Irreducible complexity- the challenges have been rebutted (if not refuted)

1) There's no such thing as irreducable complexity. All complexity is reducable via "scaffolds" and other simple structures.2) "Alive" doesn't mean anything except that the cell is mediating certain chemical reactions in a programmed way. Life isn't magic. It's chemistry. Yes. And that's precisely why cells can come about through evolution. They self-replicate. And so far intelligent design hasn't come close to ever having made anything as complex as a cell, so why assume it ever has? Especially when evolutionary algorhythms repeatedly give rise to designs approaching the kind of complexity cells have?

But of course, that's not the definition that creationists use. They're defining IC as "any system that could not have evolved because the removal of a single element collapses the system."There's no such system, for exactly the reason you say - systems that fall apart at the removal of single elements can still be constructed piece-by-piece.

Do you have specific evidence that this pathway is impossible, or are you just arguing from your own refusal to believe anything evolutionary?I'm not impressed with arguments from incredulity. What you will or won't believe has nothing to do with what is.

I found the explanation you quoted quite compelling. Can you explain why you did not? It is an argument from incredulity, and as such, bears no resemblance to common sense and no connection to logic.After all plenty of stuff in science seems to fly in the face of common sense - particles that go from point a to point b without being anywhere in between, or worse, being in both places at once - and I don't hear you saying that "quantum physics is illogical."Common sense has nothing to do with how the world works beyond the tiny little world you're used to. Crack a book, preferably one on biology. Maybe it'll expand your mind to the point where you don't try to use your ignorance as a basis for your arguments.

If by which you meant "they're both bridgable by incremental improvement, generation after generation, then you're absolutely correct. But you haven't used any logic. Just your own personal incredulity.Spider webs are explainable by evolution. You have yet to explain how the proposed pathway is in error - you've just subsituted your incredulity for argument. Who wants to argue with that?

You yourself provided this one:

quote:

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Spiders evolved from ancestors that had limbs on the abdomen, as did arthropods like crustaceans such as crayfish. In fact, one of their few living marine relatives, Limulus, the so-called "king crabs", has retained abdominal limbs, which have been lost or greatly modified in terrestrial spiders and other arachnids. The spiders' spinnerets are almost certainly derived from these ancestral abdominal limbs. In the basal (lowest) segments of spiders' limbs are small excretory glands - the coxal glands - that secrete and excrete waste body fluids. It seems that the silk glands may represent highly modified excretory glands that now manufacture silk instead of waste products, just as the spinnerets represent highly modified limbs. It is possible that an intermediate stage in this process could have been the production of a secretion that included pheromone (scent) chemicals put out by the spider as a primitive "signal line" by which a spider could find its way back to its retreat burrow. This role was then taken over by the production of silk. The silk then became useful not only as a safety line, but also for prey capture, manufacturing egg sacs and a host of other activities.
[Modified from text by Dr Mike Gray - Principal Research Scientist (Spiders)]

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and never gave any other argument for why you found it insufficient beyond your own incredulity.For the third time, what about this explanation do you find lacking?

Gemster, honestly, who cares what you're incredulous about?We deal in evidence and logic, here. So far you've presented neither. There's still time, though. You could start by pointing out what it is about the proposed pathway that you find impossible.

But there's plenty of evidence - similar structures performing slightly different actions in other species.Anyway you didn't ask us to prove that this pathway is the one that happened. All you said was "under Darwinian evolution, this is impossible." We provided a plausible evolutionary pathway. To ask for evidence that it and not another pathway happened is moving the goalposts.Essentially:Gemster: It can't happen.
Us: Yes it can, like this.
Gemster: You haven't proved that it happened that way.That's moving the goalposts. You're faulting us for not doing something you didn't ask us to do. We rebutted your original claim, that it's impossible. If you disagree you have to show us why it's impossible. Simply saying "you haven't proved that it did" is no argument at all, because we didn't say it had to happen that way, only that the most likely scenario is that it did happen that way. You just made that up, or someone did. The Second Law of Thermodynamics - the "law of entropy", as you mistakenly put it - says nothing about information. Making up stuff isn't logic.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 09-23-2003]

Nope, without a reference, I have no reason to believe you're not making this up, or that you're getting it from somebody that's making it up. It's never appeared in any reference to the 2nd Law that I've seen. The 2nd Law is about usable energy, not complexity or order.It's called "citing your sources." Look into it. (I guess you've never been in a college-level class...)[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 09-23-2003]

Sounds like Ross is saying that the tendancy of entropy to actually decrease in open systems does not violate the 2nd Law. So then why would you say that the evolution/abiogenesis of life on earth would violate the 2nd Law? Ross doesn't seem to think so, and apparently you take him as an authority.

Here's a bunch: Observed Instances of SpeciationIn particular pay attention to the microbe that doesn't just type as a new species, but in a whole other family and genus.