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Author Topic:   Nature's Engines and Engineering
Tangle
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Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 5 of 15 (668346)
07-20-2012 4:15 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Genomicus
07-19-2012 6:52 PM


I need to rework this so I understand it.
To use the mousetrap analogy often quoted in early ID discussions, ID says that the trap couldn't evolve because without any one of its components - the base, the lever, the spring, the trigger - it wouldn't function. Ie it is irreducibly complex.
Evolution says that if each component had an earlier and independent useage, they could combine later to form a functioning trap. (And in the case of your flagella, those independent molecules have been found and ID was debunked.)
Consider an all metal trap made of carbon steel. A pure ID trap would have all the components - the base, trigger, lever, spring made at the same time so carbon dating the steel would produce the same date for all components.
If however, the trap evolved over time, each component would necessarily have differing dates.
OK so far?
The bit I'm struggling with is your added complexity of ID needing to rework previously built components in order to make the mousetrap. The lever doesn't quite fit the trigger so a new section of steel has to be welded in by the designer. This tweaking will contaminate the C dating of the part.
It seems to me that the designer interfering with the part is exactly the same as evolution interfereing with the part and will give the same result.
Or is my analogy incomplete/wrong?

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Genomicus, posted 07-19-2012 6:52 PM Genomicus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by Genomicus, posted 07-20-2012 12:04 PM Tangle has replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9489
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.9


Message 10 of 15 (668375)
07-20-2012 12:29 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Genomicus
07-20-2012 12:04 PM


Genomicus writes:
We now have a five-part mousetrap. The evolutionary model would therefore predict that: the platform originated first, followed by the spring, the hammer, the hold-down bar, and finally the catch. Even if each of these parts need to be modified by evolution before they are functioning at full efficiency, the individual components are nonetheless originating in a specific sequence.
This is my problem. At least in the mousetrap, the parts do not need to be produced in sequence. All the parts can be of the same age but be performing separate functions in other devices.
On the other hand, the engineering hypothesis predicts that each of the components originated at about the same time. The components that are borrowed would need to be tweaked before they can function efficiently in the overall system, and this would lead to the problem that the dating method would show that they did not originate at the same time. Thus, we'd need to work around this problem, and I described how the refined prediction for the design hypothesis looks like (see Figure 2 in the essay).
I think that you first need to show why evolution's parts need to be produced in sequence and show that they weren't doing different jobs elesewhere. (But that may be my ignorance of the developmental features of bacteria and where the mousetrap analogy fails)

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Genomicus, posted 07-20-2012 12:04 PM Genomicus has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by Genomicus, posted 07-20-2012 2:34 PM Tangle has not replied

  
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