ID on Twitter
Following my last post, I was just perusing through some of the comments on intelligent design by following the #intelligentdesign tag and came across this draw-dropping statement:
Occams Razor- the simplest answer is often correct. That’s why #intelligentdesign works for me
To which I replied to the user:
@terrycrews Evolution by natural selection is stunningly simple. Earth designed by a complex super intelligent being is not.
When I saw “Occams Razor” in his Tweet, I thought, “Oh, I guess he is going to say something critical of ID,” since natural selection is truly a simple and powerful mechanism by which humankind developed from lower forms. I was floored when I learned that he actually thought ID was the simpler explanation. No one with even a cursory knowledge of evolution by natural selection could utter such a statement. Obviously, he has yet to comprehend that a being capable of fashioning the world out of nothing would have to be many large degrees more complex than his creation. The potter is, after all, a million fold more complex than the pot. And so it must be with any creator.
Natural selection is not simple when you take into consideration extreme amounts of data contained within DNA and the complex molecular machines discovered since Darwin's Origin of Species. Simply put, Darwin is outdated. Please consider the idea of irreducible complexity. When numerous parts are required for a machine to work, and any one of several parts being removed would cause the system to fail at its function, simple natural selection cannot explain the development of such a biological machine. This would require all necessary parts to spontaneously evolve simultaneously, and this is no simple or duplicable task. No such probability-defying evolution has been observed or recorded to my knowledge. However, such complex organizations have been observably created by the intelligent design of men. Because complex biological mechanisms are neither probable nor duplicable, scientific method cannot be used to believe in such. You are left with an irrational belief in natural selection or an observable belief in intelligent design.
rc1
11 Dec 11 at 2:37 am
@ rc1: Darwin was well ahead of his time, and his observations and contributions to science are as poignant and groundbreaking today as they were in 1859. He well understood the idea of irreducible complexity (although I don't believe that term had been invented yet), and in On the Origin of Species, he admitted that if something could be demonstrated to be irreducibly complex, his conclusions would not hold. He wrote:
No such irreducibly complex thing has been found to exist. Michael Behe's famous bacterial flagellum example, for instance, isn't really irreducibly complex, neither are eyes or hearts or other organs because if a part of your eye is damaged, that is still better than having no eye at all. If you clip part of a bird's wing, the remainder will still save it from a fall more so than if the bird's wing was removed altogether. Some people with COPD have what is called "volume reduction" surgery, where part of the damaged lung is removed to allow the remainder of the lung to work more efficiently, so neither is any vital organ "irreducibly complex." So, just because a part is removed, that is still better than no organ at all. Here's an article that explains this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9452500/page/2/#.TuV5 and here is the relevant section from Darwin's work: Difficulties on Theory.
Here is a snippet from the article above:
Your failure to understand evolution by natural selection is not my responsibility. The research and evidence is all over the place. All you have to do is seek it out, whereas the evidence for intelligent design only resides in the hopes and wishes of believers … and of course, in misleading and downright errant articles over at Answers in Genesis.
jeremystyron
11 Dec 11 at 11:13 pm
@jeremystyron: Thank you for your thoughtful and referenced response.
I have read the MSNBC article and your reply. There is a logical fallacy in this article, however, and in Kenneth Miller's assertion. The MSNBC article claims, "[I]f an irreducibly complex system contains within it a smaller set of parts that could be used for some other function, then the system was never really irreducibly complex to begin with." Kenneth Miller is quoted as saying, "The instant that I or anybody else finds a subset of parts that has a function, that argument is destroyed." This, however, is not true.
Using the logic of Miller, I could argue that anything made up of molecules cannot be irreducibly complex because molecules have independent functions. Or, anything with fingers cannot be irreducibly complex because fingers have functions. This completely misses the reasoning behind irreducible complexity. To quote Darwin, "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." To quote Darwin more specifically, "slight modifications."
Irreducible complexity does not demand that nothing in a complex organization can be used for alternate functions, although this does seem to be a repeated claim by those refuting it. Indeed, Behe, oft quoted in refutations, defined irreducible complexity as "a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." This is not the part often quoted, but this is his definition. Note, multiple parts contributing to the mechanism's function, wherein taking out one part causes the function to not function. (The part of Behe's explanation that is so often quoted is, "[A]ny precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional." Of course, this would be the same error I am accusing MSNBC of if Behe meant any function, at all, but I suggest Behe wrote this within the context of the original mechanism's function. Even, if Behe meant to communicate the error he is accused of, I am not repeating his error.)
You make a valid argument, that even partially maimed mechanisms can have inferior yet still useful functions. True, but I would add that an irreducibly complex system would require more than one simple mutation to achieve its next useful stage in evolution/natural selection, but instead numerous mutations simultaneously. One useful mutation is rare enough, but multiple useful simultaneous mutations is unprecedented. Little if any evidence suggest simultaneous mutations of an original and useful function. Even if Behe's wording is careless, the idea of irreducible complexity stands.
Concerning MSNBC's accusation that Intelligent Design is boring because it's answer for everything is "God did it," I would simply remind the historically illiterate that many of the fathers of science believed in God, yet they were anything but boring. Anyone who cares to understand God or nature would still want to know what God did or how nature worked. There would be no shortage of scientific inquiry. The main difference between Darwinists and theists would be their use of the scientific method. Theistic scientists would probably follow in the traditions of their scientific forebears and use the scientific method to understand God's handiwork. Practical Darwinists would probably do the same, without calling it God's handiwork. And, the religiously zealous Darwinists would probably continue to wander beyond the scientific method into theoretical, unobservable, and unverifiable storytelling.
rc1
13 Dec 11 at 7:28 pm