Posted on 08/08/2008 9:26:41 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
The commonly cited case for intelligent design appeals to: (a) the irreducible complexity of (b) some aspects of life. But complex arguments invite complex refutations (valid or otherwise), and the claim that only some aspects of life are irreducibly complex implies that others are not, and so the average person remains unconvinced. Here I use another principle autopoiesis (self-making)-—to show that all aspects of life lie beyond the reach of naturalistic explanations...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationontheweb.com ...
'Late arriving here, read through the comments, saved a copy of the PDF for later reading. Didn't even skim through it yet...gotta go...
I thought that IC was not supposed to be science because it couldn't be falsified. Which is it?
Cordially,
There is no theory to falsify.
There are various claims made which have turned out not to be true. That is a long way from having a robust scientific theory which is falsified by new information.
You could claim that fire burns cold, and that claim could be falsified, but that does not make the "fire burns cold" idea a scientific theory. It is simply an idea, a claim, that can be tested. The irreducible complexity idea was along those lines. That is a simple question that could be addressed scientifically, and in fact one which has been falsified.
The central claim in ID is that there is a supernatural IDer. That can't be tested scientifically. (I know, they refuse to name the IDer, but is there any doubt that ID is all about the fundamentalist view of the Christian deity despite all the denials the IDers come up with?)
Does having a subscription to Science and Journal of Biological Chemistry count?
Perhaps you missed this: "The ENCODE consortium's major findings include the discovery that the majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional molecules..."
Then how did IC make it past the peer review filter into the scientific literature as a new classification, developed by two critics of ID attempting to formulate possible Darwinian routes of IC? The article is:
Thornhill, R.H., Ussery, D.W. 2000. "A classification of possible routes of Darwinian evolution." J. Theor. Bio. 203: 111-116.
You can't tell me that the above article would have ever been written had these IC structures already been explained by science, a fact that constitutes indirect evidence vindictating Behe's original claim about the state of the science.
Cordially,
That article hardly ‘unspins the Falgellum’ nor does it ‘collapse Irreducible Complexity’.
That article is about as weak as your ‘Unintelligent Non-design Suffices’ video.
You might as well include your disguised talkorigin links.
What's funny about Miller's article is that the very paper he cites in support of his claims that a number of detailed rebuttals of IC had appeared in the literature, and that "the scientific literature containes counter-examples to any assertion that evolution cannot explain biochemical complexity", is explicitly contradicted by Thornhill and Ussery themselves in their paper!
This is Miller's brief reference to the Thornhill and Ussery paper:
The assertion that cellular machines are irreducibly complex, and therefore provide proof of design, has not gone unnoticed by the scientific community. A number of detailed rebuttals have appeared in the literature, and many have pointed out the poor reasoning of recasting the classic argument from design in the modern language of biochemistry (Coyne 1996; Miller 1996; Depew 1998; Thornhill and Ussery 2000). I have suggested elsewhere that the scientific literature contains counter-examples to any assertion that evolution cannot explain biochemical complexity (Miller 1999, 147), and other workers have addressed the issue of how evolutionary mechanisms allow biological systems to increase in information content (Schneider 2000; Adami, Ofria, and Collier 2000).
This is what Thornhill and Ussery had to say in their paper, though:
""However, the more theoretical question about the accessibility by Darwinian evolution of irreducibly complex structures of functionally indivisible components, if such exist, has not been thoroughly examined. ….One factor hampering examination of the accessibility of biological structures by Darwinian evolution is the absence of a classification of possible routes. A suggested classification is presented here."
[emphasis mine]
Further, they write,
2. Classification.
Possible routes of Darwinian evolution can be classified into four fundamental categories, as outlined below.
(a) Serial direct Darwinian evolution. This means change along a single axis. Although it can generate complicated structures, it cannot generate irreducibly complex structures."
[emphasis mine]
Cordially,
Cordially,
It was recently suggested that many biological structures are irreducibly complex, and therefore inaccessible by Darwinian evolution. Thus far, this is merely a restatement of the (fallacious) popular creationist argument about organs such as the eye. However, the new departure was to argue that the components of biochemical systems, unlike those of supramolecular structures, are single molecules, which are often functionally indivisible. The conclusion was that irreducibly complex structures of functionally indivisible components are inaccessible by Darwinian evolution. Eukaryotic undulipodia (cilia and flagella), bacterial flagella, intracellular vesicular transport, and the mammalian immune response and blood-clotting systems were given as examples (Behe, 1996a).The article did not support Behe's ideas regarding irreducible complexity. Rather, the article was a denunciation of Behe. It repudiated Behe's claims about the state of the science.The above thesis is unsound, as it is not certain either that any biological structures are irreducibly complex, or that their component molecules are functionally indivisible (Coyne, 1996; Doolittle, 1997; Fulton, 1997; Ussery, 1999). However, the more theoretical question about the accessibility by Darwinian evolution of irreducibly complex structures of functionally indivisible components, if such exist, has not been thoroughly examined. One suggested mechanism for the evolution of such structures is the addition of advantageous but inessential components which become essential later as a result of the addition of further, interlocking, components (Orr, 1996). However, this could only produce a complex, rather than an irreducibly complex, structure.
One factor hampering examination of the accessibility of biological structures by Darwinian evolution is the absence of a classification of possible routes. A suggested classification is presented here.
But through the wonders of quote mining it can be made to say the opposite! Isn't creation "science" wonderful?
But through the wonders of quote mining it can be made to say the opposite! Isn't creation "science" wonderful?
In the first place I never said or claimed that Thornhill and Ussery supported Behe's ideas regarding irreducible complexity. In fact I said just the opposite by previously noting that Thornhill and Ussery were critics of ID. That straw man having thus been disposed of, the fact that they do not agree with Behe is obvious, but it does not alter the fact that they explicitly acknowledge that the "theoretical question about the accessibility by Darwinian evolution of irreducibly complex structures of functionally indivisible components, if such exist, has not been thoroughly examined." How you can interpret that statement as indicative of something not to date examined as nevertheless having been thoroughly refuted, and further to respresent such an absurdity as respresenting the state of the science, is beyond me.
If the Darwinian evolution of irreducibly complex structures of functionally indivisible components had indeed been thoroughly examined, which is apparently what you want it to say, they wouldn't have written the paper in the first place, they wouldn't have devised theoretical classifications for Darwinian pathways, and they wouldn't have written that it had not been thoroughly examined. I would like to know therefore, by what strictures of hermeneutic principle you conclude that my representation of the plain meaning is the opposite of what they intended. And by the way, the citation is from a peer reviewed paper, not an Internet article by Kenneth Miller, which is all you cited in rebuttal.
Cordially,
Which names?
Please cite the source for that statement. I did not see any such thing while skimming over the ENCODE website.
Such a finding would turn everything we've discovered about the genome in the last 50 years on its head. Not to mention that it would invalidate a number of Nobel prizes. Even within genes that code for proteins, the actual amount of genetic material that codes for the protein itself is very small, maybe 10% or less of the total gene. Most of that extra genetic material is found in the form of regulatory elements, "filler" DNA that separates the regulatory elements, and introns that separate sections of the coding region from each other. None of that extra DNA codes for anything. The genes themselves (with all their extra DNA) only fill up a fraction of a chromosome. I'm not going to discuss every kind of extra DNA, but that's just one example of it.
"However, we also uncovered some surprises that challenge the current dogma on biological mechanisms. The generation of numerous intercalated transcripts spanning the majority of the genome has been repeatedly suggested[13,14], but this phenomenon has been met with mixed opinions about the biological importance of these transcripts. Our analyses of numerous orthogonal data sets firmly establish the presence of these transcripts, and thus the simple view of the genome as having a defined set of isolated loci transcribed independently does not seem to be accurate. Perhaps the genome encodes a network of transcripts, many of which are linked to protein-coding transcripts and to the majority of which we cannot (yet) assign a biological role." here
Another interesting quote from the Nature article:
“At the outset of the ENCODE Project, many believed that the
broad collection of experimental data would nicely dovetail with
the detailed evolutionary information derived from comparing multiple
mammalian sequences to provide a neat ‘dictionary’ of conserved
genomic elements, each with a growing annotation about
their biochemical function(s). In one sense, this was achieved; the
majority of constrained bases in the ENCODE regions are now associated
with at least some experimentally derived information about
function. However, we have also encountered a remarkable excess of
experimentally identified functional elements lacking evolutionary
constraint, and these cannot be dismissed for technical reasons. This
is perhaps the biggest surprise of the pilot phase of the ENCODE
Project, and suggests that we take a more ‘neutral’ view of many of the
functions conferred by the genome.”
Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although "they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions".
"Securus judicat orbis terrarium."
"We assert that Moses spoke in the literal sense, not allegorically or figuratively, i.e., that the world, with all its creatures, was created within six days, as the words read."
"The Hebrew language is the best language of all, with the richest vocabulary... If I were younger I would want to learn this language, because no one can really understand the Scriptures without it. For although the New Testament is written in Greek, it is full of hebraisms and Hebrew expressions. It has therefore been aptly said that the Hebrews drink from the spring, the Greeks from the stream that flows from it, and the Latins from a downstream puddle."
==Except that Luther couldn’t read Hebrew and admitted as much.
Wrong:
http://www.glaird.com/luth-heb.htm
Indeed, Augustine objected to translating the Old Testament books from the original Hebrew because he believed the Septuagint “enjoys the weightiest authority.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.