From: {$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk   
      
   On 02/09/2025 19:46, sticks wrote:   
   > On 9/2/2025 11:08 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:   
   >> On 8/30/25 1:54 PM, sticks wrote:   
   >>> On 8/27/2025 9:05 PM, RonO wrote:   
   >>>> https://scienceandculture.com/2025/08/woodpecker-is-a-stunning-   
   >>>> example- of-irreducible-complexity/   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Someone just mentioned Karl Crawford recently, and the ID perps are   
   >>>> resurrecting that old creationist argument.  They are calling it an   
   >>>> example of irreducible complexity, but that is a lie so they put it   
   >>>> in their new Culture category instead of their Science category, and   
   >>>> it is a talk given at their Science and Faith conference, so it was   
   >>>> just something to fool the religious creationist rubes with.   
   >>>   
   >>> That's a hell of a way to begin a post.   
   >>>   
   >>> ---snip---   
   >>> [...]   
   >>> He attacks the ID people for not producing some science that shows   
   >>> the example is irreducibly complex.  I'm sure someone would have an   
   >>> experiment they could do to try and accomplish that . . .   
   >>   
   >> Another problem, though, is that irreducible complexity is evidence   
   >> *for* evolution and *against* ID.  There are multiple common   
   >> mechanisms by which irreducible complexity can evolve, but such   
   >> complexity violates engineering principles of keeping things as simple   
   >> as possible and of having backup systems.   
   >   
   > Just learning how things work here in T.O.   
   > So things really are not irreducibly complex, but if they are it is   
   > evidence for evolution.   
   > Got it.  Thanks   
   >   
   > ---snip   
   >   
      
   Behe may have thought that he had an objective means of identifying   
   systems that could not have evolved, but he was wrong; using the   
   original definition of an irreducibly complex system as one which   
   requires all of its parts to function, there are at least three broad   
   classes of paths by which irreducibly complex systems can evolve.   
      
   An additional issue is finding objective definitions of system, part and   
   function. Divide a system into few parts, and it's more likely to be   
   irreducibly complex; divide a system into many parts, and it's less   
   likely to be irreducibly complex. Consider an eukaryote cell as composed   
   of the nucleus, the cytoplasm and the cell membrane; looking at it in   
   that way it seems irreducibly complex (until you notice that mammalian   
   erythrocytes and thrombocytes lack nuclei). But consider it as an   
   assemblage of nucleic acids, proteins and lipid membranes; then many   
   parts can be removed, and it continues to function, i.e. is not   
   irreducibly complex.   
      
   A third issue is that suitably defined a system may be irreducibly   
   complex in one species but may not have the same set of parts as the   
   same system in another species. The clotting cascade is an example of   
   this; it puzzles me why Behe thought that was a good poster system for   
   his argument.   
      
   As for the more general argument from complexity - the "it's oh so   
   complex, it must be designed" - that an argument from incredulity. I   
   look at the Heath-Robinson Rube Goldberg nature of life, and my reaction   
   is "there's no way that's designed". (Why should you incredulity be more   
   dispositive that mine?)   
      
   (I think Dawkins is wrong when he writes that "life has the appearance   
   of design".)   
      
   You can get over the evolutionary argument from complexity by   
   postulating an unconstrained designer. The problem with that,   
   epistemologically, is that you're no longer explaining the observations;   
   instead you're explaining them away.   
      
   --   
   alias Ernest Major   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)