quote:
Originally posted by mark24:
quote:
Originally posted by halcyonwaters:
A snow-flake isn't complex at all -- it is repetitive.
Ocean: Complex and Random.
SaltCrystal/Snow-Flake: Not Complex and Not Random
Life: Complex and Non-Random
David
Bad example. Let me try another tack.
I thought the original example was 'Snowfall', not 'a snowflake'. Snowfall makes me think much more about the Ocean, which you have agreed to be complex.
By now I am not sure what you are arguing about - the point seems both complex and random. The nub of the intelligent design argument is that some things seem so complex and directed (non-random?) that they must have a designer. I would have thought that we could address this point by taking such an item - the eye is a favourite - and showing how evolutionary pressures operating blindly could produce the item. This is now a common answer to the ID argument.
It is inappropriate to require a move back to inorganic matter - that belongs in the Origin of Life thread, but the object should certainly move from simple to complex organisation. It is understood that evolution can work just as well the other way round, but the point of the argument involves simple to complex. We have both seen simulation experiments in which objects such as an eye are created from simple beginnings and evolutionary rulesets.
Incidentally, objects can be both simple and complex at the same time, depending on the way you are looking at them. A lump of rock can be simple when seen, complex when examined at the crystal level, and very complex when examined at the atomic level. As for wood...!