i dont get your heating bill references.

__________________
https://www.voteforchange.com/

[quote=The12thMan;432708]Ah, but there is always a point of irreducible complexity. Always.[quote]

Well, then, you should be able to reach a point where the "irreducible complexity" argument isn't refutable, even by conjecture. Give me an example of such a point. Because most such claims turn out to be bunk -- a willful failure of imagination more than an actually "irreducible" datum.

Not, as I noted, if the original claim is absolute.

In math, if someone posits a theorem to be true in all cases, I only have to show that it's false in *one* case in order to disprove the theorem.

But that's easy. If the mutation was heritable, then its offspring would have the mutation and also be able to see. And the sighted members of the species would have a huge advantage over standard, nonsighted members, and thus rapidly outreproduce -- and thus replace -- them.

__________________
Man up.

If you take the solenoid out of a car, it wont run. But you can take other parts out of a car, and it will still run. A human is similar. If you take the heart out of human, it wont run. But if you take a kidney, a appendix, it will still run. Certain parts are more important than others. If you start with a car, a fully functioning car, this works.

Cilium and flagella within a bacterium have been suggested by Dr. Behe to qualify as IC. On one side of the argument, you have Dr. Behe saying that if any part of what propels a bacterium to food, fails to work, then it dies. And since a single protein is all that stands in the way of breaking the mobility of a bacteria, therefore, you could not have gradual variations.

Now the other side of the fence. (Setting all the pseudo-science wanna-be's out there are just climbing on the band wagon of bash Behe, aside.) The real serious discussion of the suggested flaws of IC can be found in the trial transcript and subsequent article written by the witnesses who testified at trial.

Their main argument wasn't even cited by the judge as an over ruling factor. He said there are many things that come down to one opinion vs. another. However, the main cause for dismissal is the "peer review" defect in Dover's argument. The IC theory wasn't adequately substantiated in the scientific community. In order to have a place at the table, it has to be reviewed. This is a legal flaw, and not a substantive flaw. But, non-the-less, IC was dinged because it couldn't make a compelling case that overrules the absence of peer review. Dover couldn't prove their theory because its assumptions were void of some key considerations whenever you go into a debate. They were completely unprepared for the cross discipline opposition to their arguments. They hinged their entire case on IC when IC wasn't even tested, a test that I believe could be weathered, if they would have just taken the time to do it.

Here's what I mean: 1 equals the first single celled organism. 1 has all the proteins and mechanics it needs to be a fully functioning 1. 1 just so happened to form after billions of years of random processes within a primordial ooze. 1 becomes alive. For some unexplainable reason, 1 is also the first 1 that can reproduce itself. We don't know why, but we know that 1 is unique in its ability to do that. 1 can reproduce itself in the soup, and the first copy has to be an exact duplicate of 1, in order to survive. Because trillions of its predecessors all missed at least one key ingredient or another. So the first one has to be a perfect duplicate of the parent.

1
11
1111
11111111
1111111111111111

Now your populations of 1's encounters several different losses of ideal conditions. Perfect temp, perfect PH, perfect light, perfect protein mix, perfect bio-mechanics, perfect processing of energy, perfect ability to split and sustain the system components. If any of these boundaries are crossed, then 1 dies. If any of these boundaries are touched, then only 1's with the unique ability to alter its configuration survive. How do you get that? With mutation. How do you get mutation? By slightly altering the external system to influence the internal one.

Now lets assume that 1 can have more components than it needs. Lets say one accidently originated with components that would be able to adapt to lower levels of light, other food sources, and so on...

Now you get what I am saying.

The scientist that opposed IC, used the same argument they complained about with IC, only in the opposite direction. They are saying that IC can't be a science because it presumes the unknown cause. In all the articles I read, to counter IC, the critics use the same argument. They presume the cause. Only instead of saying, irreducibly complex, they are saying that the possibility of overly complex works towards survivability. They site many instance of overly complex organisms loosing function and still surviving.

1
11
1101
1111001111
11111111000011111111

The zeros survive because the original was too complex, and held the additional complexity that just so happened to be able to endure changes in environment. Just because you can think it possible, does not mean it is. Just like: if you can "think" it too complex, doesn't mean it's too complex.

I think that Dover lost, because God wasn't prepared to give this nation (man kind) all His secrets. I think Dover lost because God still wants those who are willing to be foolish enough to trust in His word, to continue trusting in His word. To all others, if what I said doesn't make sense, then I pray that some day it does.

I heard a very wise man once say: "God gives everyone just enough information to enable them to believe. But not so much information, that it forces someone to believe, who wouldn't normally believe."

__________________
"I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." March 4, 1869, Grant's First Inaugural Address

I give up. You seem to be requiring proof from one side without requiring it from the other. Your math example doesn't work for this because the opposite also is applicable. IC need only be true in one instance, not all. Coming up with a possible explanation doesn't disprove or prove it either. Panspermia is another possible explanation for IC. Imagination is a wonderful thing. I am not arguing that one thing or another is the only answer (though I do know the answer ). I am arguing that minds should remain open. Science requires it.

You skipped the first part. IMO, if you can believe that a chance mutation caused umpteen chemical reactions enabling a cell to sense light, then your faith is strong. That is, in fact, one of the things science should stay away from. Dismissing or discounting something that doesn't support a preconceived idea. Perhaps neither is more likely than the other.

I might get to see the12thSon today. We've been having an argument for years about taking the full course of antibiotics. My point is merely that his mind should remain open. I told him to stop thinking about it from the germ's point of view and look at it from the human's point of view. The same thing when we talked about edema. His expertise in the chemistry of the human body tells him to take away the salt shaker. Yet, edema, AFAIK, is most often the result of poor nutrition. I'm trying to raise up a doctor who will ask questions and not be a computer.

__________________
Do you know what it's like to fall in the mud and get kicked... in the head... with an iron boot? Of course you don't, no one does. It never happens. It's a dumb question... skip it.

Yes. But no one's arguing that a bacteria one day mutated into a fully formed human. Instead, the explanation is that humans are built using the parts that evolved prior to their appearing.

Until a heart evolved, no animal had hearts. Until lungs evolved, no animal breathed oxygen. Until kidneys evolved, no animal filtered their blood.

But once kidneys evolved in a given ancestral line, every animal after that had kidneys.

I explained this in detail in other threads and in PMs. For example: say being able to see the color red is advantageous. So an animal that happens to get that ability through mutation will have a reproductive advantage. Within a relatively short number of generations, every animal in that species will be able to see red -- and the ability to perceive red will generally improve up until the point where it no longer confers a meaningful advantage.

Now, let's say that being able to see blue is also advantageous. If that mutation arises, it, too, will spread through the population -- it doesn't *compete* with the ability to see red; they can co-exist. So they both spread.

But as it happens, being able to see purple is *really* advantageous. The ability to do so was impossible until the ability to see red and blue arose. But once they did, a single mutation combines the two filters and gives the lucky animal a huge advantage. Again, within relatively few generations, all surviving members of the species can see purple.

Being able to see purple may be *so* advantageous, in fact, that it's no longer necessary to be able to see red or blue. So those two color receptors may merge into a single purple receptor, and the ability to see red or blue may simply disappear, because it's no longer evolutionarily relevant.

If we came upon this final descendant we'd marvel at how it's able to see purple, and wonder at how such a complex receptor came to be. But it's really not that mysterious.

Here is a detailed rebuttal of the flagellum argument... drawing simply on what science has learned about its structure and development.
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/ev...2/article.html

It details one of the evolutionary paths that creationists choose to ignore: evolution of function as well as form.

As it turns out, the parts of the flagellum originally arose for other purposes. But evolution is opportunistic, and once the pieces were in place, the flagellum became possible. Much like, in my example above, purple was not possible until other, useful-but-different pieces were in place.

12th, it's a concrete example of the IC argument being refuted by evidence, not mere conjecture. It also includes a good example of why the math creationists use to argue that evolution is mathematically improbable is badly flawed.

A few points: we know of many essentially immortal cells. And the building blocks of life (RNA, organic molecules, amino acids) are thought to have developed chemically before life technically began. And gene transfer (and thus evolution) is very plastic in simple organisms. Thus, one can speak of a genetic "ferment" before life ever began.

Out of that ferment, it's not necessarily surprising that an organism capable of reproduction finally emerged, given the trillions of interactions and billions of years involved.

Technically incorrect. It just has to duplicate the requisite functions that allow survival. Evolution is random; of 300 genes developed randomly, only a few will turn out to be key to life. The offspring can be missing the others and still do fine.

Still, more-or-less exact copies are what evolution works on, and ensure greater reproductive success. So at some point a reproductive process that produced more-accurate copies would outcompete less-accurate systems, because things wouldn't be trial and error with each generation: successful combinations could be preserved and passed on.

Another false assumption. Organisms and chemical processes operate within a *range* of conditions. Everything doesn't have to be perfect. Indeed, the first organisms evolved in extreme conditions of temperature and pressure. They were tough.

Not yet. But in any event, you're proceeding from several false assumptions.

Can you give me an example? It sounds like you're saying this: That by showing that a current structure serves a purpose in a simpler state, all evolutionists are doing is showing that complex organisms can lose structure and still survive -- they're not addressing the idea of how evolution can produce complex structures in the first place.

If that's your argument, you're wrong. The whole point of breaking complex structures down into simpler structures is to show how they could have evolved.

Or maybe you're saying that scientists are assuming evolution did it, even though we don't know for sure how given structures evolved. That's a little more accurate, but it ignores the whole idea behind science -- looking for the *naturalistic* explanation that best fits the available evidence.

Science cannot analyze God. But it can analyze specific arguments like IC -- which claim that some things couldn't possibly have evolved -- and say, "yes, in fact, it could have."

Nope. But if it's possible, then it's not "irreducibly complex." As a critique of evolution or proof of a designer, such an argument fails.

And the "well, it *could* have been created" argument only really works in isolation anyway. If you look at the entire fossil record, you see a grand progression: from simpler to complex. You don't see fully-formed cats, for instance, appearing before their evolutionary ancestors. You don't see creatures with eyes showing up before creatures with simple eyespots, or no eyes at all. If living things were individually created, you would expect the fossil record to be all over the map; but it's not. Mammals appeared 150 million years ago -- they don't exist prior to that.

Further, the progression is mappable with body structures. Going back through the mammalian family tree, it's possible to see the vestiges or embellishment of earlier structures in modern animals. Almost all mammals have seven neck vertebrae, for example -- even giraffes. As noted in another thread, 99% of the human genome is identical to a mouse's in either form or function.

It is *exactly* the kind of progression and structure you'd expect to see if evolution were true. And the only way it conforms to a classic "designer" view is if you believe that God created creatures in the same progression for some reason. Which is possible, of course, but what does that end up proving about evolution?

Great. Personally, I think God wouldn't think evolution is incompatible with His existence.

__________________
Man up.

So, which came first, the kidney? the Heart? the Skin? The ear? or the Bowels? ???

__________________
"I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." March 4, 1869, Grant's First Inaugural Address

Dunno. I'm not an evolutionary biologist. But there's this (read the first post, after the quoted discussion):
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/may06.html

__________________
Man up.

one theme in science is the theme of cycles. how quickly you dismiss what is scientifically supported as a tie, as equal "conjecture" to something with no supporting evidence. this isnt a scientific conclusion youve come to. there is not always a point of irreducible complexity, its more likely that everything always existed in some form - weve never observed complete nothingness, on the other hand throughout our lives weve observed that there is a cycle of life, of existence.

__________________
https://www.voteforchange.com/

If you're actually interested in an excellent explanation of the evidence for evolution, not to mention the nature of science, specifically constructed in response to creationist arguments, try this book from the National Academy of Sciences:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11876#toc

The full book is available free, online.

__________________
Man up.

I can sum this book up in this paragraph:

Similar functions within species do not constitute an unbroken line of progression. We have very old fish, very old dogs, very old extinct fish and dogs, we don't have very old fish-dogs and a dog-fish has no resemblance to a dingo.

__________________
"I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." March 4, 1869, Grant's First Inaugural Address