"Irreducible Complexity"--intellectual laziness or what?

You may have a long wait for a response. Those who support such notions don't want to discuss them, they just wish to assert that this is so.

Me have patience of puma on rock. Me sit here and suck tea ,Wait for usual suspect.

I am "Arm's in a Sling" Lone Brave, convinced of Darwinian mechanisms as subsequently evidenced by years of quality research. Let other side bring points and lay them before campfire.

The way I understand irreducible complexity is that Behe was unhappy with natural selection as an explanation for the evolution of complex biological systems. Behe indicates that a complex system is irreducible if it would not be able to function when one of several interrelated components is missing.

Kenneth Miller showed that the examples Behe gave are complex but not irreducible. The individual components can be shown to be "selectable" through natural processes.

Exactly, by claiming that ID is actually a "scientific approach" its proponents use some of the least scientifc means to underpin it.

Wandel,Could you post that URL about the "proposed research into the search for design" on this thread?
If, as set surmises, that the usual suspects dont show up , I think its because they are unable to do give and take without being pre scripted. Besides being lazy, they are quite economical in their arguments. They dont waste time trying to find any new stuff with which to dazzle us.

Link to Research ID.org

Some gods don't work well under temporal pressure and they have a six day time limit.

Re: "Irreducible Complexity"--intellectual lazines


We know why the IC people do it. They are hoping to find a logical connundrum from which evolution can not escape.

Obviously, *IF* something were to be found conclusively, beyond any reaonable doubt, to be irreducibly complex, then it would be a big monkey wrench in the theory of evolution. But that's a big *IF*. And then of course, they are faced with your challenge above "who, if anyone, can pronounce something inescapably irreducibly complex?", probably nobody, because I'm not sure how anything can be *proven* IC. As with everything else in science, all that will happen is that science will say "we don't know how it works yet, but we'll research it".

fm wrote-



I don't know if that is intended to refer to me or not but if it is all I can say is that the starter post on this new thread is a rehash of what we have heard before on numerous occasions apart from the "criminal". That I think to be an error of fact of a high order. One is duty bound to report criminal activities to the police as I understand things.

I also don't see any point in starting a new thread when wande's has already provided a satisfactory forum for the debate. Doing so seems to me an error of procedure and manners.

On that thread I have already provided an admittedly superficial analysis of the balance in society between the self-assertive drives and the self-transcending impulses. That post has been greeted by a total silence as I expected.

In the last 200 years Western society has seen a rising crescendo of the self-asserting drives and a corresponding decline of the self-transcending impulses.

"There's a battle outside and it's ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a changin'."

The rate of change,especially latterly,is providing an unstable environment which is changing at a speed which some people think is too fast for both social evolution and for the evolution of the human organism in both its physical and psychological nature. And this change is being created by man's own activities.

These changes are taking place in the relationship between man and nature and also between man and other men due to rapid modifications under the spur of applied science and of the social changes which are called forth as a response.

An unstable equilibrium in society has resulted which is producing stresses and strains unprecedented in human history. A high degree of sexual excitation has been caused by books,magazines,movies etc and capitalism itself has caused an unprecedented concentration of energy devoted to the competitive and acquisitive drives which media and modern military technology has vastly increased causing aggressive and dominant impulses to burgeon. It is as if a 17th century blacksmith has been fed aphrodisiacs,injected with adrenalin and handed a private megaphone in order to become an executive of Enron and his body not having evolved more than a mite and his mind still carrying the weight of cultural conditioning through such things as folklore,tradition and art.

This has all taken place under the process of replacing the self-transcending impulses with the self-assertive drives and powered by the scientific revolution and the results include ruthless competition,war and political fanaticism at the social level and a rapid increase in personal psychological problems.

Human beings are not objects to be manipulated in the same way that science manipulates those items it studies. Organic evolution takes no account of the 2nd law. In fact it it the opposite. It doesn't diffuse energy,it concentrates it. It feeds on negative entropy.

That some people are worried about these processes is not surprising and it is to be expected that those who are will seek some redress or,at the least,a touch on the handbrake. To criticise them,especially in aggressive and self-asserting modes, is a sure sign of gross intolerance and provides everybody with an opportunity to see what they might expect in the future if such self-righteous,scientific reasoning comes even more to the fore than it is now. It is Calvinistic. It is as if there are no other points of view than that of the writer. It is also very simple within the terms of reference being employed. So much so it is tautological. Scientists everywhere must cringe in toe-curling embarrassment to see science defended in such terms. It isn't as if science needs defending in the first place. In actual fact science is discredited by it.

It makes not the slightest difference to the scientific concept of irreducible complexity that-



and I'm surprised that anyone should think it did. It seems that anything anybody says has validity simply because it suits an argument.

Nor is it of much interest what the Pa southcentral District Federal Court decides. If the title sounds like a bus station in a nondescript small town in the boonies that is because there are distinct similarities. The judge may well have bought into full-blown self assertivesness having been highly rewarded by aggressive,competitive study and application not to mention any other possible motives of a more dubious nature and which decency forbears that I delve into. But fm approves of him and we all know why. Perhaps he drew lots as Rabelais had judges doing. Dover is not even the shine on a pimple in this debate.



No-one does. The vastness of the field of unknown scientific knowledge is such that even the most ample funding the nation can provide will hardly scratch the surface even if society lasts for ten thousand years or more.
There is a natural limitation of energy,time and ability which will always leave irreducible complexity virgo intacta. The unsullied virgin is forever an object of torment to the aggressive self-asserter with his hubris erect.



And therein lies its magnetic attraction. One can spout it and pose as a scientist.

And do not think for one moment that everybody is blind to the alliance of vested interests in promoting aggressive self assertion at the expense of humble self-transcendence. And do not think also that high profile proponents of ID are anything other than aggressive self-asserters themselves with an eye on the main chance.

Watch out country dwellers-they are after your daughters.

So whether I am the "usual suspect" or not-pick that out of your teeth!!!

spendi writes:



Farmerman's new thread is much more focused on science than my ID thread.

I am also getting tired of my own thread and was trying to transfer it to Timber for use as a forum help thread.

wande wrote-



There's no rule about having to stay with your own thread or even to read it. if you're tired of it just forget it.

I don't think IDers will get tired so quickly.

This thread is not concerned with whether or not one can claim that intelligent design is crypto-religion--it's topic is quite different than that of Wandel's thread, and it is very specific. Specifically, it deals with the contention that there is such a thing as irreducible complexity, and whether or not it refutes a theory of evolution. A topic which Spendi has not addressed in that forest of incoherence which he posted.

Hey- I don't know the details but it seems that a rabid anti-IDer couldn't find the Duke of Percy pub in Chicago for the exciting meeting of the cream of A2K.

And that's easier than getting your butt on the can while chewing gum.

The appliance of science eh?

Got any observation on the topic of irreducible complexity, Spendi, or are you simply focused, as always, on the pub?

I gave one on page one.

Does that not count?

I'm sorry if I was incoherent but I find it difficult to write about these matters in words of one syllable.

I gave one on page one.

Does that not count?

I'm sorry if I was incoherent but I find it difficult to write about these matters in words of one syllable.

The number of syllables has no bearing upon coherence, although simplicity is the soul of elegance, as well as brevity is the soul of wit. You demonstrate neither. You rambling, idiotic screed does not address the issue of irreducible complexity. In fact, although you might now run out and attempt to inform yourself, i doubt you even knew the term or its significance before you saw this thread.

OMFG! Set just proved that IC really is true... "I'm simple, therefore I have a soul."

No, no . . . i'm simple-minded, therefore, i have a soul.