Even some scientists give lip service to fairy tales.

Youve seemed to totally ignore studies done on self awareness that many animals have but most do not. Studies of "hard wiring" of animals for specific tasks abound in the literature. Id start with E O Wilson and his many years work on insects (ants specifically). Hes earned his opinions Id say.
I dont ever recall his opining about some measurable increases in complexity as driving the planet lifeforms.


Your entire argument is, as I see, a typical response of religion conclusivity where you state

1LIFE IS GETTING MORE COMPLEX


2THEREFORE A GOD DID IT.


Gaaaaah, theres no sense of "Therefore...it follows that..." evidenced in your attempt at justifying a force in the Universe (or lets just start with our home planet since its a microcosm). The "Jonathan Wells" type of arguments are slowly being dissolved by slow accumulations of evidence over time as we create tools that enable us to look deeper into the planets structure and forces.

That all of life is one continuous adaptation to a :changing neighborhood" is almost self evident. The planetary display of changing environments does not show any increase in complexity at all. Its merely the same ****, different day and differemnt place.

Meteroites hit, glaciers come and go, continents drift, planets agglomerate and split up. Nothing intersting or unusual happening here, so lets just move on folks.

If you can show me what you mean by increase in complexity, Id love to hear the argument. MAybe I have an answer, .maybe I dont, but lets look it over please.

This is an example of one book dealing with increasing complexity in biology. Debating design: from Darwin to DNA By William A. Dembski, Michael Ruse

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=245 This is one site that could serve as an introduction to the topic. I caution you not to assume I support everything they say.

Greater complexity is when you start of with hydrogen ...or even before that with plasma and you end up with everything we have in the universe. Hydrogen was the only element. Fusion produced Helium, and when the first generation of stars went supernova the other elements were created. We are living in the orbit of a second generation star. We are made out of star dust and so is our planet. We know this because of observation of other stars. It is demonstrable by observation of stars at various stages. If it can be demonstrated or repeated it is fact, not theory.

I am not sure why you have tried to put words in my mouth, most of what you argued against is not my opinion. When life started on this planet it wasnt created. So it must have grown in complexity. The first organisms did not have brains. This is a complexity that has grown. All life now is more complex then the first life. Some, like mammals are more complex than other life because of their sensors and information storage. If you can not see this, then we have reached a point where further discusion is useless.

Complexity and entropy work hand in hand. Lead is more complex than Hydrogen. The amount of Hydrogen it takes to make Lead means lost energy in the process. The result is Lead plus dispersed energy when a star goes supernova. The universe became more complex by condensing some energy and scattering the rest. Eventually entropy will affect even the more complex and they too will start to break down.

Setanta your intellect is only used to generate personal attacks?

You do not see that all that does is place you in a bad light not the person you are attacking?

Now what is your goal here? If you are trying to drive me off this website hanging my head in shame you must know by now that this is not going to happen.

If you wish to point out my faults that seem kind of silly as anyone who read my posts can come to their own conclusions without your help.

To get the joy of stating your superiority in the area of grammar?

So my friend what are you trying to gain by your personal attacts?

It is your assumption that when I say it seems there is some force towards greater complexity that I mean God. I mean exactly what was written. Increasing complexity seems to be some sort of force. I think I covered this in my post just previous.

As for studies with animals, I will play the devils advocate here, and ask you to think about all the assumptions that are inherent in any experiment with animals.

Sorry but I asked first. What do you evidence as "increasing complexity"? Im really stumped as to where you assume this.
It aint so just cause you say so.
Lets hash about here.

Did you read this ?

http://able2know.org/topic/138621-12#post-3833588

I can not take credit for the concept.

Like The Red Queen principle?

The idea of complexity in nature is a very tricky one to nail down. Here's an old thread on the subject.

Yes. Now THAT was interesting. Thanks rossy.

My pleasure.

Did you read this?

Thanks again (I love reading that stuff). The complexity increase from amino acids through to multi-cellular organisms is blatantly obvious. Then there is a slowdown in the increase of complexity whilst multi-cellular organisms rearrange house, but the rate of increase again picks up with humans. We have made a far more complex environment for our (almost) sole use.

In terms of raw data storage (as one measure of complexity), DNA started to plateau at the start of multi-cellular creatures and life started to develop data storage in the brain. There was another acceleration due to the brain till around the introduction of reptiles and dinosaurs, when DNA and the brain stored about the same amount of information. From there the rate of increase slowed though the Mammals' brains exceeded the information stored in DNA and continued to add complexity to the brain. That slowed rate continued through to humans, who have invented information storage that is difficult to comprehend. The acceleration introduced by humans warps the graph.

What is your definition of complexity?

Damn ! I should have seen that coming....
Wellllllll......it is probably easier to see by comparison. A structure is easy to understand and there is a change that results in more knowledge being required to understand it. An increase in complexity will require more interacting parts within a structure, and/or more interaction between structures, and a greater possibility of error in understanding a structure. A structure is a collection of atomic particles, and examples of increasing complexity would be: in going from Hydrogen to Lead, from chemical reactions to life or from singular cells to multicellular life.

Those are a bunch of generalizations without much "meat on the bone" You educe a rise in compexity from molecules to life. OK, after that what happened? is the way that life manifests life more complex today than it was , say in the Devonian? Is a dinosaur less complex than a mammal? Is a Titanotherium less complex than a hominid?

What you call complexity is merely adaptation in living species (and fossil ones too). Once the rise occurs to a level of "super adaptation" to a single environment, the animals get whacked. We, are similarly held captive by our own environment (We cannot yet leave this planet or galaxy to escape the inevitable entropic "wind down")

As far as the chemistry and physics of the earth (lets stick with our home planet), you educe an argument for complexity herein . Can you give some examples?

. You have much to read about the genome and epigenome. DNA NEVER "Started" to "plateau". It has always been the assembly and disassembly of 4 (actually 5) pairs of chemicals specifically arranged in groups of three. These form the 20 or so proteins that act as the messengers of the specific tissues and systems of an organism. However, is the cascading of blood coagulation, or the chemical transfer of oxygen via an iron centered molecule more complex than an equivalent system wherein oxygen is carried by a Calcium centered system?

. That doesnt ring true, while it may give you some comfort, its patently false. I dont even know how you rank Hydrogen and lead in a "complexity hierarchY. and , I think youve been exposed to enough critique about your views on complexity of life as an "apparent"artifact of evolution and geologic time.

So what?

Even if we allow that life get more complex over time on earth how does that show one way or another the existed of an all powerful and supernatural being behind the scene?

Can you get the point that there are [people out there, just as intelligent as you claim to be, who believe differently than you?

Did you read our Constitution lately? SO far, its not illegal to have disparate opinions.

Why not have yourself a cuppa coffee and when someone has a minute theyll discuss everything you know.

I have no idea William, how does it ? I never said it does..why dont I make stuff up and ask you to explain that ?

Yes, by measure of the complexity of the information stored in the brain. The difference is small but it exists.
This is patently wrong. Are you as simple as an amoeba ? You have far more sensors, information storage and chemical processes.
Are you speed reading what I write and then asking a question because the answers you seek have already been given. Read back through my posts.

Of course it did. We do not have the same length DNA as a protozoa, ours is longer therefore we are storing more information. Brains have also developed to store more information.