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Irreducible complexity

Started by Theist, December 27, 2006, 07:45:11 PM

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Theist

Merry belated Christmas everyone!

I'll get right to the point,
Michael Behe, a known biochemist once said irreducible complexity is "a single system which is composed of several well-matched interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning" So you take a mousetrap, you remove one part and the whole thing doesn't work anymore.
You take a look at anything living around you, even ourselves. What if we were designed without a heart? or bones? what if we had no muscle? Do you think we'd be what we are now? certainly not. We have everything we need to survive. Sure we die at some point, but while we live, we've all we really need. In order for all of this to be, there surely must be a creator. Intelligent and intentional design. The big man upstairs says, 'let there be light' there was light and then created everything else. He designed all of us to survive. Yes you could argue that there are people out there who die before they are even born, or there are those who are mentally/physically disabled, including myself. I am hard-of-hearing, mild hypotonia, meaning I'm not quite as strong as most people my age, I have what they call Aspergers syndrome which falls under the 'umbrella' of autism, I was born with Ruebella. So you are talking with someone who could quite easily say "No fair and just God could have created me to be like this." But I don't. So perhaps then you say, "he's just naive" but am I? Maybe I'm not naive, but have the ability to come to terms with what I was born with. Perhaps a lot of others like myself realize that there surely must be a reason as to why I'm like this, a purpose. And maybe we need to be humble enough to accept that. We aren't all created equally in our own perception because there are some who have things that others don't, or rather, some who don't have things that others do. That's becuase we have a tendecy, as humans, to compare and judge things according to what we see physically. In the eyes of God we are equal however because we all have a purpose.
So how can all this be, without an intelligent designer?

Faylen

#1
Behe is a known mathematician and theologian.  He knows nothing about real biology, he's just trying to make it fit Intelligent Design.  Wishing does not make it so.

Theist

#2
regardless of who the man is, it does follow a reasonable amount of logic. If you had your heart removed, you would no longer function, and that's just one part of the human body. Same goes for your brain and your lungs.

McQ

#3
Quote from: "Thiest"regardless of who the man is, it does follow a reasonable amount of logic. If you had your heart removed, you would no longer function, and that's just one part of the human body. Same goes for your brain and your lungs.

Thiest the issue is that although it seems to make a lot of sense, the analogy itself is faulty. Unfortunately, the way most of us are taught complex things is via analogy. Actually, it wouldn't be unfortunate, except in science people utilize horrible analogies all the time in an effort to simplify complex topics.

Saying that we can't live with a heart, ergo, all life is irreducibly complex is a faulty analogy. It's comparing a mamalian organ system to all of the DNA, carbon structure, atomic structure, and four fundamental forces of nature. You can't do that.

Aside from that, Behe's irreducible complexity has been shown to be (let's be charitable here) less than accurate, and not correct.
Elvis didn't do no drugs!
--Penn Jillette

Court

#4
http://www.swarthmore.edu/NatSci/cpurri ... nsense.pdf

Irreducible complexity is in there, just scroll down.
[size=92]
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas
[/size]
[size=92]
try having a little faith = stop using your brain for a while -- ziffel[/size]

Big Mac

#5
Who designed the designer? If we are complex and we have an "inteligunt desaigner", he or she or it or them must be really really really complex, and who designed them and so forth and so on.
Quote from: "PoopShoot"And what if pigs shit candy?

Faylen

#6
In addition, we must accept then that the designer also intelligently designed rubella, asperger's, and hypotonia, Thiest, as well as things like harlequin icthyosis, neurofibromatosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, cancer, scleroderma, and all those other diseases in which the body's immune system does exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to be doing.  If it's intelligently designed, why is an immune system CAUSING disease?

Squid

#7
Behe's "IC" arguments don't hold up.  While he is an intelligent man and a biochemist at Lehigh, unfortunately he's let ideology lead him instead of evidence.

I'll explain more when I get home from work about IC and why it's bunk.

Theist

#8
McQ, you have a point, I'll admit. It's difficult, if not impossible to justifiably compare the human body or a mousetrap to the huge universe of complex bits and pieces. But bear in mind, it is merely an analogy, it's not meant to be entirely and wholesomely accurate. As for who designed the designer, well, the trouble with that argument is that it assumes that time has always existed. God is not subject to time constraints, I'm sure you've all heard "God has his own time, his own schedule" in sunday school and such, and while it is cliche, it has a point. So logically, God isn't subject to that particular scientific argument, as he is not subject to time either. Ergo, from that one could easily believe that God has always existed and that God brought time into the picture along with the universe, and not before then. So an athiest who claims to live by knowledge and logic cannot assign eternity to a universe that belongs to a temporal existence.  
To Faylen,
Yes, you have a point that the immune system causes these diseases. But with all of these diseases, there is a factor that causes the immune system to act this way. There has to be, if you follow your own logic. You argue that God must have had a creator in order to exist, therefore by your own logic, the immune system must've had a factor to trigger such a reaction.
and to squid, I look forward to hearing what you have to say about irreducible complexity. I may not neccesarily agree with any of your arguments, but I will listen and then respectively state my point of view.

Big Mac

#9
Quote from: "Thiest"As for who designed the designer, well, the trouble with that argument is that it assumes that time has always existed. God is not subject to time constraints, I'm sure you've all heard "God has his own time, his own schedule" in sunday school and such, and while it is cliche, it has a point. So logically, God isn't subject to that particular scientific argument, as he is not subject to time either. Ergo, from that one could easily believe that God has always existed and that God brought time into the picture along with the universe, and not before then. So an athiest who claims to live by knowledge and logic cannot assign eternity to a universe that belongs to a temporal existence.

Actually we can until we see conclusive proof of your deity. So far he's really good at hiding. Also, that makes no sense in your argument. If we are so complex, than how did an even more complex being who supposedly design us (and did a very poor job at it, you know that bipedal movement is quite poor compared to a quadrupedal?). It's easy to believe indeed when you have it constantly hammered into you like a mantra. Curious that something so profoundly true has to constantly be forced into kids' heads. I wonder why....

Quote from: "Thiest"To Faylen,
Yes, you have a point that the immune system causes these diseases. But with all of these diseases, there is a factor that causes the immune system to act this way. There has to be, if you follow your own logic. You argue that God must have had a creator in order to exist, therefore by your own logic, the immune system must've had a factor to trigger such a reaction.
and to squid, I look forward to hearing what you have to say about irreducible complexity. I may not neccesarily agree with any of your arguments, but I will listen and then respectively state my point of view.

Uh, the immune system doesn't cause disease, it fights it. I said god needed a designer as well. You may state your POV but that doesn't change reality here, kid. I have no beef with you yet....I hope you keep it that way or we will just have to deride you the same as saukhasi. Take care.
Quote from: "PoopShoot"And what if pigs shit candy?

Theist

#10
Quote from: "Big Mac"Uh, the immune system doesn't cause disease, it fights it. I said god needed a designer as well. You may state your POV but that doesn't change reality here, kid. I have no beef with you yet....I hope you keep it that way or we will just have to deride you the same as saukhasi. Take care.

I wasn't the one who originally said the immune system caused the aforementioned diseases, it was Faylen, just as a note of interest.

joeactor

#11
Hey all (and Greetings Thiest!),

Hope your holidays are going well...

Here's a link for a bit more information on the "IC" issue:
  http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200.html

(oh, and for the record, the human immune system kills people on a regular basis.  sever allergic reactions are an easy example - the immune system overreacts with dire consequenses... and let's not forget auto-immune diseases, ie. AIDS)

Off to catch up on the other 293 posts I've missed,
  JoeActor

Theist

#12
thanks for the feedback joeactor

Faylen

#13
Quote from: "Thiest"
Quote from: "Big Mac"Uh, the immune system doesn't cause disease, it fights it. I said god needed a designer as well. You may state your POV but that doesn't change reality here, kid. I have no beef with you yet....I hope you keep it that way or we will just have to deride you the same as saukhasi. Take care.

I wasn't the one who originally said the immune system caused the aforementioned diseases, it was Faylen, just as a note of interest.

Actually, I didn't say that at all.  What I said was that if you insist that all the wonderful things were intelligently designed that you also have to accept the horrible things as intelligently designed.  Somehow it doesn't seem intelligent to design something that works wrong.

Theist

#14
I apologize for misquoting you then.
But against your last argument, the good must with the bad, good can't very well exist without evil can it? at least from a human's perspective. Because without evil/bad to define and shape what we think of good how would we truly know what is good? it balances out. Yin and Yang as some might say. Perhaps it is very intelligent to design something that works out to perhaps, not function as we feel it should. Perhaps it reminds us to be humble? I'm not normally going to quote bible verses at you but one comes to mind here. Recall the tower of Babel, everyone all of a sudden wanted to see God, be on more of an equal level with him. So instead of that happening, God has them speak in different languages so the job can't very well be done. Or what about 'Lucifer', or 'The Shining One' as he was called. Apparently he was an angel before he turned to what we know him as now. But suddenly he had the urge to become more powerful than God, he wanted to seize his power and be the one to take the reins. That didn't happen because God cast him down to earth. I think we all need reminders that we need to be humble, even if you don't believe in God, humility is a good thing, I'm sure we can all agree on at least that.