How does Complexity demonstrate Design

What does that mean?How is that determined?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Dawkins mentions something like this too in Blind Watchmaker. If you use DNA as a digital pattern and encode the Encyclopedia Britannica into an appropriate digital pattern, the DNA strand is long enough to hold it several times over. What this means in real practice though is unknown, as an "Encyclopedia DNA" strand would not likely produce a viable form of life.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Complexity & Design.That's the topic so far. Hopefully Almeyda will be able to step us through this one step at a time to show how Complexity demonstrates Design.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

DNA is not complex so much as it is long, and the minimum length (LUCA) has not been determined.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Correct. As I said back in Message 103 DNA is very simple.Now let's see where Almeyda carries this.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Almeyda, DNA is simple - the information it stores is complex. Kind of like binary code (lots of 0s and 1s) holding all of the data on your harddrive.Also, very little is required to replicate DNA - a single protein can do the job. The irreducible complexity just doesn't hold water in this case. My understanding is that RNA-based systems are even simpler.You don't need "elaborate decoding machinery" for DNA maintanence and replication. You need it for complete functioning cells as they now exist, but not simply to maintain and replicate DNA.

Hi DarkStar,Just wanted to make sure you know what "scientific findings" and "pieces of research" are. I wanted to clarify, since you posted two examples of what you claim is "legitimate methodical science." Unfortunately you only posted two reviews of findings, and biased ones at that.You see, citing scientific findings generally means that you are citing actual original data, not just someone else's questionable interpretation of another's data. One of the most frustrating things in science is that as soon as you publish your data and interpretations, someone else inevitably hijacks and twists it to their own conclusions.So in the future, please reference actual original papers, otherwise at least make sure you call them review or opinion pieces, rather than the results of "methodical science".Thanks.

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- The amount of information that could be stored in a pinheads volume of DNA is equivalent to a pile of paperback books 500 times as high as the distance from the earth to the moon.

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Yep. Now, doesn't that make the bible a rather thin, meagre read by comparison? I reckon DNA is going to tell us more about the world than any alleged recordings of the alleged will of an alleged god.

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No one could believe a computer could make itself into such a complex almost thinking type machine,

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I do; in fact, I think computers (our brians) have already built themselves (that is, computers).

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The genetic code is not the outcome of raw chemistry, but of elaborate decoding machinery.

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I'm afraiod it does not look like that at all to me. DNA by all accounts is so full of junk that it can only consitute BAD code; the kind of code that works despite the author, not because. It is, in short, pretty much what you would expect from the output of a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters; it DOES look accretive, undesigned, unintelligent.

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Such a system must be fully in place before it could work at all, a property called irreducible complexity, this means that it is impossible to be built on natural selection working with small changes.

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The problem here is that the conditions that we observe the working system are not the same conditions as pertained when the system was built; thus, we may be missing something. For example, a bridge without a keystone will fall down - does that mean that the birdge always existed as a bridge and never consisted as individual stones? Clearly not; the keystone was raised with scaffolding, which is not present when we view the APPARENTLY irreducibly complex bridge.

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This complexity is evidence of a designer.

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I say its evidence of the ABSENCE of a designer; a designer makes things LESS complex.

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A house which can be built with just basic materials could never be believed well through natural processes it happen on its own

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Like say, "a cave"?

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This is why complexity is evidence of design, & design is evidence of a designer.

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I suggest by contrast, complexity is the evidence of the ABSENCE of a designer.This message has been edited by contracycle, 06-23-2004 06:36 AM

almeyda calims,

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This complexity is evidence of a designer. A house which can be built with just basic materials could never be believed well through natural processes it happen on its own. We know it must have been designed. This is why complexity is evidence of design, & design is evidence of a designer.

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I hate to repeat myself, but I don't think that this alone is evidence for an intelligent designer. As I said in a post on the very same page that you made your claim: regards,
Esteban Hambre

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I have to admit to being slightly embarrassed whenever I point out the irony that evidently eluded Behe: no intelligent designer whatsoever would design the sort of circuitous, redundantly complex structure to perform a simple task the way Goldberg's designs do.

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I made the same point in another discussion as well. What Behe seems to ignore is that intelligent designs are SIMPLE and EFFECIENT. Biological systems that show too much complexity argue against intelligent design. Could the blood clotting cascade be simplified to two or three proteins? Probably. Could DNA be compressed into a more effecient design, requiring less energy to create and less complexity? Probably.And also, complexity is also created by random events. Take fractal patterns for example, or the shape of a snow flake. Look at the distribution of trees on the side of a mountain. It looks quite complex, but each tree wasn't planted by a designer. I know I am preaching to the choir, but just felt to need to tack on a few points.

So you are saying that over complexity is a sign of little to poor design?There are also natural rock formations that look complex to the point of appearing life-like. Is this type of complexity is mistaken for design as well?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

I would certainly agree that the complexity we see in nature is almost proof positive that, at that level, there is no design.IMHO, if there is any indication of design it in the oposite direction. If you look at the underlying rules, the way molecules bind to form crystals, the way the forces operate to hold atoms together, the concept of Natural Selection, then, I think you can see design.But at the level of living things, at the level of geolgical forces, I can see no design, only the results of those basic low level rules.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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There are also natural rock formations that look complex to the point of appearing life-like. Is this type of complexity is mistaken for design as well?

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It can be if the IDist's theories are taken to their extreme. What is the chance that the layers of sedimentary rock found in the Grand Canyon would be in that exact order, that exact thickness, and with those precise fossils? I would think that the odds would be quite high. Richard Dawkins in his book "Climbing Mt. Improbable" tackles this difference too, the difference between what he calls designs and "designoids" (I only read about 20 pages of the book, so don't quiz me on it). There are coconuts, for example, that resemble female genitalia (coco-de-mer's): Now, are the coco-de-mer's designed to look like female genitalia, or is it simply the product of the human imagination looking for designs similar to those found within the human world? Do we see design because we want to see design, or are we actually see design? The coco-de-mer's seem to argue against the "I see design, therefore there is a designer" philosophy. Is the coco-de-mer complex? Yeah. Does it looked designed? A sculpter would be envious. Did a sculptor make every coco-de-mer? Nope, it is due to natural mechanisms, the natural growth of the coconut. Is the Face on Mars done by ET's? According to IDer's, yes since sculptures of faces are made by intelligences. Is complexity only due to an intelligence? Of course not, there are natural mechanisms that produce complexity in biological systems through chemistry, physics, and the mechanisms of evolution.

Have you ever seen a Georgia O'Keefe painting?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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