Can ID be disproven?

I personally subscribe to the Cosmic Egg theory myself. ;)
How does this work you say? Well, everything that came out of the egg is directly related to everything that was put into the egg by that which laid it. That sounds like a pretty fair and reasonable assessment now doesn't it?
 
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How does this work you say?
Well, no, actually. Nobody asked.
Well, everything that came out of the egg is directly related to everything that was put into the egg by that which laid it. That sounds like a pretty fair and reasonable assessment now doesn't it?
Well, no, actually. Although the "what egg did 'that which laid it' hatch from?" question does nicely dovetail with the "turtles all the way down" philosophy.

Is it, by any chance...a turtle egg? :turtle:
 
Well, no, actually. Nobody asked.

Well, no, actually. Although the "what egg did 'that which laid it' hatch from?" question does nicely dovetail with the "turtles all the way down" philosophy.

Is it, by any chance...a turtle egg? :turtle:
Well, at least my idea has substance to it, albeit "we" may not understand how that substance got here. ;)
 
Well, at least my idea has substance to it, albeit "we" may not understand how that substance got here. ;)
Oh, you are such a hoot, Iacchus. I am quite sure that you believe your ideas have substance, although you could not produce any no matter how carefully it was asked.

Let me beat your strawman to his punch. "It's better that something from nothing like you atheists are saying."

Of all the one-trick ponies, you are the lamest. And you know what they do with lame horses, don't you?
 
Well, at least my idea has substance to it, albeit "we" may not understand how that substance got here. ;)
LOL...Rather than simply saying "no", I will ask...what exactly is the Iacchian definition of "substance"?


If it is the same thing my daughter wipes off her boots after a day at the stables, then perhaps your idea does have substance after all...
 
Do hopeful monsters exist or not? A simple yes or no will suffice.

Define hopeful monsters, and I will try to accommodate your request.

And do you mean according to theistic evolution? ID? My own belief? Evolutionary theory as understood today?
 
The idea of irreducible complexity is incompatable with evolution. So if your concept of theistic evolution includes IC, then it is most certainly not compatable with evolution.


It most certainly is not. If you remove my liver, I will cease to function. I am an irreducibly complex entity. That isn't my opinion; that's a definition.
 
Which means you don't believe in ID, since "irreducible complexity" specifically denies this possiblity. (Read the Behe testimony in Dover.)

I only skimmed it, but I will look it up, and see if you are correct. It's odd, though, that I read some of it, and I read some people commenting on it, and it's as if we were reading two different sets of words. He didn't seem to be saying at all what people insisted he was saying.

That's what I find fascinating about all this, really. The ideas put forth by ID seem to me not very difficult, and not very profound either, but the opponents get worked into a tizzy about them.

Dembski's paper to me seems to be saying, "Evolution isn't proven, and we don't think it can happen, and we won't believe it until somebody shows us." I cannot figure out what the problem is.
 
Absolutely none, aside from lying to them, damaging their undersanding of science, epistemology, the nature of truth, and the moral responsibilities of teachers.

Why put them in school at all if you're not going to teach them?

So teaching consists of presenting only the true answers to students, and not letting them compare competing possibilities? I don't get it. Are they too stupid to make the comparisons?

If you want a teenager to believe something, tell him that an authority figure doesn't believe it. When you say "that's pseudoscience" in response to an ID question, the authority figure is the teacher. If you say, "the government won't let me talk about it", the authority figure is the government. Either way, you just "educated" a person in a way that makes them more likely to believe ID. It's unlikely that most of those 14 year olds will study biology after their freshman year in high school, and they will be left with the idea that ID is a theory that "they" don't want you to know about. Meanwhile, lots of trusted people will be telling them it's true.

If you want them to learn what's wrong with it, you have to teach them what it is. Don't you?
 
It most certainly is not. If you remove my liver, I will cease to function. I am an irreducibly complex entity. That isn't my opinion; that's a definition.
If you are suggesting irreducible complexity, then you are suggesting that evolution supports the concept of a creature without a liver suddenly having a liver. This is not at all what evolution states, but it is the strawman that IC assigns it.

Under IC, your liver must appear, fully formed without intermediate stages or "proto-livers". Or certain protiens, or eye parts or whatever it is calling irreducibly complex must arise without precursors. It fails at every level. There is nothing in evolution that suggests that any of these things arose fully formed, but this is what IC demands. It says that there are certain forms that are so basic they can have no precursors.

Now you can argue that theistic evolution does not incorporate IC, but you cannot simultaneously argue that theistic evolution both incorporates IC and is compatable with non-theistic evolution. They are, by definition, mutually exclusive. Why else would ID proponants be suggesting that evolution is not correct?

No evolutionist is suggesting that you can survive without a liver. If ID people misrepresent evolution that way, they are simply lying through their teeth. And I suspect you know this. You don't strike me as stupid.
 
This is not at all what evolution states, but it is the strawman that IC assigns it.

It is quite possible that if I were to read lots of papers by Behe, Dembski, or other ID proponents, I would find many of the contradictions that you assert. Maybe these guys are complete morons who can't utter more than a few sentences without contradicting themselves. I don't know.

However, I have read one and only one paper all the way through, and in it, they gave a definition of irreducible complexity. That definition was posted previously. I have read a bunch of other snippets, media reports, blog postings and such, and they all agree.

Irreducible complexity is a simple definition. It doesn't say anything at all about evoloution. It doesn't say anything at all about intelligent design. It doesn't say anything at all about biology. (The first example of an IC system I ever read was a mousetrap.) "Irreducibly complex" is an adjectival phrase that describes a multi-part system that won't function if you take out one of the parts. That's it. Period. End of sentence. No ID. No theistic evolution. No evolution. No biology. Done.

My body is an irreducibly complex system because my liver, or lungs, or stomach, or whatever, is necessary for its continued function. That isn't a statement about evolution or intelligent design. My computer is irreducibly complex because it needs a CPU to operate. That's a definition. And I would be very surprised if you could find a contradiction to that statement in the writings of ID proponents.
 
It is quite possible that if I were to read lots of papers by Behe, Dembski, or other ID proponents, I would find many of the contradictions that you assert. Maybe these guys are complete morons who can't utter more than a few sentences without contradicting themselves. I don't know.

However, I have read one and only one paper all the way through, and in it, they gave a definition of irreducible complexity. That definition was posted previously. I have read a bunch of other snippets, media reports, blog postings and such, and they all agree.

Irreducible complexity is a simple definition. It doesn't say anything at all about evoloution. It doesn't say anything at all about intelligent design. It doesn't say anything at all about biology. (The first example of an IC system I ever read was a mousetrap.) "Irreducibly complex" is an adjectival phrase that describes a multi-part system that won't function if you take out one of the parts. That's it. Period. End of sentence. No ID. No theistic evolution. No evolution. No biology. Done.

My body is an irreducibly complex system because my liver, or lungs, or stomach, or whatever, is necessary for its continued function. That isn't a statement about evolution or intelligent design. My computer is irreducibly complex because it needs a CPU to operate. That's a definition. And I would be very surprised if you could find a contradiction to that statement in the writings of ID proponents.
Well, your body is not irreducibly complex. There are many many things you could do without. In fact, you can do without a good portion of your liver. So then, IC must redefine a human to be a certain number of parts (like a mousetrap) that it cannot do without. As such, it is such a loose and sloppy definition, subject to revision by medical science, that it fails completely.

But the point is that IC is used as a hammer to disprove evolution. You cannot deny (if you have read much of their works) that this is the purpose that Behe and others have crafted that definition for.

"Evolution cannot be true because what good is half an eye." That is a strawman that suggests evolution proposes "half-eyes".

They suggest a mousetrap must have all of it's parts. But a moustrap with a weaker spring is still a mousetrap. A mousetrap with a stickier trigger is still a mousetrap. If mousetraps evolved, they would go through stages where the parts improved (by natural selection). There would not be a mousetrap without a spring.

If you don't think ID proponants are using irreducible complexity to deny the mechanics of evolution, why do you suppose they are bringing up the concept?
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Edited to add parable:

I'm reminded of the old story that illustrates bad conclusions:

A scientist had a dog that loved to fetch sticks. He would throw the stick and say "fetch" and the dog would run after the stick and retrieve it. But he decided one day to experiment on the dog (being the cruel man that all scientists are). He surgically removed one of the dog's legs. After the scar had healed, he took a stick and threw it and said "fetch". Though limping, the dog gamely went out and brought back the stick. So the scientist removed another leg and repeated the experiment after the scars had healed. Severely hobbled though he was, the dog managed to hop around on two legs until he could retrieve the stick. Once again, the dog went under the knife and when he had healed, the scientist threw the stick and said "fetch". Even with only a single leg the dog so loved the game that he dragged himself out into the yard, got the stick in his mouth and dragged himself back. So the scientist removed the final leg. He took the limbless dog into the yard, threw the stick and yelled "fetch", but the poor dog just looked at him helplessly. The scientist concluded, "When you remove all of a dog's legs, it becomes deaf."

This is the sort of conclusion that ID-ers are making about evolution. If you remove a part and the organism no longer works, then that part was what was making the organism work.
 
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Meadmaker said:
Irreducible complexity is a simple definition. It doesn't say anything at all about evoloution. It doesn't say anything at all about intelligent design. It doesn't say anything at all about biology. (The first example of an IC system I ever read was a mousetrap.) "Irreducibly complex" is an adjectival phrase that describes a multi-part system that won't function if you take out one of the parts. That's it. Period. End of sentence. No ID. No theistic evolution. No evolution. No biology. Done.
That's not it, as we have patiently pointed out numerous times.

There are some parts you can remove, introducing the idea of the irreducible core.

Dembski altered the definition over time to say that the system won't perform it's original function if you remove a core part.

Behe then revised the definition to talk of unselected steps.

Recently Dembski has admitted that one has to show that no simpler system can perform the function.

Here: http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Irreducible_Complexity

If you insist on using your simplistic definition of irreducible complexity, than you are erecting a straw man. Do some more reading.

~~ Paul
 
Define hopeful monsters, and I will try to accommodate your request.

A "hopeful monster" is a mutant creature that differs in substantial and evolutionary costly ways from its parent population, but that nevertheless survives and breeds true despite being less fit for its original niche than its parent population. In briefer terms, it's a non-functional evolutionary intermediate.

In broad terms, this is the "what use is half a wing" question. As biologist Richard Carroll put it, "How can we explain the gradual evolution of entirely new structures, like the wings of bats, birds, and butterflies, when the function of a partially evolved wing is almost impossible to conceive?" (Of course, modern evolutionary biologist have an answer to this question -- basically pointing out that there is a function to a partially evolved wing, as anyone familiar with flying squirrels can attest.) But it also incorporates the sudden saltationist appearance of fully-formed characteristics that qualify it for a radically different ecological niche (while still being unfit for its original one).

Behe makes a similar argument/definition in "Response to My Critics": "An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations)." Of course, in light of his other statements, most particularly "any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional," we see that any partial travel down the an "irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway" (as so defined) is "by definition nonfunctional" but that nevertheless must survive to breed and reproduce.


And do you mean according to theistic evolution? ID? My own belief? Evolutionary theory as understood today?

I mean in the real world, and also according to your own belief. I know the answers to the others; modern evolutionary theory outright rejects the notion of hopeful monsters, while ID demands them.
 
Dembski's paper to me seems to be saying, "Evolution isn't proven, and we don't think it can happen, and we won't believe it until somebody shows us." I cannot figure out what the problem is.

The fundamental problem is that it's been shown to them, and they still don't believe it.

Case in point : Behe's statement that the blood clotting cascade is irreducibly complex, despite the fact that dolphins have a reduced blood clotting cascade and it still works.

It's a simple argument-by-contradiction.
Behe's definition : "Any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional."
Behe's observation : The human blood clotting complex is irreducibly complex.
Biologists' observation : The dolphin blood clotting complex is missing a part (from the human one), but is still functional.

Therefore, either Behe's definition is wrong, or else his observation is wrong (or both). Any high school biology student could figure this out -- but somehow this has manged to escape Behe himself. And the dolphin blood complex has been known since the 1960s, so it's not like this is a recent finding that Behe hasn't seen yet because he doesn't get that journal.

So is Behe dishonest, or incompetent? And either way, why should we teach his theories when they're known to be wrong (see above) and he's known to be untrustworthy as a proponent of them.
 
Here: http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Irreducible_Complexity

If you insist on using your simplistic definition of irreducible complexity, than you are erecting a straw man. Do some more reading.

~~ Paul


Speaking of strawmen...what part of the stuff in that link is different than what I was saying.

There are two possibilities that I can think of. First, there is Dembski's insertion of the words "and therefore original". Bad Dembski, Bad. Screws with the definition really badly, because there is nothing about the way a system functions today that you can use to somehow infer an "original" function. It's an editorial comment stuck into the middle of the definition.

There might be some confusion because of Behe's use of the term "irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway", which is a different thing than an irreducibly complex system. If you say that no one has ever demonstrated the existence of such an "irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway", I would agree with you.

But address what these guys are really saying, not what you think they probably mean. If you do otherwise, that is the very definition of a straw man.

Speaking of which, I've been skimming Behe's Dover testimony. I've seen some links, including on this board, that talk about how he made a fool of himself, but I just can't find the idiotic statements in his testimony.

What I have found is some guilt by association. Creationists are all ID supporters, and some of the authors of "On Pandas and People" are obviously creationists. However, if you call ID creationism on that account you are (drum roll please) erecting a straw man.

From what I can tell from Behe's testimony and Dembski's paper, there is nothing incompatible with what they say and the notion of theistic evolution.

But I thank you for your patience in explaining my errors to me. If I were more clever I would probably get it.
 
If you don't think ID proponants are using irreducible complexity to deny the mechanics of evolution, why do you suppose they are bringing up the concept?

This is certainly correct. They define irreducible complexity, and then discuss its implications for evolution. But there's no need to attack the definition. It's simple enough. Attack the implications that they try to insist upon. They insist that an irreducibly complex system can't evolve by an direct Darwinian pathway, and they are right. Then, they say it also can't evolve from an indirect pathway, and they are wrong, but they are not provably wrong using today's knowledge.

To disprove them, here we go again, you would have to demonstrate an actual sequence of mutations that changes (for example) a type III secretory system into a flagellum.
 
This is certainly correct. They define irreducible complexity, and then discuss its implications for evolution. But there's no need to attack the definition. It's simple enough. Attack the implications that they try to insist upon. They insist that an irreducibly complex system can't evolve by an direct Darwinian pathway, and they are right. Then, they say it also can't evolve from an indirect pathway, and they are wrong, but they are not provably wrong using today's knowledge.

To disprove them, here we go again, you would have to demonstrate an actual sequence of mutations that changes (for example) a type III secretory system into a flagellum.
The concept of "proof" in the natural sciences really has no meaning. What substitutes for proof is evidence. The more evidence, the better the case, but no case is ever 100% proved.

So if you could observe specific physical changes and map them to specific mutations, that would be considered strong evidence that the mechanism of evolution is, at the very least, similir to how it is described in scientific literature.

That's been done, by the way.
 
I mean in the real world, and also according to your own belief. I know the answers to the others; modern evolutionary theory outright rejects the notion of hopeful monsters, while ID demands them.

In the real world, according to my belief, no.

But I can't prove that. A marginally functional organism separated out of its original niche during the process of gradual transformation into another organism would meet your definition of "hopeful monster".

I'm also not absolutely certain that modern evolutionary theory rejects them. I once read, "The river that flows uphill" by Calvin Trillin. (sp?) He says that evolution is observed to frequently follow a process of juvenalization. I'm afraid it has been many years since I've read the book, so I can't give accurate references. But, if I recall correctly, some individuals are born that never quite develop to normal maturity, and that opens the way for rapid change. Those juvenilized versions are probably less fit than their parents, but breed more fit offspring. If I recall, it was a "one step back and two steps forward" view of evolution, as opposed to a constant forward motion. I don't know if I've got the memory right, but wouldn't that be an example of a hopeful monster?
 
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