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Author
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Topic: Irreducible complexity- design?
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Craig D
Member
Member # 1189
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posted 11. March 2004 15:01
I’ve recently read some of the work of Behe, and I was wondering about the principle of irreducible complexity. It seems to me that the argument for irreducible complexity has a hole in it. It seems to me that cumulative growth can account for what appears to later be irreducible complexity. I’ll use an analogy to illustrate the point I’m trying to make. I’ll start with a Behe example of an irreducibly complex system in biology, and then compare it with another example.
An example put forth for an irreducibly complex system is the cilium. These are hairlike structures found in many cells and allow for motility. Without getting into details, this is a complex structure, which will no longer function if certain parts are removed. Remove the biochemical motor, and the cilia cannot move. This seems to show an irreducibly complex structure.
Now for comparison, look at the world’s modern transportation network. This includes thousands of miles of roads, millions of automobiles and semis, ships, planes, railways, and more. However, now imagine removing some parts of the transportation structure. Just take out the internal combustion engine. Now, nothing would work, since all major forms of transport that we use rely on the use of engines. Or imagine taking away the entire road system. The whole thing would fall apart, because for most goods, at least the beginning and ends of the voyage occur over roads. So, nothing could ever reach the trains, ships, and airplanes, or be distributed on arrival to destinations.
So, our modern transportation system has irreducible complexity, since if you remove certain parts, the whole system ceases to function, just like with the cilium mentioned above. However, the modern transportation system was built cumulatively, starting with people carrying things in their hands, not designed to be how it is today. So, it seems that what appears to be irreducible complexity could be explained by cumulative growth. So, why does irreducible complexity necessitate design?
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Claire
Member
Member # 725
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posted 12. March 2004 01:09
Craig D,
Interesting post because it could be describing the concept of a type twisting differentiation system that science might not have figured out just yet that could model what happens to the change between human transport by hand in a system that worked well as a whole, because we thought it did then, but in a different way in comparison to a mechanical transport system that works well as a whole, because we think it does now, and that we must ask "why" the transport system example without human intervention much later (at some point crucial part) would not be exactly like the 1st, though it might still work well as a whole later even if we were once a part of it at some stage at the beginning in a smooth sense not cut and dried. So we could suggest a new method of looking at the timing of the differential changes within two systems or more, that we will probably still already define it as one in the 1st place, because we still think it is a part that needs a whole otherwise it has less meaningfull context, that when having assumed this by our previous methods of inference about what constitutes a whole (an irreducible system) that it then needs parts to keep it together in a linear one way second law thermodynamic job, only because that is how we think about it already, that the context of a parts behaviour in a specific system in a linear way then isn't enough. We must also look at then what shapes the context that changes the parts because the context is also in greater context regardless of, in the first instance, that its parts at "some stage in time" in the second, had to then change context also. We could then calculate the larger context of "some stage in time" value (what ever that is), in a more non-linear method way (not probability X then on)approach that apposes the complete history of how science derived it's predictive theories and hypothesis and see what happens next. Then take this above and combine the assumption, that the universe and its systems doesn't always wait around for us to think about it in only linear terms or methods, because it might alao simply have many plenty more surprises in store about what it will constitute as a part (atom, wave probability etc..) as an event, in space time or evolution in time not only but because the maths we use to understand this doesn't work backwards nor sideways too well, as yet but it might one day.
Claire
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zenheadache
Member
Member # 1233
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posted 29. March 2004 22:58
A transportation system of the kind in your example is an irreducibly complex system. It is also an intelligently designed system. The gradual construction of irreducibly complex systems, as in your example, is actually evidence of intelligent design, not a refutation of the theory of ID.
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posted 11. March 2004 16:44
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