Morphing Flight: Beyond Irreducible Complexity

www.apologeticspress.org ^ | Jan1,2011 | by Jerry Fausz, Ph.D.

[kimtom]

Researchers and observers have long recognized that birds and various other flying creatures change the positioning of their body structures in flight in order to perform specific maneuvers or adjust their aerodynamic profile to accommodate changing flight conditions. This adaptive orientation of body shape has been dubbed “morphing” in the popular literature. The words “morph” and “morphing” are actually digressive forms of the word “metamorphosis,” which derives from the Greek “meta” (to change) and “morfe” (form). This is an apt description of the ability that birds possess to change the form or geometry of their bodies for increased maneuverability, as well as for stable flight in a wide variety of ambient conditions.. ...This capability has always been respected and often mimicked by aircraft engineers to the extent that it has been technologically possible to do so. Furthermore, bird observations have often inspired technological advancement in aircraft ......

[kimtom]

After having stumbled on various articles proclaiming fossils show "evolution of flight", I decided to interject the engineering/ design of such a feat.

[thackney]

[cripplecreek]

We’ve got bald eagles here in Southern Michigan these days even here in the most heavily populated strip along the I-94 corridor. I watched one snag a dead fish off the water this morning.

[The_Reader_David]

I really wish critics of neo-Darwinism would stop getting complexity theory wrong: irreducibly complex, a technical term form Kolmogorov's algorithmic complexity theory, turns out to mean absolutely random -- a structure is irreducibly complex exactly when its description cannot be given using less data than completely setting out the structure element-by-element -- and this turns out to be equivalent to random. (Any non-random sequence can be specified by an algorithm of finite length, while a random sequence might as well be just read out in its entirety, as it remains infinite even after any conceivable form of data compression.)

The application of algorithmic complexity theory to evolutionary genetics (and I mean that in the narrow, uncontroversial sense of the study of the change in allele frequency over time, not the controversial materialist sense that the neo-Darwinist theory explaining the change of allele frequency over time provides a complete explanation for biological diversity and all properties of living organisms) is a good idea, but you have to get algorithmic complexity theory right to apply it.

Personally I hold the view that neo-Darwinism implies intelligent design (look up the definition of intelligent agent used in modern AI work, and consider the properties the neo-Darwinian synthesis attributes to the biosphere as a whole to see why).

[Errant]

The key to birds ability to “morph” is the feather, which don’t do well, as a covering, at high speed. :-)

[papertyger]

Oh dear!

Imagine the scandal of popular culture not giving proper recognition to ‘Kolmogorov’s
algorithmic complexity theory’ and naming its conventions accordingly!

[The_Reader_David]

The folks who get complexity theory wrong when applying it to evolutionary biology are supposedly engaged in science — or at least philosophy of science — not promulgating popular culture, and yes, they are appealing to notions properly formalized by Kolmogorov.

[kimtom]

“...are supposedly engaged in science ..”

Are you saying you cannot question a theory?? or adapt it to your own???
scientist do this often.

Is criticizing a theory unacceptable?/ That is what theory is about...to be tested.

[papertyger]

The folks who get complexity theory wrong when applying it to evolutionary biology are supposedly engaged in science ,,,,

Please cite your sources for claiming Behe or any other advocate of Intelligent Design were applying "complexity theory" to "evolutionary biology" rather than coining a descriptive term for a pedestrian concept.

Do you have a better term for Behe's signature concept outlined in "Darwin's Black Box?"

[kimtom]

Feathers exemplify the wonders of intelligent engineering, and indicate incredible design. Feathers are a unique integument [natural outer covering] that belongs only to birds, and are described by Richard Prum as “the most complex epidermal appendages found in animals” (1999, p. 291). Consider the feather’s state-of-the-art design. Each feather has a shaft that runs along the center. The fluffy strands that extend from the shaft are called vanes. Each vane is composed of even smaller thread-like strands, called barbs. These various barbs allow the feather to achieve lift. But the structure is even more streamlined. On either side of the barb are microscopic barbules. One side has barbules comprised of ridges, whereas the other side is composed of hooks. The hooked barbules thus attach to the ridges of the adjacent barbules, forming a sort of natural Velcro®. Actually, the feather has a better design than Velcro, because the ridges allow the barbs to slide, keeping the surface intact, and yet allowing it the flexibility required for flight. Thus, it can be said that birds of a feather flock together, and feathers of a bird lock together.

-Matthew Vanhorn

Prum, Richard O. (1999) “Development and Evolutionary Origin of Feathers,” Journal of Experimental Zoology (Molecular, Developmental, Evolution), 285:291-306.

[MrB]

Disallowing of criticism of a theory should be a red flag that the theory is a justification for a belief system - to edify underlying assumptions that have no basis otherwise.

[The_Reader_David]

No, criticizing a theory on the basis of a priori probability estimates, which is what ID folk, do is not science: a priori probability estimates are neither falsifiable nor verifiable.

Look, I'm sympathetic to ID, but it needs to be done right. The ID folk are right to consider biology as a system to which complexity theory can be applied -- this is something the neo-Darwinists, and especially the polemical materialists overlook, that the DNA/RNA/protein system is a massive computational system to which algorithmic complexity theory applies. But a scientific theory of intelligent design begins with a general scientific theory of intelligence, not intelligence as, itself, a "black box".

A critique of neo-Darwinism based on naive notions of randomness, which is at the base all ID as expounded by Behe et al. has offered, is not to the point. We know on the basis of work on genetic algorithms that a designed system whose internal workings are based on the Darwinian paradigm can, through a partially stochastic process, produce novel complex subsystems. What's more most "random" mutation is not flipping a base-pair here or there, but moving an "repurposing" larger bits of genetic code that were already "field-tested".

In the end, the whole "crevo" debate is quite frankly stupid. It is based on two false assumptions shared by literalist six-day creationists, rabid atheistic materialists, and everyone else who wants to argue that creation and evolution are incompatible:

• That a system for which our best model is stochastic is, in fact, governed by "random chance" in the hard philosophical sense of randomness. (Manifestly false: our best model of futures markets, which are set up by intentional, intelligent actors and in which the dynamics is created by intentional, intelligent actors is the Black-Scholes model, which involves stochastic differential equations.)
• That a system which at the micro-level in fact involves randomness is not the result of intelligent intentional action, and does not produce designed results. (Manifestly false: any archeologist finding a large piece of annealed or hardened metal will conclude that the metal is part of an artifact, yet both annealing and hardening are accomplished by a sequence of thermal -- and thus at a micro-level random -- processes.)

On the basis of these assumptions, the polemical creationist, firmly believing (as I also do) that God created the universe and all that is in it, biological diversity and human nature included, reasons that this cannot have been done by a process that looks from within the created universe like neo-Darwinism because that would involve stochastic elements, and thus categorically rejects Darwinism. On the basis of these assumptions, the polemical materialist, firmly believing that the Darwinian paradigm correctly describes the source of biological diversity and all the properties of living things, human beings included, goes on to categorically reject the existence of any intentional actor (traditionally God) behind the process.

I commend to everyone's attention Alexander Kalomiros's The Six Dawns for a very satisfying resolution of the false contradiction between the Biblical account of creation and the modern scientific account. Of course, one has to be willing to read Genesis the way the Fathers of the Church read it, rather than under the assumption that it "is literally true", which seems as near as I can make out to mean "communicates truth when read as if it were written by and for post-'Enlightenment' rationalists."

[Kickass Conservative]

Wow, God’s wisdom strikes again.

[Lazamataz]

I really wish critics of neo-Darwinism would stop getting complexity theory wrong: irreducibly complex, a technical term form Kolmogorov's algorithmic complexity theory, turns out to mean absolutely random -- a structure is irreducibly complex exactly when its description cannot be given using less data than completely setting out the structure element-by-element -- and this turns out to be equivalent to random. (Any non-random sequence can be specified by an algorithm of finite length, while a random sequence might as well be just read out in its entirety, as it remains infinite even after any conceivable form of data compression.) The application of algorithmic complexity theory to evolutionary genetics (and I mean that in the narrow, uncontroversial sense of the study of the change in allele frequency over time, not the controversial materialist sense that the neo-Darwinist theory explaining the change of allele frequency over time provides a complete explanation for biological diversity and all properties of living organisms) is a good idea, but you have to get algorithmic complexity theory right to apply it. Personally I hold the view that neo-Darwinism implies intelligent design (look up the definition of intelligent agent used in modern AI work, and consider the properties the neo-Darwinian synthesis attributes to the biosphere as a whole to see why).

This was such a learned and eloquently stated thesis that my brain exploded.

Luckily, I caught it on camera.

[Errant]

Feathers exemplify the wonders of intelligent engineering, and indicate incredible design.

Exactly!

[metmom]

Creation ping

[metmom]

I commend to everyone's attention Alexander Kalomiros's The Six Dawns for a very satisfying resolution of the false contradiction between the Biblical account of creation and the modern scientific account. Of course, one has to be willing to read Genesis the way the Fathers of the Church read it, rather than under the assumption that it "is literally true", which seems as near as I can make out to mean "communicates truth when read as if it were written by and for post-'Enlightenment' rationalists."

Try this....

The Age of the Universe

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1576941/posts

[papertyger]

No, criticizing a theory on the basis of a priori probability estimates, which is what ID folk, do is not science: a priori probability estimates are neither falsifiable nor verifiable.

Until you get this part right, nothing you have to say can be taken as anything but partisan, no matter how erudite.

[CottShop]

[[I really wish critics of neo-Darwinism would stop getting complexity theory wrong: irreducibly complex, a technical term form Kolmogorov’s algorithmic complexity theory, turns out to mean absolutely random — a structure is irreducibly complex exactly when its description cannot be given using less data than completely setting out the structure element-by-element — and this turns out to be equivalent to random. (Any non-random sequence can be specified by an algorithm of finite length, while a random sequence might as well be just read out in its entirety, as it remains infinite even after any conceivable form of data compression.) The application of algorithmic complexity theory to evolutionary genetics (and I mean that in the narrow, uncontroversial sense of the study of the change in allele frequency over time, not the controversial materialist sense that the neo-Darwinist theory explaining the change of allele frequency over time provides a complete explanation for biological diversity and all properties of living organisms) is a good idea, but you have to get algorithmic complexity theory right to apply it. Personally I hold the view that neo-Darwinism implies intelligent design (look up the definition of intelligent agent used in modern AI work, and consider the properties the neo-Darwinian synthesis attributes to the biosphere as a whole to see why).]]

That’s just a fancy way of saying “Nuh Uh- God isn’t needed for irreducible complexity to occure- Nature, if given enough time and enough impoosible leeway, could overcome insurmountable odds, beath impoissible odds, and end up in the state it is foudn today in each species-

[[irreducibly complex, a technical term form Kolmogorov’s algorithmic complexity theory, turns out to mean absolutely random]]

Except that, as we know, soemthign that complex that relies on a random assembly, and relies on ALL the irreducibly complex parts beign inpalce before assembly (which by the way is contrary to natural selection law), is mathematically impossible to aachieve- (of course darwinists and neodarwinists reject mathematical impossibilites and wave their hand at hte fact that trillions of mathematically impossible events owuld have had to occure i nthe evoltuioonary process i nroder for thwe vast variety of life and irreducible complexites to be evolved that we see today)

He’s tryign to link Irreducible complextiy with complexity- the two are not the same- a system can be compelx without being irreducibly complex- but an inrreducibly complex system needs all it’s irreducible parts inpalce and ready to assemble (which again is contrary to natural selection law) before it can thrive once assembled- without ALL the irreducibly compelx parts inplace, the system will fail- hence why htey call it irreducibly complex- for to reduce one component of the whoel woudl be to cause it’s demise-

Basically the neodarwniist eleives that nature, through random processes, is capable of creatign intelligently designed irreducibly complex structures/life-

but as we saw with Dawkins silly explanation for how blood clotting ‘coudl have arisen naturally through random processes’ we saw that his explanation was anythign but random, that it was intellgiently cotnrolled set of circumstances, and it was supernaturally manipulated i norder to coem up with his ‘naturally occuring’ process

[Errant]

The Age of the Universe

In that, I would argue Isaiah 46:10, which says in part, "I make known the end from the beginning... (Notice it doesn't say, "I make known the beginning at the end)." The ability to do the former being totally incomprehensible, and truly supernatural to such lower life forms as mere humans.

Just sayin'...