Posted on 10/12/2005 10:43:32 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
It says nothing about various other things alleged to be irreducibly complex. So based on one thing for which irreducible complexity has (supposedly) been refuted, the whole idea is now pretty much gone. As though disproving it in one instance proves that nothing could be irreducibly complex. Evos are real anxious to be done with the concept, eh?
Behe came up with a definition of IC which gets to the point of analyzing evolutionary structures in an article in 2000, (before the Aizawa discovery). The discovery doesn't meet this requirement.
While thinking of Keith Robison’s scenario, I was struck that irreducible complexity could be better formulated in evolutionary terms by focusing on a proposed pathway, and on whether each step that would be necessary to build a certain system using that pathway was selected or unselected. If a system has to pass through one unselected step on the way to a particular improvement, then in a real evolutionary sense it is encountering irreducibility: two things have to happen (the mutation passing through the unselected step and the mutation that gives a selectable system) before natural selection can kick in again. If it has to pass through three or four unselected steps (like Robison’s scenario), then in an evolutionary sense it is even more irreducibly complex. The focus is off of the “parts” (whose number may stay the same even while the nature of the parts is changing) and re-directed toward “steps.”Envisioning IC in terms of selected or unselected steps thus puts the focus on the process of trying to build the system. A big advantage, I think, is that it encourages people to pay attention to details; hopefully it would encourage really detailed scenarios by proponents of Darwinism (ones that might be checked experimentally) and discourage just-so stories that leap over many steps without comment. So with those thoughts in mind, I offer the following tentative “evolutionary” definition of irreducible complexity:
An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.
That definition has the advantage of promoting research: to state clear, detailed evolutionary pathways; to measure probabilistic resources; to estimate mutation rates; to determine if a given step is selected or not. It allows for the proposal of any evolutionary scenario a Darwinist (or others) may wish to submit, asking only that it be detailed enough so that relevant parameters might be estimated. If the improbability of the pathway exceeds the available probabilistic resources (roughly the number of organisms over the relevant time in the relevant phylogenetic branch) then Darwinism is deemed an unlikely explanation and intelligent design a likely one.
When I asked Dr. Behe about this at lunch he got a bit testy, but acknowledged that the claim is correct (I have witnesses). What's with this "I have witnesses"? He added that the bacterial flagellum is still irreducibly complex in the sense that the subset does not function as a flagellum.
His response might seem like a minor concession, but is very significant. The old meaning of irreducible complexity was, “It doesn’t have any function when a part is removed.” Evidently, the new meaning of irreducible complexity is “It doesn’t have the same function when a part is removed.”
The new definition renders irreducible complexity irrelevant to evolution, because complex adaptations are widely thought to have evolved through natural selection co-opting existing structures for new functions, in opportunistic fashion.
Saying something is "widely thought" to have happened is kind of meaningless without some fairly detailed description, isn't it? Is that supposed to convince someone who doubts evolution? Evos seem to regard arguments like this as powerful, even though it's basically empty.
THis article by Dembski discusses the TTSS. As he says:
At best the TTSS represents one possible step in the indirect Darwinian evolution of the bacterial flagellum. But that still wouldn't constitute a solution to the evolution of the bacterial flagellum. What's needed is a complete evolutionary path and not merely a possible oasis along the way. To claim otherwise is like saying we can travel by foot from Los Angeles to Tokyo because we've discovered the Hawaiian Islands. Evolutionary biology needs to do better than that.There's another problem here. The whole point of bringing up the TTSS was to posit it as an evolutionary precursor to the bacterial flagellum. The best current molecular evidence, however, points to the TTSS as evolving from the flagellum and not vice versa (Nguyen et al. 2000). This can also be seen intuitively. The bacterial flagellum is a motility structure for propelling a bacterium through its watery environment. Water has been around since the origin of life. But the TTSS, as Mike Gene (see citation at end) notes, is restricted "to animal and plant pathogens." Accordingly, the TTSS could only have been around since the rise of metazoans. Gene continues: "In fact, the function of the system depends on intimate contact with these multicellular organisms. This all indicates this system arose after plants and animals appeared. In fact, the type III genes of plant pathogens are more similar to their own flagellar genes than the type III genes of animal pathogens. This has led some to propose that the type III system arose in plant pathogens and then spread to animal pathogens by horizontal transfer.... When we look at the type III system its genes are commonly clustered and found on large virulence plasmids. When they are in the chromosome, their GC content is typically lower than the GC content of the surrounding genome. In other words, there is good reason to invoke horizontal transfer to explain type III distribution. In contrast, flagellar genes are usually split into three or more operons, they are not found on plasmids, and their GC content is the same as the surrounding genome. There is no evidence that the flagellum has been spread about by horizontal transfer."
It follows that the TTSS does not explain the evolution of the flagellum (despite the handwaving of Aizawa 2001). Nor, for that matter, does the bacterial flagellum explain in any meaningful sense the evolution of the TTSS. The TTSS is after all much simpler than the flagellum. The TTSS contains ten or so proteins that are homologous to proteins in the flagellum. The flagellum requires an additional thirty or forty proteins, which are unique. Evolution needs to explain the emergence of complexity from simplicity. But if the TTSS evolved from the flagellum, then all we've done is explain the simpler in terms of the more complex.
The scientific literature shows a complete absence of concrete, causally detailed proposals for how coevolution and co-option might actually produce irreducibly complex biochemical systems In place of such proposals, Darwinists simply observe that because subsystems of irreducibly complex systems might be functional, any such functions could be selected by natural selection. Accordingly, selection can work on those parts and thereby form irreducibly complex systems. All of this is highly speculative, and accounts for cell biologist Franklin Harold's (2001, 205) frank admission: "There are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations."
:-)
There is also the substantive point that ID has been scientifically unproductive. I guess you must have missed this while working on the snide comparison with Maureen Dowd.
It says nothing about various other things alleged to be irreducibly complex. So based on one thing for which irreducible complexity has (supposedly) been refuted, the whole idea is now pretty much gone. As though disproving it in one instance proves that nothing could be irreducibly complex. Evos are real anxious to be done with the concept, eh?
The blood clotting system is so far from being IC, I suspect the author didn;t even conside it worth bothering with. But it's been debunked. (You want him to debunk an entire book in one 1000 word column?). There are numerous less complex versions of the system in other vertebrates. Even the mousetrap has been refuted, stupid analogy though it was.
An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.
Behe's problem is that he's ignorant of basic genetics. A mutation can confer evolutionary fitness through a number of different mechanisms. Any potential change can lead to selection; and even unselected variation will persist in a population, as long as it's not actually unfavorable.
That definition has the advantage of promoting research: to state clear, detailed evolutionary pathways; to measure probabilistic resources; to estimate mutation rates; to determine if a given step is selected or not. It allows for the proposal of any evolutionary scenario a Darwinist (or others) may wish to submit, asking only that it be detailed enough so that relevant parameters might be estimated. If the improbability of the pathway exceeds the available probabilistic resources (roughly the number of organisms over the relevant time in the relevant phylogenetic branch) then Darwinism is deemed an unlikely explanation and intelligent design a likely one.
So where's the research? Behe himself has come up with exactly two papers in the last five years, both of which have been eviscerated.
The scientific literature shows a complete absence of concrete, causally detailed proposals for how coevolution and co-option might actually produce irreducibly complex biochemical systems In place of such proposals, Darwinists simply observe that because subsystems of irreducibly complex systems might be functional, any such functions could be selected by natural selection.
What would I have to say? I've not thought about it until you asked.
But why would EG (Eternal God) even ask such a question? Is EG not omnipotent? It should be that EG would know the true answer already. His/Her purpose would surely not be to embarrass me, or to put me ill-at-ease, or to make me cower in shame -- those would be human motives.
Would He want me to renounce my "belief" in evolution and proclaim my belief in Him/Her? Since my ideas and convictions are evidence-based, I could hardly deny His/Her existence at this point with His/Her existence now being self-evident.
But to play the game, I could answer His/Her question to the best of my ability (and without being disingenuous, because He/She would know).
I might say, "I did think for myself, as You well know. I looked about me in my youth, and I saw the artifacts that proclaimed Your existence. I saw the churches, and the synagogues, and the mosques, and I spoke to the priests and the rabbis and the imams, and they all told me about You and how You created everything with a word, and how I should worship You and Your creation, that I might have eternal life."
"I read Your Book, when I was younger, and I attended one of Your churches with my parents. My mother told me that Your Book was largely metaphorical. My father only attended church to please my mother, and he never spoke to me about You or Your Creation. You killed him with Alzheimer's Disease, and he did not know me when he died."
"But You knew that."
"After I went out into the world, I encountered many of Your followers, some of whom had different versions of Your Book. Some came knocking on my door and plagued me with entreaties to be *SAVED*, and gave me pamphlets of many colors."
"But each of Your followers also told me that their vision of you was the Only True Vision, and that all of the others were condemned to hell, and they grew angry with me when I asked them why You were so narrow minded. And then they asked me for money."
"But You knew that."
"And I looked further, and I spoke to more people, and I found that most people had their Own True Vision, and that there were thousands of different groups whose OTVs conflicted with one another, and who would murder each other in Your name. Not wanting to be murdered, I occasionally gave them the tribute that they requested, but I thereafter avoided them and kept to myself."
"I took up astronomy as a hobby, and I marveled at the visible vastness of Your Creation (Nice job, BTW!), but I failed when trying to wrap my mind around the concept of existence itself. Why is there anything, as opposed to nothing? Why do You (self-evident only now) exist?
"You knew I'd ask that, of course, and I don't expect an answer. At least, not one that I can understand -- it would be like that quantum mechanics thing, I suppose. What was that all about? Never mind, I digress."
"So I looked at Your Creation. Close up, I looked at the rocks and the sand, and I saw that the sand was once rock and that the rock was once sand, and I saw that a great deal of time had passed since Your act of creation. It is said that a thousand years is like a day to You, and I see in Your visage that you are not young."
"And I looked closer at the rock, and I saw the shells of sea creatures embedded therein, and once again I saw the embodiment of great spans of time. At that time I lived at 7500 above sea level in the Rocky Mountains, but you knew that, also."
"Truth be told, the Earth is Your Book, and it testifies to great works over great ages, set in motion long ago, and progressing to this point with no evidence of design or purpose. You did this to bring forth Man, it now seems, but to what end? Your own vanity? Your followers seem to think so -- they tell me that you want to be worshipped, but they fear you. Are you proud of that? Scratch that -- pride is a sin, right?"
"Now You're annoyed. How is that possible? You knew that I was going to say these things, yet You ask me questions as if You expect to uncover truths heretofore hidden from You."
"What's that? Probation? Community service? Credit for time served? You're telling me that I've been in Hell the whole time? No wonder most people are such jerks -- Sartre was right, wasn't he?"
"But, You knew that!"
Creo humor placemarker
A new tagline, eh?
None of which will be taught in school.
Nonsense. The Scientific Method is taught in school. If you care to claim that the Theory of Evolution is being taught as the origins of life, you'll have to prove it.
On the contrary, it's creationists who want to water down scientific education. ID is proof enough of that.
Yeast you become too cocky, I lichen your situation to a small boy with no morels looking to get into truffle.
You will both stand in the corner until further notice!
I protist this treatment!
Reed on, it gets wurst.
Eukaryote too much.
You Evolution Proselytizers never explain why the missing links died out leaving the monkeys?
Given natural selections rule shouldn't we see more adaptation in primate species instead we see primates unable to adapt to enviromental degradation, gorillas being the prime example.
Also where is the mountain of reptile to bird fossils the Chinese version turned out to be a hoax if reptiles suddenly became birds where are the fossils which exhibit the gradual change?
Son, you are speaking in tongues.
I have come to term this "The Threat". They ALL, invariably resort to it at some point, without exception. Even the sweetest, "thank you for every post" resorted to this pathetic argument with me at one point. It is all they have.
"Believe what I believe or to the eternal fire-pit with you 'cause 'The Book' says so."
Think for yourself as long as you believe what we insist you must believe.
put down the crack pipe, son, and back away from the sheep.
not one thing in your post relates to the actual ToE.
stoned, slack-jawed, and mindwiped by Jack Chick is no way to go through life.
I will answer you. There is such meager understanding of evolution out there, even sometimes among those who think they know.
Imagine a huge area, like Africa, that is a vast jungle. There are millions, maybe billions, of rudimentary apes living across the continent. They are all of the same family and basically the same.
In geologic time, a short period of a few thousand years, a mountain range begins to rise. Trapped on one side are one group, on the other a different group.
The first group is fortunate, they are on the wet side and trees, forest, fruits and vegetables abound. On the other the mountains drive the moisture out of the clouds and the land becomes a serengeti, a dry plain with few fruits and vegetables, lots of grass, grains and grazing animals for food. Only problem is, you have to walk a lot.
Those with feet that had the same toes like thumbs couldn't walk very well to chase the animals and forage for tubers and such. Not like the lucky ones that were stuck in the rain forest on the other side of the mountain range that could still live in trees and climb for fruit. Flatter feet enhanced survival value.
Not only did living on the dry plains require increased locomotion the scarcity of food meant that you had to learn to hunt. This means you had to increase your intelligent in order to out-think your prey. So larger brains had greater survival potential and you became smarter. Not only that, it took increased group cooperation to track and run down prey so your communication skills evolved as well. The better the communication the more food, the more survival.
True, lions, hyenas and other carnivores didn't develop such elaborate communications systems but they didn't need to. They weren't skinny little weak hominids that needed to outsmart their prey rather than run it down and kill it.
Meanwhile, those lazy, lucky apes - gorillas and chimps - still lived in that plush forest and had little reason to evolve much. Oh, a change in food source here, competing with baboons there, but little real reason to change.
There are many, many examples of ancestoral species that remain unchanged today although their many descendents, trapped in different environs were forced to mutate and no longer remotely resemble these ancestors. Do a search on the tetrapod taxion someday, one of the oldest things on the planet. The number of species that splinter off from this is astounding. Yet, many exist unchanged today, but their decendents exist as well. It is all a matter of niche.
And those that are trapped in niches that change too fast for them to evolve to adapt just die off. This is the answer to post 206 by Claptrap.
Given natural selections rule shouldn't we see more adaptation in primate species instead we see primates unable to adapt to enviromental degradation, gorillas being the prime example.
This is what happened to Wholly Mammoths, Saber Tooth Tigers and any number of extinct species. That is why they are extinct. The world changed too fast.
Proof of evolution.
Nice post.
LOL!!!
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