Fine tuning/ programming

Not just sometimes, Doc, but frequently, as the absence of tails and many other ancestral features tell us, along with the presence of the modified genes that once made these things. And you have had some succinct statements from me in relation to your claim. Stuff about how arguments from magic are meaningless, and how nature will select for intricacy and complexity if they improve function. My original answer to your O.P. question was the very succinct "variation and selection".So, you know that mutations subtract features. Therefore, it's odd that you make the "irreducible complexity" argument.Here's a simplified theoretical example of scaffolding. A mutation causes simple and crude characteristic A, which is advantageous. Over time, further mutations add characteristics B,C,D, and E, each one of them combining with A to improve its function, but each on their own useless, both individually and collectively without A. Then mutation F arrives, also creating something useless on its own, but combining with B,C,D and E to perform the function in a way that is more practical and economical than the A through E system, rendering A obsolete. A is dead wood, and is eventually selected out, leaving a neat little five component system which, to the observer, would be irreducibly complex.That's just an illustration, to demonstrate that "irreducible complexity" arguments are useless to anyone trying that "demonstrate" that any living system "cannot be attained" by nature.Now, what about the real world? Here's another succinct statement from me that you might have missed. There are known examples of this. One is the human blood-clotting cascade, highly intricate and complex. It appears to be irreducible. Take away any component, and we are seriously handicapped, hemophiliac at best, or worse. A species of hemophiliacs would certainly become extinct rapidly. So, it appears to some creationists that the cascade cannot have a simpler evolutionary precursor.Yet there are versions in modern fish which do lack some of our components, jawless fish managing (I think, from memory) without 4 of our ten proteins. So how is this?Evolution has added, subtracted and modified, and we are no longer fish. Whatever it is in jawless fish and their environment that enables them to function on a reduced version of our blood-clotting cascade has been lost in our lineage, and could be described as the scaffolding on which the more recent part of our system was built.Another more general comment on your use of the word "demonstrate" which may be causing some confusion.It is impossible to demonstrate that phenomena that we have observe in the universe "cannot be attained by nature". It would require complete knowledge of the universe, the end of science, in order to do so. I think that you've set yourself an impossible task. Edited by bluegenes, : missing word!

But it is highly indicative. If something doesn't exist, you would expect to find no evidence of its existence, right? And I assure you, I try not to believe in things for which I have no empirical evidence. Everytime I have done so, I have ended up disappointed. I may entertain flights of fancy and maybe even have hope that some empirical evidence will show up for something I sincerely wish were true, but if asked soberly whether I believed in any of those things, I'd be forced to sigh and say no. Nor can it disprove the existence of Shiva, or the FSM, or ghosts, or fairies, or any other supernatural being. Which of these should I believe in and why? They've all got the same amount of evidence (none) and if that were enough to inspire belief, I'd be stuck with contradictions and logical impossibilities galore. The best I can be on any of these is a lack of belief without the corresponding belief in the lack.

Which still amounts to: "I don't see how this could have occurred naturally therefore it must be designed"The answer to your question regarding hearts is - By means of evolution. Gradual and cumulative changes selected for over large periods of time by means of natural selection. Cumulative changes that ultimately result in the appearance of highly complex "design".Which is the same answer you will get to every single example of incredulity you might cite no matter how detailed. Even arch Intelligent Designists such as Behe accept the evolution of the heart. Or the eye. Or whatever other organ you care to mention. They instead restrict themselves to the molecular level (with little more success even if the argumets against are more scientifically sophisticated I might add).No matter how you phrase it or how much you deny it simply citing examples of complexity that you feel must be designed on the basis of complexity falls foul of all of the arguments I accused you of in Message 20. Until you address those issues or change your line of attack your argument will remain one of incredulity and subjective notions of complexity. No matter how detailed the examples you may cite.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Content removed.Edited by Percy, : No reason given.

What an adequate post! Thank you! Your knowledge is extremely attractive and makes me want to sit at your feet and learn more about evolution because it seems like such a fanstastic theory as displayed by your one word answers.(BTW, I'm not done with this. As soon as time permits, I will respond to the above posts.Thank you for your responses, Izanagi and bluegenes.) Edited by Dr. Sing, : added the stuff in parentheses

I am hoping that this thread stays going a bit longer, as we are getting some specific answers to how such complexity could arise without the need for a designer.PLEASE however, I beg of you Dr. Sing, avoid this:Dr. Sing said: You've just said (a) proving God's existence using scientific experiments is impossible (Says who? What's your source? The statement doesn't really even make sense), but more importantly you called those of us who interpret this unsupported axiom (a) as evidence for the absence of God "foolish men" I'd be more inclined to apply the word "foolish" to those who swear a lifelong oath to things for which there is no evidence, than I would to those who admit "I can't know for certain, but I see no evidence".For a good read on "What Design Looks Like", click here What Design Looks Like | National Center for Science EducationThis article is definitely on topic as it addresses the criteria by which people attempt to assess design or a lack thereof, and it comes to the not-so-surprising conclusion that life doesn't actually look very "designed" when you get right down to it.

Thank you for Message 74 Izanaqi. (attempted to link it here and I'm still too much of a noob, sorry)This very substantive post was a satisfying read.With regard to your comment: I'd like to see this addressed - it seems a very relevant question.You also said: Snowflakes look like an engineering marvel. How can one not look at a snowflake and see the majesty of its structure and symmetry?

"...the burgeoning commercial interest in the self-assembly of nano-scale devices has reinvigorated our desire to understand just how solidification produces ordered, and sometimes complex, structures from disordered precursors."

- http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/publist/rpp5_4_R03.pdf
(a study on the physics of snow crystals)Edited by Briterican, : Removed irrelevant portion of final quote.Edited by Briterican, : Bad link.Edited by Briterican, : HTML fail.

Hi Briterican, Bloody n00bs!In the top left of each message, just next to where it says "Message 34 of 65" or whatever, you will see a number written in grey. That is the unique number for that post. Just write [mid=531327] and you get Message 74.More info on codes here.Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : Weird bug?Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Do you mean is there evidence this year? Or a thousand years ago? Or might there be 150 years from now?It is unclear to me why you think a current lack of information regarding the evolution of the human body is evidence for your design hypothesis. If your faith is contingent on people not understanding something, does the vintage of the ignorance matter? In other words, would a tenth century man's conviction that the colored light of sunsets and rainbows could only come from colorless air and water through the direct hand of God serve to support your faith today? What is so special about this year's ignorance that makes it evidence of God, when the ignorance of other times - or of other people - does not?Capt.

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Is it getting solipsistic in here, or is it just me?

We can turn the question around:

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Do you have evidence for the natural development of [anything]...?

We have a vast amount of evidence for the natural world and how it works.But so far we have no empirical evidence for the supernatural. We have a lot of religious belief, but no empirical evidence. We have some 4,000 world religions and some 38,000 sects or denominations of Christianity alone. There doesn't seem to be any empirical evidence to discern which, if any, of the various beliefs might be correct. That's a pretty silly way to run a railroad, eh?It would seem that if one would argue that the "supernatural" did thus and such, one would first have to provide some evidence that the supernatural even exists.If you can offer such evidence, then we can begin to determine the characteristics and preferences of that supernatural.Until then, it is a religious belief and should not be confused with something for which there is empirical evidence.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

That was the objective I had in mind in creating the thread: to see how the typical evolutionist thinks. Thank you for your response. And its okay if its not detailed, I'm not saying I have all the answers either. Here you are making two assumptions upon which your claim is founded. Now, assumptions are assumptions, and facts are facts. The first assumption is that there was a "already existing" protein channel..... whose gene mutated and thus the cell gave birth to an ion channel. I could simply ask you, 1. how do you know how many mutations might have been required to achieve this? If you know anything about ion channels, you know that they are extremly specific in their function implying specificity in the genes encoding them too. We don't know how many mutations needed to occur to form a fully functional ion channel that passed natural selection's scrutiny. And we don't know if mutations occured that natural selection was not in favor of and eliminated the ion channel. I could also ask you, how long was it before all the extrinsic factors (like hormones, in higher organisms) that are necessary to regulate ion channel activity until they came into existence? You see, your logic is great. But there's a whole lot more than logic that we've got to take into consideration in order to thoroughly understand processes on the molecular level. Asuumption 2 is that ion channels provided an evolutionary advantage. Now, I can tell you that the Na/K ATPase pump provides an excellent "evoltutionary advantage" for a unicellular organism. But the existence of Na/K ATPase pumps is dependent on ion channel existence. Can you speculate as to what evolutionary advantage would ion channels have provided for a single celled organism? We could speculate...since the unicellular ogranism needs H+ ions to maintain its pH, and other ions to maintain osmotic pressure, and since ion channels provide a great way for ion uptake, they were selected for by natural selection. But the problem is, if the organism needed these processes to even survive, how could it have survived until it "created" these processes? Do you see my point? And we're talking unicells here!As far as action potential and single cells go, there is no need for a single celled organism to have action potential since it cannot even grasp the funtionality of action potential, its that primitive. Again, you are assuming that action potential provided an evoltuionary advantage for unicells, but I ask how? Similarity doesn't always imply an evoltutionary relationship. You understand that all three muscle types are similar because duh, they're all made of muscle tissue. Could it be that intelligence designed them that way? And I say this based on two claims. 1) Where there is improbability, humans infer intelligence. It is improbable that three muscle types that are so similar in structure are polar opposites in functionality. 2) We observe a common recognizable pattern of working (technically, its the interaction between actin and myosin which = muscle contraction) between all three muscle types, (if this doesn't make sense, I'm sorry, but go look up muscle contraction on google and you'll see what I'm referring to). Again, a recognizable pattern implies prior thought. If you say "no, how do you know???? thats arguing from incredulity"...then I'll say, the fact that the same recognizable pattern appears in three diff. muscle types yet makes them functionally different implies prior thought/planning. Nope, I mean leaky Na+ channels. Oh my dear, Izanagi, do me a favor and read this. Actually, cardiac muscle and smooth muscle are not that simliar. Consider and re-think what you have just proposed, pure logical blunders in and out. And here's an article that might be of help:I just want to highlight one point mentioned in the article. Troponin, a major protein involved in muscle contraction is absent in smooth muscle but present and critical in cardiac muscle. So, one can ask, where did cardiac muscle get troponin from if it evolved from smooth muscle. Natural selection has nothing to say until we have even formed something called troponin. Do you see it? FYI, tetanus is not caused by bacteria or virus. Infact, tetanus is a direct result of bad nervous input (to put it is layman's terms). I suggest you do some research before asking questions like this. So, essentially you are comparing both our inferences from the observed phenomenon of tetanus prevention in hearts and saying yours is better. Right? I can tell you why God allowed the phenomenon of tetanus to occur based on the Bible if you are willing to listen. Scientifically, we know what tetanus is, what is does, how to prevent it etc etc...but why does it occur? who knows?! Can the evolutionary theory tell me why tetanus occurs?You made a fallacy too, my friend. You compared smooth and cardiac muscles and magically concluded that smooth muscle in the simpler of the two. Tell this to a doctor, or someone else who knows enough about it and they will laugh. Even though one might logically derive cardiac mucle from smooth muscle "in their minds", I find no basis for this to have actually happened in life. Smooth muscle is as complicated if not more than cardiac in more senses than one. For instance, smooth muscle has an intrinsic ability to respond to three different kinds of external stimuli: mechanical, chemical, and nervous. Cardiac responds to just one type. Cardiac is more specialized, not more complex than smooth. I think thats a better way to put it.Now, I might have to do more research to come to a solid conclusion, but this is where I stand at this point in time. With limitations. There's only a certain degree of positive complexity that random processes can bring. Once you pass that degree, intelligence has to kick in or otherwise no further meaning can be derived. Complexity can be meaningful or meaningless. A bunch of dice scattered on a table is a complex arrangement, but does it follow a pattern? No. Does it convey meaning? Absolutely not. But, a bunch of dice with the three black dots facing upward and arranged in a straight line follows a recognizable pattern, it conveys meaning. And if one has atleast two neurons in their brain, they will infer to the best explanation: inteliigence, and not randomness. I hope this analogy will cause you to re-think your faulty conclusions about random processes and complexity. By logic, the FSM that existed would be more perfect than one that did not exist. This is the essence of the ontological argument. Now, do you have any observed evidence for the FSM's existence? Absolutely not! Therefore, your FSM deity is imaginary. Now, Bobby Henderson I'm sure had much better things to do than satire his way into the minds of atheists and agnostics. Goodness.I personally have never conjured up a God in my mind. He did not origniate in my thoughts, I came to know Him through an outside source namely the Bible. Now there are other religions (including your satirical Pastafarianism) like Hinduism for example that make a great effort to "create" deity. I've lived in India for more than 10 years and have seen Hindusim practised. Its all about creating an idol, pronouncing it God, and worshiping it. Apparently, deity is non pre-existent in their minds. And thats clearly faulty thinking. Not the case with Christianity though. Anyway, I fear the wrath of the mods if I talk too much about deity in this particular forum.And may I remind you, your theory is based on assumptions; and so is the entire evolutionary theory. Now you may have evidence to support the evolutionary theory but certainly not all of the evidence is in support of it. (if it were, evolution would no longer be a "theory") I suggest avoiding using terms like "easily accomplished" and such in your theoretical explanations. Should you back up your assumptions with evidence, I will gladly give you credit. In other words, one assumes/thinks/hopes evolution can answer the question. One doesn't know for sure. Neither do I. And to me, that means, further study and deeper research. Ultimately, we are all searching for truth in science.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

According to Wikipedia, tetanus is caused by bacteria. Tetanus symptoms are caused by a neurotoxin produced by the bacteria: You began the thread with a description of complexity in the heart and asked how evolution could produce such complexity. You received your answers, not once but several times: mutation and selection, and the answer to this latest post from you is the same. What I think we'd all be interested in hearing is a response to our answer and not just another, "No, no, no, you don't understand, let me explain again just how incredibly complex this is."What we see in intricate biological structures and processes is Rube Goldberg-esque design on a scale of complexity outside the capabilities of any intelligent design process we're familiar with, but it's precisely what one would expect from a process of many successive random trials carried on in parallel with the successful ones carrying forward. Design approaches that one might consider like compartmentalization or structured hierarchy are ignored in favor of what works.--Percy

ok, sorry about that. I'm going to look that up as well. Thanks for pointing that out.what I meant was: tetanus results from faulty nervous input. But I didn't realize that Izanagi was referring to the causative agent of that faulty nervous input. Bad analysis on my part.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

We don't know of an alternate/primitive version of action potential. (Action potential is as primitive as it gets.) Atleast I don't, do you? Okay, okay. I'm sorry if I offended anyone here. And thanks for the article, I will look it up for sure. Well, thats probably what majority of you (or maybe even all of you) think about my argument. Fine. It doesn't do much more than drive me to do further research. All I'm doing is inferring to the best explanation by observing natural phenomena. In my mind, intelligent design and evolution are both valid, and intelligent design is the better of the two explanations. Now, I agreed that complexity is a subjective criterion. And I also made it clear that complexity is not what I'm basing my arguments entirely on. I've also taken into consideration the various things you mentioned in your post.As for my use of the word "demonstrate", its proabably not the best word to use in such a discussion. I was using it in a more loose sence which is not the best way, I realize. Thanks for pointing it out, bluegenes.In response to Straggler,Anyway, foremost IDsts may think one thing about the heart or eye and so on and you might expect me to just follow their footsteps but the fact that Darwin himself said this: "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." is indicative of how unsure of his own theory he was.Edited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.Edited by Dr. Sing, : corrected typosEdited by Dr. Sing, : No reason given.

This is one of the more common creationist quote mines we see here. I just did a search for it here, it appears in at least 11 threads. Here's the full quote, this time providing what your truncated version left out: Once you see the full quote it becomes apparent that Darwin's thinking process as he wrote this was, "I have such an excellent response to this objection that I shall raise it myself!"--Percy