Mouse traps don't reproduce. They are produced by humans, it is human technology which is evolving not the mousetrap. The various components of the mousetrap were developed elsewhere and came together in a novel use and form. How does evolution not predict this? And how is this irreducible complexity?
The first living cell didn't reproduce either until after it was created. The lack of reproductive ability in a mousetrap does not detract from the experiment. Making a mousetrap out of its components is actually much simpler than making a single living cell out of its components.
Evolution would only predict the mousetrap if a reduced mousetrap performed some function. With a cell, it would die if it were missing a component. Evolutionary change implies small changes over time. I think you've said before that all evolution is on a micro-level. If you could take an irreducible mechanism and reduce it into another mechanism that performs a different function you might be able to argue that a small micro-evolutionary change could produce the new mechanism that performs the new function. But you can't do that. A pile of mousetrap parts performs no function. A single cell assembled incorrectly does nothing - it doesn't even live.
Here's an example lets say we have component A. Now we add component B which changes the purpose of the component. And then finally we add C which amplifies A's effect. After time A becomes dependent on C. And B becomes dependent on A.
So now we have {~B } = ~A
and {~A} = C
Or ~B is dependant on ~A is dependant on C.
If we remove any component as you said it falls apart. But is it unevolvable in principal? No.
Thus in principal irreducible complexity can be a result of gradual changes. In order to counter this argument, one needs to show that a component cannot be modified after new componenets are added. Or that componenets have not been modified. So again how do you show that something is irreducibly complex?
First off, I wouldn't use the term 'unevolvable' because I don't believe irreducibly complex mechanisms evolved. Second, if I can't knock-down evolution to support ID then you shouldn't be allowed to knock-down ID to support evolution. You're breaking your own rule.
Thirdly, I should be able to in your example modify A,B, and C such that they are no longer reliant on each other. Then I'd be able to reduce them. Thus your example wouldn't be an irreducibly complex mechanism.
How do you show that something is irreducibly complex? That's a
really good question. The mousetrap is a common example used to demonstrate the concept of irreducible complexity in simple terms but in fact I have no idea if a mousetrap is irreducibly complex or not. It's great as an tool to illustrate though. In the case of a single-cell organism it's irreducibly complex because it can't survive without all of its components.
Sorry again mousetraps don't reproduce.
And disproving one theory does not prove another.
You're using limitations and absurdities as proof.
My contention was merely that ID fits inside the scientific method. I don't need to abilty to reproduce mousetraps to setup a sound experiment based on them. There were also two parts to the theory. I didn't just say throw pieces in the air. I also said to assemble them yourself into a mousetrap. In that case you become the intelligent creator. Your ability to assemble the mousetrap proves that an intelligent creator
can assemble irreducible mechanisms.
Is there something in the sceintific method that doesn't allow me to use limitations and absurdities as proof? It's not my fault that it's absurd to imagine a world without ID...
One can watch the componenets of a cell being assembled. Try it. The cell does the assemble.
The same intelligence that created the first cell also encoded it with the ability to reproduce. The theory of ID covers that. In fact, DNA is another item often called irreducibly complex and used as proof of an intelligent creator.
I don't understand.
Sure you do. Your ability to assemble a mousetrap proves that an intelligent designer can assemble irreducibly complex mechanisms. We are intelligent. We know intelligent design happens. It happens every day. Everything mankind builds was intelligently designed. The question then isn't whether or not intelligent design occurs, but rather whether it occurred with mechanisms man did not create. The reason ID scientists look for irreducbily complex mechanisms is because they want to use things that other theories can't address.
Again not scientific. I can say that the appearance of shapes in the clouds are signs from a higher intellegence and is evidence for his existence. Then if I find more shapes in the clouds I have proven this case?
No, one needs to show how the causal and the phenomenon are related. A metaphysical or philosophical connection is not enough to be considered scientific. Experiments need to show this causal relationship.
I'll further illustrate my point by flipping things over. Proving that evolution could have happened wouldn't prove that it
did happen either. If ID fails the scientific sniff test based on that, so does evolution.
So what happenes if a new discovery finds that a previously beleived irreducibly complex system is not so?
The same thing that happens when a new fossil disproves a piece of evolution. Either the theory is discarded or it is modified to account for the new discovery. Except that you don't seem willing to discard evolution based on the Cambrian Explosion. But that's really not topical - it would make a good separate thread though.
Ok how about a stack of girls in a human pyramid?
What function does the fact that they are in a pyramid perform?
I think you missed the whole point, the evidence leads one to the possibility that the current eukaryotic cell is a result of a cell engulfing smaller microbes. So how is a cell irreducible? Also the assembly of components in the cell occur in the cell, are you saying that everytime a cell divides that some mysterious process constructs the components?
I think maybe you are missing the point. A cell can't engulf smaller microbes if it does not first exist. At best this is a case of micro-evolution. The first cell is the one that really counts. As the first cell had DNA, it was encoded to reproduce and interact with its environment (including other cells) by the same intelligence that created it. ID covers that.
lol again mousetraps don't reproduce, human ideas do. As well as cells. So a virus is intelligent because it can replicate itself? What about mold, ir floats in the air and lands on your bread, and it is exhibiting intelligence because it is reproducing?
All of these things imply intelligence. Mousetraps imply not their own intelligence, but rather the intelligence of the person who assembled it. Viruses, molds, fungi, etc. illustrate not their own intelligence, but rather the intelligence of the designer than created them. Keep in mind that DNA is often used as another example of 'proof' for an intelligent designer. Why can't God be a programmer? think about how complex a single strand of DNA is!
The only experimentally backed theory is the theory of evolution.
ABSOLUTELY NOT!!
In other words do you know enough about the driving forces of evolution to boldly proclaim this? Take a look at the fossils from the cambrian explosion, what do you see?
What I see is a transition from single-cell organisms to complex organisms in a timeframe that evolution says must have taken much longer than the fossil record gives it. On a cosmic scale, it was literally over night.
Again it is quite clear that cells replicate themselves. The theory of evolution is built around the observation that this process is imperfect.
Which only accounts for microevolution.
A scientific theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.
How many scientists have to play with mousetraps before ID becomes a bonafide theory then?
I am not asking it to absolutely proven. I am asking for a hyposthesis upon which we can devise an experiment. Throwing mousetraps and pointing out IC system though enjoyable does not experimentally show how the mechanisms of ID exist or don't exist.
Forget the mousetrap then. For that matter, forget irreducibly complex mechanisms. If the theory is that intelligence can create complex mechanisms, then the car, the airplane, the space shuttle, and this computer all qualify. Intelligent design has been proven. The question isn't really whether or not intelligent design occurs. The question is whether or not it accounts for things like the origin of life. Scientists use irreducibly complex mechanisms because of the lack for other theories to explain their creation. ID happens every day. My Ford Ranger was assembled by intelligent UAW workers.
That shows that you understand? The rest of your post shows otherwise.
Enlighten me then, because from my perspective it looks like you are saying that if I don't agree with you then I must not understand. Frankly, that's a cop-out.
Again removing parts does not prove that the cell came into the world fully formed. I can show you under a microscope a cell being constructed.
Also refer to the proof above. This simply does not show that something is irreducible complex.
Saying that nothing is irreducibly complex is probably the best argument one can make against ID. But that argument doesn't hold water. There are too many examples of things that scientists haven't been able to reduce. And even if it did, so what? You've said yourself that it isn't scientific to use a disproof for one theory as proof of another - that the experimentation should be separate. If nothign is irreducibly complex, that doesn't mean intelligence couldn't create it. All that means is that maybe there is an alternative theory. I can demonstrate ID. I do that everytime I drive my truck.
I did respond. see below And no it is not a valid test. The responsibility of a scientisit is to understand the short commings of an experiment. It is imperative that the conclusions are as tettative and narrow as possible as one must understand that the hypothesis proposed may have only been partially backed or that a better explanantion may exist. In this case the results only show that removing components results in cell death. As has been explained before seemingly irreducible complex systems can arrise from modifications of components after integration.
I can remove a chloroplast from a blue-green algae and it doesn't die. If I remove a vacuole from a paramecium it doesn't die either. This is the criteria for irreducible complexity? How do you explain the evidence for endosymbiosis?
Seemingly irreducible complex systems can only arrise from modification if the components modified into them can exist. The idea that a bunch of dead cells may slowly evolve until they have all the components they need to become alive is absurd. They can't reproduce until they are alive, and they can't be alive without all the correct components. You can argue that a mousetrap isn't irreducibly complex, but you'll have a harder time arguing that against the single-cell organism. You may say that some single celled organisms are reducible, but they are only reducible into other single celled organisms.
Sorry again mousetraps don't reproduce.