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Author | Topic: Design evidence # 111: The heart | |||||||||||||||||||
Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Your entire argument here is basically 'Irreduceable
Complexity'. Just because you cannot imagine an evolutionaryroute to the human heart does not mean there isn't one. It doesn't mean there is either, I might add, just that of itself it is no argument either way. The use of the word 'design' in the quoted text is not(I would suggest) intended to convey 'design'. It is a turn of phrase. Question:: Can evolutionary process be considered asdesigning organisms?
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Point taken.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Complexity and design are unrelated. Many of the best designed objects are wonders of simplicity.The mother of all inventions (the wheel) is the most perfectly simple designed object one could imagine, and yet without it we would not have technology as we know it. The lever is extremely simple, as is the hammer, the knife, and a host of other clearly designed objects. If we cannot say that all designed objects are complex, then wecannot, surely, use complexity as a design criterion. quote: To say that if something is specified it is designed, sounds to melike saying that its designed of its designed. quote: Yes that's what IC means ... remove a part and the systemstops operating in the way that it did. quote: But that's the whole problem with arguments from IC ... they areabout the individual ability to accept that complex systems could have evolved. If we can come up with a feasible possibility, then IC argumentscrumble into dust. Why? Because the basic argument from IC is:: 'I cannot believe that X could have developed natuarlly inincremental steps.' In order to refute that all we need is some feasible incrementalsteps that can lead to an IC system ... and that's all. If it could have happened via incremental development, then arguing that IC indicates design is fallacious ... even if the object turns out that it really was designed IC cannot indicate it.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: In that case, at the present, IC should be backburnered untilsuch an example exists in a form which cannot be refuted.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
I agree.
I have not suggested tht ID is wrong ... only that, withcurrent evidence I cannot accept it ... and that current arguments do not stand up to scrutiny.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
As I understand it, Sonnikke's entire belief in design
is based upon the assumption that one can infer design from complexity and inter-relationships. I suggested earlier in this thread, and elsewhere,that since many designed objects are wonders of simplicity, then complexity cannot be related to design in any way. Sonnikke has not responded to this suggestionthus far.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Percipient's take on my meaning was my intention, so
I don't really need to say anything else .... but I will A feature of good design is simplicity, not complexity.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Yes ... and it's also considered extremely bad practice.
'Spontaneous elabroation' of code works very much like naturalselection:: Add a bit and see if it did what you wanted it to.If it did, it stays, otherwise modify it a bit
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Believe me I appreciate the practical problems, but a
good software design lends itself to extension The software development process is evolving itself,compmage pointed out a 1989 program that is causing headaches in his/her company ... and legacy code of that age is always a nightmare to deal with!! The point being made though, was that good designs aresimple, elegant even. And this is more often the case, even in software, when there is a single designer and maintainer. I mainly deal with real-time control systems (closer toorganic systems in concept than large and unwieldy accounting systems etc.) and these have to be designed well from the outset, and implemented as designed if you don't want castrophes. I think you were agreeing with the simplicity in gooddesign idea though, since you pointed out that that kind of development was like evolution ... and results in messy sub-optimal, over-complex solutions.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
What language is that in? 8000 lines seems a little
sedate {edited 'cause I forgot the smiley} [This message has been edited by Peter, 03-03-2003]
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Your argument was that the complexity and inter-dependence
evident in living systems was an indication of design. I said that complexity and design are unrelated (in the sensethat your argument requires) pointing out that simplicity is the hallmark of good design. PaulK pointed out that many software projects (due to externalconstraints on time, money, personnel, etc.) have an ad hoc, iterative, additive development that leads to excessively complex, highly inter-dependent software architectures. You have now suggested that we cannot claim design withoutknwing what is good, simple, etc. Hopefully you can now see why it is that complexity cannot beused to infer design ... no matter how much may wish to see design. I opened a thread some time ago asking for design criteria.Not suprisingly there was little relevant response. Oh, and I might add for those who argue from IC, that I have seensoftware systems which have been built up in an ad hoc manner over time that have increased in function (and complexity ... or messiness as I call it ) where, due to the way that things have been added, if a function is removed the whole program fails to work ... and yet there is a revision history that shows how the current program was developed iteratively.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1509 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Ouch!!!!!
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