Intelligent Design and Irreducible Complexity Questions

Hi - I am new to the board and have come here because I am trying to understand Intelligent Design and Irreducible Complexity, so I would like to ask some questions. What did the Intelligent Designer design and what are the limits of Intelligent Design? Which complexities are irreducible and how is this determined? What are the dividing lines between ID and evolution and how are these determined?For example - did the Intelligent Designer create DNA and set the rules of natural selection, letting them take over from there? I have gathered that a major Creationist criticism of evolutionary theory is that macroevolution has not been observed - does this mean that accoridng to ID, the Intelligent Designer steps in at verious points in history to drive the creation of new species? Or is the intervention at a different level - that is, the Designer creates each genus and lets evolutionary processes create species?Thank you in advance for any illumination you can provide.------------------
The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play. -Theodore Sturgeon

The Intelligent Design people don't agree on this at all.Some are Young Earth Creationists, Michael Behe on the other hand has suggested that the intelligent designer only acted very early on in the history of life, inserting genes which would be used later to build "irreducibly complex" systems.The ID movement as a whole is only interested in "proving" design (or more typically claiming that they have proven it - something they have yet to do).

Excellent first post, Marlowe. I, too, would like answers to those questions, especially the first paragraph. If you find someone to give you a straight answer, please post it here!Welcome to the forum.

No one's even going to try to answer these questions? So much for ID being a defensible theory then, huh?------------------
The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play. -Theodore Sturgeon

I don't think it would be accurate to draw such a conclusion based solely on the fact that no Creationists have yet responded to the bait.The debate between Creationists and evolutionists rarely has any declared winners. Hopefully through dialogue we all win. Sorry this hasn't generated a response from the other side yet, but give it some time.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

All,

quote:

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Genetics 1982 Jul-Aug;101(3-4):335-44 Related Articles, language=JavaScript1.2> Links

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Evolution of a regulated operon in the laboratory.

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Hall BG.

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The evolution of new metabolic functions is being studied in the laboratory using the EBG system of E. coli as a model system. It is demonstrated that the evolution of lactose utilization by lacZ deletion strains requires a series of structural and regulatory gene mutations. Two structural gene mutations act to increase the activity of ebg enzyme toward lactose, and to permit ebg enzyme to convert lactose into allolactose, and inducer of the lac operon. A regulatory mutation increases the sensitivity of the ebg repressor of lactose, and permits sufficient ebg enzyme activity for growth. The resulting fully evolved ebg operon regulates its own expression, and also regulates the synthesis of the lactose permease.

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Futuyma sums up:

quote:

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Thus an entire system of lactose utilization had evolved, consisting of changes in enzyme structure enabling hydrolysis of the substrate; alteration of a regulatory gene so that the enzyme can be synthesized in response to the substrate; and the evolution of an enzyme reaction that induces the permease needed for the entry of the substrate. One could not wish for a better demonstration of the neoDarwinian principle that mutation and natural selection in concert are the source of complex adaptations.[ DJ Futuyma , Evolution, 1986, Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA. pp. 477-478.]

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If an operon that includes an enzyme, an expression control system, & a permease isn't IC, I don't know what is. And it evolved under laboratory conditions. I wonder if it knew it was impossible?Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Admin,Do you not feel that your input has become overly high
in the 'Admin' mode.Take the above for example ... Marlowe's post was most likely
intended to provoke some oposing opinion, and we probably all
know that.If that is against forum guidelines then I understand your interjection, otherwise I wonder that perhaps you are
wishing to enter the thread in discussive mode.The phrase 'heavy handed' has sprung to mind of late with some
posts by 'Admin'.

Perhaps the IDer intervened to help the poor little
thingies