[_ Old Earth _] Irreducible Complexity?

[Strangelove]

Darwin:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree possible.

So, how did Darwin deal with the staggering realities of the eye in the 1850's? As "absurdly" improbable as it was, he followed through with his theory and pointed to the simpler eye structures found in simpler creatures. He reasoned that more complex eyes gradually evolved from the simpler ones.

However, this hypothesis no longer passes muster. Short of the micro-biological and genetic information issues, paleontology now shows that "simple creatures" emerged in the world with complex structures already intact. Even the simple trilobite has an eye (complete with its double lens system) that's considered an optical miracle by today's standards.

allaboutthejourney.org/human-eye.htm

 

[Strangelove]

Darwin on the fossil record:

Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?

But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?

Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed.

Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.

 

[lordkalvan]

Evolution simply cannot produce complex structures in a single generation as would be required for the formation of irreducibly complex systems.

And so we start with a strawman argument: evolutionary theory proposes no such thing.

To imagine that a chance set of mutations would produce all 200 proteins required for cilia function in a single generation stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point.

But if you're going to promote a false idea, hey, why not run with it as far as it will go?

And yet, producing one or a few of these proteins at a time, in standard Darwinian fashion, would convey no survival advantage because those few proteins would have no function-indeed, they would constitute a waste of energy for the cell to even produce.

And as we've already got a strawman argument, why not throw in assuming your conclusion? On what basis does the writer know that those proteins would convey no advantage (it doesn’t have to be a survival advantage) and thus constitute ‘a waste of energy’. Also, evolutionary theory does not imply or demand perfection. A protein may confer no immediate benefit at all: some mutations are harmful, some beneficial, but most confer no obvious advantage or disadvantage at all.

Darwin recognized this as a potent threat to his theory of evolution-the issue that could completely disprove his idea. So the question must be raised: Has Darwin's theory of evolution "absolutely broken down?" According to Irreducible Complexity, the answer is a resounding "yes."

Well, of course it has. That is what is has been contrived to do. Like its equally dubious sibling Intelligent Design, it’s just creationism dressed up in a cheap suit intended to give it a veneer of ‘scientific’ respectability supposedly quite separate from its fundamentalist Christian origins. Both were shaky ideas when first espoused, and so they remain now.

Out of tens of thousands of species known from the fossil record, only a few are claimed to be any of Darwin's “intermediate links.”

On the contrary, every fossil can be considered to be a transitional one, even if the path is only on the road to extinction.

However, a close analysis of these few fossils (commonly cited ones are Archaeopteryx [a bird], Ambulocetus [a land mammal], Acanthostega [an amphibian]), and Tiktaalik [a fish]) reveal that they do not shed any light on the origin of the important features of their respective groups and are often incomplete.

Okay, perhaps you could explain in further detail how ‘they do not shed any light on the origin of the important features of the respective groups’? While you’re about it, maybe you can explain the way in which the theories of life based on ID/IC predicted the existence of Tiktaalik, the geological strata in which it was most likely to be found and the transitional features it is regarded as displaying?

In addition, the presumption that they are ancestral is based on morphological considerations (like saying a laptop evolved from a pizza box), which does not acknowledge the massive gene coding changes that would be necessary. For this reason, Harvard paleontologist, the late Stephen Jay Gould, wrote:

The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed.'

Well, if you’re going to start with a strawman, why not end with a quotemine? What comes just before the selected quote? This:

We believe that Huxley was right in his warning. The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record. It is gradualism we should reject, not Darwinism.

And what comes immediately after it? Why, these telling observations:

Evolution proceeds in two major modes. In the first, phyletic transformation, an entire population changes from one state to another. .... The second mode, speciation, replenishes the earth. New species branch off from a persisting parental stock.

Darwin, to be sure, acknowledged and discussed the process of speciation. But he cast his discussion of evolutionary change almost totally in the mold of phyletic transformation. In this context, the phenomenon of stasis and sudden appearance could hardly be attributed to anything but imperfection of the record; for if new species arise by transformation of entire ancestral populations, and if we almost never see the transformation (because species are essentially static through their range), then our record must be hopelessly incomplete.

Eldredge and I believe that speciation is responsible for almost all evolutionary change. Moreover, the way in which it occurs virtually guarantees that sudden appearance and stasis shall dominate the fossil record.

Source:Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda’s Thumb, Penguin edition, pp. 151-2

 

[Strangelove]

We believe that Huxley was right in his warning. The modern theory of evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the operation of Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil record. It is gradualism we should reject, not Darwinism.

So.....your saying evolution doesnt take billions of years?

It's not gradual? ((**giggle**))

It gets wackier.

 

[lordkalvan]

So.....your saying evolution doesnt take billions of years?

It's not gradual? ((**giggle**))

It gets wackier.

Nobody says evolution takes 'billions of years' Advancing yet another strawman distortion of evolutionary theory does your arguments no service at all. I notice you are quite unable to make a reasoned response to the post in question other than this rather childish silliness. Why is that?

 

[lordkalvan]

Darwin:



So, how did Darwin deal with the staggering realities of the eye in the 1850's? As "absurdly" improbable as it was, he followed through with his theory and pointed to the simpler eye structures found in simpler creatures. He reasoned that more complex eyes gradually evolved from the simpler ones.

However, this hypothesis no longer passes muster. Short of the micro-biological and genetic information issues, paleontology now shows that "simple creatures" emerged in the world with complex structures already intact. Even the simple trilobite has an eye (complete with its double lens system) that's considered an optical miracle by today's standards.

allaboutthejourney.org/human-eye.htm

WEll, you've already quoted Stephen jay Gould to support your arguments. Why not quote his comments on this as well:

Anti-evolutionists continually cite this passage as supposed evidence that Darwin himself threw in the towel when faced with truly difficult and inherently implausible cases. But if they would only read the very next sentence, they would grasp Darwin's real reason for speaking of absurdity 'in the highest possible degree.' (Either they have read these following lines and have consciously suppressed them, an indictment of dishonesty; or they have never read them and have merely copied the half quotation from another source, a proof of inexcusable sloppiness.) Darwin set up the overt 'absurdity' to display the power of natural selection in resolving even the most difficult cases -- the ones that initially strike us as intractable in principle. The very next lines give three reasons all supported by copious evidence for resolving the absurdity and accepting evolutionary development as the cause of optimally complex structures.

Source: Stephen J. Gould, Common Pathways of Illumination in Natural History 12/94, p. 10.

 

[lordkalvan]

Darwin on the fossil record:

Your reference looks rather to me as if you didn't take it from the original text, but found it elsewhere as it is presented as if it represents a continuous extract when, in fact, it constitutes carefully selected sentences taken in isolation and presented as if they form a single argument. So either you or your source is being a tad dishonest. For anyone seriously interested in reading what Darwin actually wrote, as opposed to these extracted sentences misleadingly presented in the form of a single argument, the full text of Chapter VI: Difficulties on Theory can be found online in several places, including here:

stephenjaygould.org/library/on-the-origin/chapter06.html

 

[Strangelove]

Nobody says evolution takes 'billions of years' Advancing yet another strawman distortion of evolutionary theory does your arguments no service at all. I notice you are quite unable to make a reasoned response to the post in question other than this rather childish silliness. Why is that?

Ok so does evolution take millions of years? Thousands? Whats the timescale?

 

[Strangelove]

Ya anyway...back to the topic...

You never answered this post:

Mmmmmmkay.....

So.....lets take our bacteria cell thats got no tail or flagelli or whatever its called. It's just a basic bacteria cell.

So....the first bit that evolved, at the base.....lets say the MS-ring,,,,,what was its function before it got used in the system that we see today?

And what would cause it to get "hijacked" to do something else in the absence of all the other parts? Or do all the other parts have to all be in place for the thing to switch functions??

I'm lost. This doesnt make any sense at all.

It's kinda chicken or the Eggish.

 

[lordkalvan]

Ok so does evolution take millions of years? Thousands? Whats the timescale?

Unless you specify the parameters of your question it's a bit like asking how long a piece of string is. To return to a very simple example, unless your children are entirely identical clones of yourself or your wife, they have evolved just a fractionally small step differently away from yourself and your wife. Partly it has to do with rate of mutation and the frequency of generations. The history of the AIDS virus demonstrates just how quickly evolution can occur in the case of some organisms, while the prokaryotes are amongst the slowest evolving organisms we know of (because they reproduce by cell-division and not sex).

 

[lordkalvan]

Ya anyway...back to the topic...

What? So you can make a bunch of posts that, presumably, you regard as being on topic, ignore the responses that demonstrate the shaky and dubious grounds on which many of the assertions in these posts stand, and then act is if they had never occurred?

You never answered this post:

Unlike yourself, who answers every post made and every question asked?

If you had followed the reference I gave you to Kenneth Miller of Brown University, I think you would have found that your questions would have been answered. Here's the website again:

millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html (The Flagellum Unspun).

 

[Strangelove]

If you had followed the reference I gave you to Kenneth Miller of Brown University, I think you would have found that your questions would have been answered. Here's the website again:

millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html (The Flagellum Unspun).

Instead of telling members to go off and read science books and articles why dont you just explain in your own words.

Can you?

Do you even understand the horswaggle your defending so feverishly?

 

[lordkalvan]

Instead of telling members to go off and read science books and articles why dont you just explain in your own words.

Can you?

You mean in the same way that you 'explain' things 'in your own words' by C&P swathes of text from various sites that support your point of view? Yes, I can do that.

Do you even understand the horswaggle your defending so feverishly?

Are you too lazy to read a paper that will answer all the questions you asked in the post you complained about my not answering? How about you make an effort to answer some of my unanswered posts and questions? Handsome is as handsome does.

 

[Strangelove]

Unless you specify the parameters of your question it's a bit like asking how long a piece of string is. To return to a very simple example, unless your children are entirely identical clones of yourself or your wife, they have evolved just a fractionally small step differently away from yourself and your wife. (LOLZ!) Partly it has to do with rate of mutation and the frequency of generations. The history of the AIDS virus demonstrates just how quickly evolution can occur in the case of some organisms, while the prokaryotes are amongst the slowest evolving organisms we know of (because they reproduce by cell-division and not sex).

Hornswaggle. My kids are human beings just like me. Same species. No changes. And no changes in human beings in the entire history of human existance. Unless you have evidence to prove otherwise? Maybe Piltdown Man?? (**giggle**)

 

[Strangelove]

Are you too lazy to read a paper that will answer all the questions you asked in the post you complained about my not answering? How about you make an effort to answer some of my unanswered posts and questions? Handsome is as handsome does.

I'll take that as a no then. You cant explain it cos you dont understand any of it. Cos its theoretical bunkum. Oh well....I dont care...as long as your not bringing any new codswallop to the thread I'm happy to let it go on and on and on like this...

;)

 

[lordkalvan]

Hornswaggle. My kids are human beings just like me. Same species. No changes. And no changes in human beings in the entire history of human existance. Unless you have evidence to prove otherwise? Maybe Piltdown Man?? (**giggle**)

Nope, they're not 'just like' you; they're mostly like you, while remaining the same species (given the previous definition of species), and most definitely incorporate some minor genetic changes. After all, you have told us elsewhere that you accept micro-evolution, or doe this apply to every organism except Homo sapiens?

As to your challenge concerning human beings, first provide your definition of a human being. How would you categorize Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus and Homo habilis, for example?

 

[Strangelove]

Nope, they're not 'just like' you; they're mostly like you, while remaining the same species (given the previous definition of species), and most definitely incorporate some minor genetic changes. After all, you have told us elsewhere that you accept micro-evolution, or doe this apply to every organism except Homo sapiens?

Oh like I say I got no problem with micro-evolution. I can literally see that with my kids cos I'm European and my wifes SE Asian. The kiddies are mongrels and its obvious. But that doesnt change the fact that they are exactly the same species as me and the wife. No change there.

As to your challenge concerning human beings, first provide your definition of a human being. How would you categorize Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus and Homo habilis, for example?

Um...they are all Homo's!

 

[lordkalvan]

Oh like I say I got no problem with micro-evolution. I can literally see that with my kids cos I'm European and my wifes SE Asian. The kiddies are mongrels and its obvious. But that doesnt change the fact that they are exactly the same species as me and the wife. No change there.

So this answers at least part of your question concerning how long evolution takes (even if we just restrict the definition to the phenomenon you find plausible, i.e. micro-evolution): it takes place from one generation to the next.

Um...they are all Homo's!

But do you categorize them as 'human beings'? If yes, why? If no, why not? What about all the other species classified in the Homo genus? There was a suggestion amongst some biologists that chimpanzees be reclassified as members of the Homo genus, but I doubt that either you or I would thereby categorize them as human beings.

 

[Strangelove]

So this answers at least part of your question concerning how long evolution takes (even if we just restrict the definition to the phenomenon you find plausible, i.e. micro-evolution): it takes place from one generation to the next.

Ya....but I dont see how any of this relates to one animal evolving into another animal.

But do you categorize them as 'human beings'? If yes, why? If no, why not? What about all the other species classified in the Homo genus? There was a suggestion amongst some biologists that chimpanzees be reclassified as members of the Homo genus, but I doubt that either you or I would thereby categorize them as human beings.

I have no idea buddy. I've never even looked into any Homo's before. These things could be more Piltdowm Men for all I know.

Were there reliable, complete skeletons found for all these different kinds of human beings? How do they differ from eachother exactly? Are these supposed to be evidence of evolution of monkeys to humans?

 

[lordkalvan]

Ya....but I dont see how any of this relates to one animal evolving into another animal.

One animal doesn't evolve into another animal. If this statement encapsulates your understanding of evolutionary theory, you clearly need to go away and do some serious reading around the subject. As pointed out before, evolutionary theory does not propose that a fish ends one day as a fish and finds itself a frog the next.

I have no idea buddy. I've never even looked into any Homo's before. These things could be more Piltdowm Men for all I know.

So what gives you the confidence to assert that there have been '...no changes in human beings in the entire history of human existance' as, by your own admission, you have never 'looked into' the subject before?

Were there reliable, complete skeletons found for all these different kinds of human beings? How do they differ from eachother exactly? Are these supposed to be evidence of evolution of monkeys to humans?

What do you mean by 'reliable'? Why do you regard it as important (or not) that 'complete skeletons' be found? Homo species differ from each other in a number of ways, some species more markedly from another and less so in the case of another. Transitional features are identified, for example, in the development of significantly larger brains than in earlier species and relatively smaller faces with progressively smaller jaws and teeth. One of the reasons many of us have problems with jaws crowded with apparently too many teeth is a consequence of this reduction in jaw size.

In conclusion, implying as you do that evolutionary theory suggests that 'monkeys evolved into humans' is quite at variance not only with what the theory says but also with what the evidence indicates. Humans share a common ancestor with the other apes; the common ancestor of the great apes (including humans) and monkeys would have been a much earlier animal from amongst the earliest primate species.