are fairly common ones, with fairly common rebuttals.
For example, no half-man, half-chimp critter exists because men are not descended from chimps. We share a common ancestor a few million years ago.
