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Irreducible Complexity???

CSX2

New Blood
C
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Feb 12, 2003
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I was watching a show on PBS called “Unlocking the Origins of Life” or some similar title. I didn’t see the beginning of the program but there were lots of biologists and others with scientific, or at least scientific sounding titles, talking about evolution and the origin of life on earth. They all seemed to be driving toward the theory that natural selection was a fine theory until you reached a certain basic level of life. The claim was that at a certain point they found organisms that had “irreducible complexity.” The argument was that the organism or system could not function if any one element was removed and if this was true how could it have evolved to its present state. They also used a similar argument about the fact that “vast, complicated information and instructions” were contained in DNA. This was all driving to a theory of “intelligent design” which implies a supreme being is behind the foundations of life. Several of the scientists were former proponents of natural selection or other non-supernatural theories who apparently joined the intelligent design camp when their particular work was found to be in error.

I don’t believe they presented any experts with an opposing view or theory to contradict the irreducible complexity/vast information argument.

Forgive me if this is a well trodden topic here but something about this show really bugged me. Not having a biology background I felt a little lost with some of the lingo used but felt that this was a cop-out for not being able to solve a tough problem.

Did anyone else see this program? Would like to hear some opinions from others.
 
I like some of the arguments, but I think that a fraction of an appendage/etc., is better than none at all, so its not like these organisms couldn't function at all.

-Who
 
CSX2 said:
I was watching a show on PBS called “Unlocking the Origins of Life” or some similar title. I didn’t see the beginning of the program but there were lots of biologists and others with scientific, or at least scientific sounding titles, talking about evolution and the origin of life on earth. They all seemed to be driving toward the theory that natural selection was a fine theory until you reached a certain basic level of life. The claim was that at a certain point they found organisms that had “irreducible complexity.” The argument was that the organism or system could not function if any one element was removed and if this was true how could it have evolved to its present state. They also used a similar argument about the fact that “vast, complicated information and instructions” were contained in DNA. This was all driving to a theory of “intelligent design” which implies a supreme being is behind the foundations of life. Several of the scientists were former proponents of natural selection or other non-supernatural theories who apparently joined the intelligent design camp when their particular work was found to be in error.

I don’t believe they presented any experts with an opposing view or theory to contradict the irreducible complexity/vast information argument.

Forgive me if this is a well trodden topic here but something about this show really bugged me. Not having a biology background I felt a little lost with some of the lingo used but felt that this was a cop-out for not being able to solve a tough problem.

Did anyone else see this program? Would like to hear some opinions from others.
Click to expand...

What parts really bugged you?
 
Whodini:

Their argument was that these systems or “machines” as they called them, were totally useless until they reached their current level of complexity. So, natural selection would never have sat patiently by waiting for the end result. The example they used was an organism(?) that had what was very similar to a boat motor for propulsion. When magnified a gazillion times it did look very machine like with the exception of the propeller which just looked like a long skinny tail. My gut feeling is that there probably was a good reason for each part of the system as it evolved but it may not be apparent in the current form. Unfortunately I don’t have the background to make a convincing argument for what those reasons may have been. Perhaps the tail existed first and was just wagged back and forth until the nerves formed a grouping that caused it to move in a circular pattern which was more efficient. From there it was a matter of ever increasing complexity and efficiency.

LCBOY:

I think what bothered me was that these people seemed to accept natural selection for higher organisms where they have pretty good answers for how things evolved but when they reached a level where they couldn't solve the problem they resorted to a supernatural explanation. A supernatural explanation cloaked in scientific sounding theories. My BS detector was going off but I don't know how to refute their claims.
 
CSX2 said:
The claim was that at a certain point they found organisms that had “irreducible complexity.”
Click to expand...

The first objection that should be raised when someone brings up Behe's irreducible complexity nonsense is that it's simply not a scientific idea. Until someone can definitively specify what level of complexity is "irreducible," and why, there's simply no way to support or falsify that hypothesis -- it's one big Argument from Personal Incredulity. It doesn't even deserve consideration until they quantify it, and if it ever gets to that point, I have a feeling it will fall firmly on the evolutionists' side.

Jeremy
 
The "Intelligent Design" crowd is a very small minority of practicing scientists, and this line of argument is not accepted by the vast majority or working biologists.

Subcellular molecules do not leave fossils, so we can't track the progress of their development through the fossil record. So just because a complex system exists today doesn't mean it was always so.

Even so, we do find evidence of 'molecular fossils' by comparing molecules from different species that diverged various amounts of time ago. Welcome to the genomic age, where evidence for evolution is overwhelming.

Partial vision is better than none at all. There are a couple books by Richard Dawkins on this topic, Climbing Mount Improbable and The Blind Watchmaker

Biological structures may be developed in response to one need (or selective pressure) and then put to use for another, unrelated purpose. I think parts of the flagella motor you referred to is related to a cellular structure.

The time scale of evolution is generations. Therefore evolution happens faster for fast-reproducing life forms like bacteria. Under ideal conditions, the E. coli (standard laboratory bacteria) can reproduce itself in 15 minutes or less. In the very early pre-cellular world, it might have been even faster.
 
It is a specious argument.

There has been a billion year history to the rise of life on earth, in the beining there weren't complex organsims, just very simple ones.

Whats really cool is that at somepoint they start to combine and then they gain a huge advantage over more simple organisms. Some of the camgrain stuff is displayed in our internal structures, the primitive life is still there. It is us.

Irreducable complexity is just a sound bite phrase. It is a concept, there is no method behind it. It is the same as saying "I don't like you, youre ugly", it is emotional not scientific.

No attempt has ever been made to really say, well at this point in evolution it just falls apart.

It would be like looking at a computer program after a billion years and saying, it's so complex no human could have ever made it.
 
"What use is half an eye?" is the old saying. See this bebuttal from Talk Origins:

Darwin then went on to describe how some simple animals have only "aggregates of pigment-cells...without any nerves ... [which] serve only to distinguish light from darkness." Then, in animals a bit more complex, like "star-fish," there exist "small depressions in the layer of [light-sensitive cells] -- depressions which are "filled ... with transparent gelatinous matter and have a clear outer covering, "like the cornea in the higher animals." These eyes lack a lens, but the fact that the light sensitive pigment lies in a "depression" in the skin makes it possible for the animal to tell more precisely from what direction the light is coming. And the more cup-shaped the depression, the better it helps "focus" the image like a simple "box-camera" may do, even without a lens. Likewise in the human embryo, the eye is formed from a "sack-like fold in the skin."

George Gaylord Simpson in The Meaning of Evolution, points out that the different species of modern snail have every intermediate form of eye from a light-sensitive spot to a full lens-and-retina eye.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the feedback and the references. Interesting that in the full text of the “… half an eye” the author illustrates an out of context quote from Darwin is used to imply that he thought the eye was far too complex to be a product of natural selection. In the program I viewed there were also some quotes attributed to Darwin which the show’s producers used to provide apparent support for their theories. Wish I could remember the quotes.

This program was very well produced. Slick. It had the look and feel of a NOVA program. I love to watch programs about scientific discoveries. This one suckered me in for quite a while as they discussed evolution and hinted at some bold new discovery. It wasn’t preachy and they never mentioned creationism or any particular religion. In fact, they never mentioned a supreme being as the intelligent designer until very near the end of the show. My first indication that the program may be biased was the emphasis placed on how a couple of their experts were former supporters of natural selection who had been converted. And then there was the fact that there was no dissenting opinion expressed, at least in the portion of the program I saw.
 
I always thought the "eye argument" especially ridiculous, when we have living today many examples of primitive eyes. I'd like someone to collate a complexity chart from the eyespots of flatworms (or perhaps the infrared sensors of rattlesnakes) up to a bird's eye. Heck, starfish have eyes, if they want to get picky about it.
 
Kenneth Miller is a professor of biology at the university of Colorado, and he is both an orthodox Catholic, and an orthodox Darwinian. I have seen him in a TV program here in Sweden, together with S J Gould, and Daniel Dennett, the title was Darwin's Dangerous Idea! Part of the program showed Miler "crawling" around on the floor in some kind of Catholic ritual, just as Father Ralf (Richard Chamberlain) did in the Thorn Birds, and Miller is a well-known critic of the ID movement, he has debunked Michel Behe's Empty box and instead confirmed Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker as an accurate description about evolution! If Miller has reject irreducible complexity, it stand to reason that there is no such thing either!! http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/index.html
 
There is nothing in the theory of natural selection that says a mutation has to be advantageous. It can exist as a useless appendage for hundreds of generations as long as it doesn't bestow a disadvantage. At any point, further mutation can render it advantageous. Or disadvantageous. Or make it go away. The last two are irrelevent to evolution because the appendage no longer evolves past that point.
 
Irreducable complexity fails completely when one realizes that it is not necessary for a new "something" to have any function as long as it doesn't have a NEGATIVE function that causes anti-selection. If it has no positive results, it is more likely to disappear via randomness, and that which doesn't takes more time to spread, but so what. That's hardly a problem at this point.

Stuff like "half an eye" is pure quackery. There are "eyes" in every sense from single-celled organisms that can sense nondirectional light to fully evolved eyes of several kinds, including "compound" and "inside out". There are "eyespots", there are "optical cavities" without lenses that do primitive imaging, etc, etc.

Ditto for ears, we can start with fish's labyrinth organs that suffice for limited air-breathing (anabantoids), up to mammalian cochleas. Every step is useful, even, FOR SOMETHING, even.

Wings could easily be originally cooling mechanisms. Ditto "gliding wings" on squirrels, etc, etc.

A good look at the chemestry of cell metabolism shows, I think, the involvement of random steps, as well as the commonality of a few things that happened once but were so stunningly useful that they "stuck" more or less universally.
 
CSX2 said:
Thanks for the feedback and the references. Interesting that in the full text of the “… half an eye” the author illustrates an out of context quote from Darwin is used to imply that he thought the eye was far too complex to be a product of natural selection. In the program I viewed there were also some quotes attributed to Darwin which the show’s producers used to provide apparent support for their theories. Wish I could remember the quotes.

This program was very well produced. Slick. It had the look and feel of a NOVA program. I love to watch programs about scientific discoveries. This one suckered me in for quite a while as they discussed evolution and hinted at some bold new discovery. It wasn’t preachy and they never mentioned creationism or any particular religion. In fact, they never mentioned a supreme being as the intelligent designer until very near the end of the show. My first indication that the program may be biased was the emphasis placed on how a couple of their experts were former supporters of natural selection who had been converted. And then there was the fact that there was no dissenting opinion expressed, at least in the portion of the program I saw.
Click to expand...
CSX2,

Are you sure this show was on PBS? It sounds so utterly un-PBS like. First off, as I'm sure you know, the claim of "evolutionist" conversions is bunk. The lists I've seen so far, hyped by the creationist crowd, are filled with profs of business and theology and nutrion science and the like. Secondly, this sounds much more like an offering one might see on religious channels or a religious infomercial.

Cheers,
 
BillHoyt said:

CSX2,

Are you sure this show was on PBS? It sounds so utterly un-PBS like. First off, as I'm sure you know, the claim of "evolutionist" conversions is bunk. The lists I've seen so far, hyped by the creationist crowd, are filled with profs of business and theology and nutrion science and the like. Secondly, this sounds much more like an offering one might see on religious channels or a religious infomercial.

Cheers,
Click to expand...

It showed up on Bob Park's page (bullet 3):

http://www.aps.org/WN/

Nasty.
 
It is distributed by the Discovery Institute. There is no science behind this, only politics and religion.
 
PBS has definitely gone into the crapper in the last few years. Maybe it has something to do with all the cable competition. Anyhow, if I see a listing for this show on my PBS station I will definitely complain. Not that it would do any good...
 
Denise said:
PBS has definitely gone into the crapper in the last few years. Maybe it has something to do with all the cable competition. Anyhow, if I see a listing for this show on my PBS station I will definitely complain. Not that it would do any good...
Click to expand...
Start now with a pre-emptive strike. Tell them you heard about this program, it is pure crap, and you hope they have the wisdom not to show it.

I would if I knew the address of the local PBS station ... or if I even had a TV.
 
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