# "Teach the controversy" The amazing simplicity of the human brain **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 30, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-the-controversy-the-amazing-simplicity-of-the-human-brain/617226 "2012-03-30T01:26:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-the-controversy-the-amazing-simplicity-of-the-human-brain/617226/21 "2012-04-01T11:02:35Z")
> [@](#): > > “Irreducible Complexity” is non-scientific mumbo-jumbo. I wrote this on Richard Dawkin’s website and I was corrected. Apparently in the early 20th century there was a theory which described evolutionary developments that appeared to be irreducibly complex: where missing any one component would make the development a hindrance to survival and procreation. The theory posited that there was a “bridge” component that was selected against once the rest of the components were in place… That’s my apprehension of the theory anyway. However along with “macro” and “microevolution”, the terms have been largely coopted by creationist groups for their own purposes and one is unlikely to get a fair description of their history there. It’s surprising how much comes up in “The Origin of Species” itself, which I am reading now. The fact that Darwin collected such a staggering amount of evidence before publishing means that the levels of detail he goes into already presaged most claims. For example, he gives a good introduction to rudimentary forms of the eye, the lack of “transitional” fossils, “organs of extreme perfection”, sterile members of a species, wings and the best definition for a species. It’s very handy when combined with modern information/schemas and reading it helps to combat quote mining. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2012, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-the-controversy-the-amazing-simplicity-of-the-human-brain/617226/22 "2012-04-01T11:11:00Z")
Bah, missed the edit window. According to [this here](http://www.people-press.org/2005/08/30/religion-a-strength-and-weakness-for-both-parties/) poll, quite a few Americans believe that Creationism should be taught (at least taught about) in schools. I’m not going to assume any causal relationship between creationism and theism, there could certainly be atheists that believe in creationism. However, I’d say that theists hold that occurences in our mortal realm that are inexplicable using natural arguments would attribute said occurences to the supernatural, so it’s worth pointing out the continual progress of naturalism. ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-the-controversy-the-amazing-simplicity-of-the-human-brain/617226/23 "2012-04-03T17:27:17Z")
Explain what exactly is random in the universe? Nuclear static noise? Brownian motion? Both seem to be results of a large number of predicted processes. The human brain is complex, sure, and not well understood but it is glaringly obvious that it is nothing more than a bunch of carbon/hydrogen/etc assembling and creating various complicated mass. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-the-controversy-the-amazing-simplicity-of-the-human-brain/617226/24 "2012-04-03T22:05:34Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > If you’re intending to address the most common theistic argument about the limits of scientific knowledge with regard to the mind, I think you may have missed the point entirely. All of us have a mind, an interior consciousness with its own memories, thoughts, dreams, preferences, feelings, associations, priorities, and so forth. All of these things are invisible from the outside; that is to say, your senses have no access to my memories, thoughts, &c… Likewise my senses have no access to yours. Yet nonetheless these things exist, because each of us experiences our own mind. > > Moreover, human minds are unique. No two are alike. > > Therefore, in the human mind, we have something that exists but cannot be replicated, and is therefore not subject to experiment. Experiments that verify facts about the structure of the brain do not touch the question of the contents of the mind. Even if it were fully verified that all memories, thoughts, feelings and so forth could be exactly paired up with physical and chemical events in the brain, it would not give us useful knowledge about why the mind has the memories, thoughts, and so forth that it has, just as knowing that Shakespeare wrote plays with ink on paper does not give us useful knowledge about what his plays say. Meh, no two cows are exactly alike but we can study them just fine. The only things that make the brain inscrutable is that it’s very complex and difficult to observe in a running state. Neither of these are _fundamental_ problems. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teach-the-controversy-the-amazing-simplicity-of-the-human-brain/617226.md?page=1)