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View Full Version : The fallacy of Irreducible Complexity


Greyclouds
October 27th, 2009, 10:12 am
While I am loathe to make another evolution thread (#345678, if anyone is counting, :lol: ), another thread in the Washington Politics forum is getting off track. Here is a post from one of the posters in that thread and my counterpoints.

My darling is at work.

But the response is as follows:

Lenski lab e.coli experiments. - shows only that organisms are equipped
to adapt which is micro evolution as provided by God - it still does not
support macro evolution which is life from non life

Go to wiki to see it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment

This is incorrect. The presence of Citrate transportation (which is the trait that the E.coli populations developed in the Lenski experiments) is a larger change on E.coli expression and metabolism, and it's development was predicted by the Theory of Evolution.

First of all, Citrate is a metabolic intermediate that cannot pass the lipid bilayer without dedicated transport systems. As such, it's a "safe" sugar metabolism intermediate, insofar as while the cell digests sugars, it doesn't have to "worry" about its meal suddenly floating away! So, the ability of the cell to transport this metabolic intermediate from its environment INTO its own cytoplasm (and to prevent it from escaping as well!) is a very specific and beneficial (in a citrate broth) trait! If you've studied other membrane translocation proteins, they are revealed to be HARDLY the simplistic peptide systems that a suffix of "micro" would imply! I will not go into details on the steric hinderence, amino acid compositions, molecular affinities and formed hydration shells involved in metabolite transport, but entire BOOKS are written on the tiniest details of metabolite transport!

This experiment's outcome was also predicted even by Darwin's initial hypothesis. Here's how: The theory of Evolution posits that traits that are beneficial to an organism in their environment will be more likely to be passed onto the next generation of offspring. SO, the Theory of Evolution (which has existed for quite some time, yes?) predicted the reported (and confirmed) outcome of this experiment.

Now, my question to those who support ID is two-fold:

1. Did Intelligent Design predict the outcome of this experiment through it's central tenant of Irreducible Complexity? Or is the Theory of Evolution with its central tenant of Natural Selection a better fit for the data.

2. What is the boundary for a "macro" and a "micro" evolutionary event?


As for mitochondrial DNA
The same evidence supports commonality of design.

Only if you believe that such design was mistaken or prone laziness through cutting and pasting errors.

For instance, the mitochondrial genome has the same G+C content as an alpha-proteobacterium, a Circular genome, its own tRNA and ribosomes (which are analogous to bacterial elements), and some mitochondrial genes have been lost from its genome and instead are translocated into the animal pan-genome.

So, commonality of design would imply that the designer used the most inefficient method possible in bringing ATP Synthesis via Oxygen Respiration to multicellular Eukaryotes. He did the following:

1. Put an energy drain on cells by having them maintain obligate endosymbionts (mitochondria) with their own replication machinery apart from the rest of the cell.
2. Made the mitochondria compete with their host cell for resources.
3. Increased cell-surface to volume ratio of Eukaryotic cells to account for the increased bulk of the necessary symbionts.




Go to Case For A Creator sweetie - the first scientist interviewed -
smokin'
Also go to Signature of God and my little book form the Adventists

If this *SOME GUY* is a geneticist, he will fail to consider other scientific
evidence.
He can be overwhelmed with the easy stuff
The eye
Flagella and cilia
Irreducible complexity
Scientific knowledge in the bible that predates their discoveries like
skin of the teeth, dead mans blood, 8 days for the blood to appear in a
fetus, the description of the formation of a child from the outside in
not the inside out, earth as an orb, anti-microbiological principles in
the law as written
By Moses thousands of years before the discovery of microbes and at the
same time the Egyptians who educated him were using feces in their
remedies
.[/SIZE][/I][/B]

You were saying?

And yet, there are scientific inaccuracies in the Bible. The purification ritual for Leprosy fails to indict the actual culprit of the disease, M. leprae.

Also, there is no creation timeline for the existence of bacteria.

As for the eye, bacterial rhodopsin.

Flagella are protein aggregates that cluster outside of type-three secretion system protein anchors.

Irreducible complexity is based off of an argument from incredulity. It has no purpose in science apart from banning all of scientific thought and exploration. Its central tenant has been repeatedly rebuked by new discoveries, such as the fact that proteins are FAR MORE Multi-functional than we first believed in the 1950's! Sadly, ID has not progressed from that era of scientific thought...

slick_trip
October 27th, 2009, 5:25 pm
Grey...

no other poster says words i mostly know in a way that i can't make sense...but i love your posts!

brouski
October 27th, 2009, 5:59 pm
I hope someone takes you up on this discussion. You may have scared them all away.

notluzn
October 27th, 2009, 6:05 pm
The only people that are going to argue the case are the ones who belief in 6000 year old earth theory. But also remember that Science isn't always fact and gets rocked with new findings all the time.

Now why can't there be both God and Science. Beyond me I guess.

pattyk
October 27th, 2009, 7:53 pm
this one is above my paygrade......LOL!

carry on you brainyacks!

Drawz
October 27th, 2009, 8:20 pm
The only people that are going to argue the case are the ones who belief in 6000 year old earth theory. But also remember that Science isn't always fact and gets rocked with new findings all the time.

Now why can't there be both God and Science. Beyond me I guess.

Or anyone who believes in Creation or ID.

Anyone remotely familiar with the scientific method is aware that our current body of knowledge is always open to review, new hypothesis and new information. Though I don't know if I'd say "rocked with new findings all the time". Certainly would be exciting if that was the case.

God can absolutely co-exist with what scientific observation tells us. However what various people tell us about how the world works based on what one religious book or another has to say often doesn't measure up to the evidence.

Clamp
October 27th, 2009, 10:48 pm
While I am loathe to make another evolution thread (#345678, if anyone is counting, :lol: ), another thread in the Washington Politics forum is getting off track. Here is a post from one of the posters in that thread and my counterpoints.



This is incorrect. The presence of Citrate transportation (which is the trait that the E.coli populations developed in the Lenski experiments) is a larger change on E.coli expression and metabolism, and it's development was predicted by the Theory of Evolution.

First of all, Citrate is a metabolic intermediate that cannot pass the lipid bilayer without dedicated transport systems. As such, it's a "safe" sugar metabolism intermediate, insofar as while the cell digests sugars, it doesn't have to "worry" about its meal suddenly floating away! So, the ability of the cell to transport this metabolic intermediate from its environment INTO its own cytoplasm (and to prevent it from escaping as well!) is a very specific and beneficial (in a citrate broth) trait! If you've studied other membrane translocation proteins, they are revealed to be HARDLY the simplistic peptide systems that a suffix of "micro" would imply! I will not go into details on the steric hinderence, amino acid compositions, molecular affinities and formed hydration shells involved in metabolite transport, but entire BOOKS are written on the tiniest details of metabolite transport!

This experiment's outcome was also predicted even by Darwin's initial hypothesis. Here's how: The theory of Evolution posits that traits that are beneficial to an organism in their environment will be more likely to be passed onto the next generation of offspring. SO, the Theory of Evolution (which has existed for quite some time, yes?) predicted the reported (and confirmed) outcome of this experiment.

Now, my question to those who support ID is two-fold:

1. Did Intelligent Design predict the outcome of this experiment through it's central tenant of Irreducible Complexity? Or is the Theory of Evolution with its central tenant of Natural Selection a better fit for the data.

2. What is the boundary for a "macro" and a "micro" evolutionary event?



Only if you believe that such design was mistaken or prone laziness through cutting and pasting errors.

For instance, the mitochondrial genome has the same G+C content as an alpha-proteobacterium, a Circular genome, its own tRNA and ribosomes (which are analogous to bacterial elements), and some mitochondrial genes have been lost from its genome and instead are translocated into the animal pan-genome.

So, commonality of design would imply that the designer used the most inefficient method possible in bringing ATP Synthesis via Oxygen Respiration to multicellular Eukaryotes. He did the following:

1. Put an energy drain on cells by having them maintain obligate endosymbionts (mitochondria) with their own replication machinery apart from the rest of the cell.
2. Made the mitochondria compete with their host cell for resources.
3. Increased cell-surface to volume ratio of Eukaryotic cells to account for the increased bulk of the necessary symbionts.





And yet, there are scientific inaccuracies in the Bible. The purification ritual for Leprosy fails to indict the actual culprit of the disease, M. leprae.

Also, there is no creation timeline for the existence of bacteria.

As for the eye, bacterial rhodopsin.

Flagella are protein aggregates that cluster outside of type-three secretion system protein anchors.

Irreducible complexity is based off of an argument from incredulity. It has no purpose in science apart from banning all of scientific thought and exploration. Its central tenant has been repeatedly rebuked by new discoveries, such as the fact that proteins are FAR MORE Multi-functional than we first believed in the 1950's! Sadly, ID has not progressed from that era of scientific thought...


Pfff...everyone knows DNA is a quanary programming language. When we figure it out, we'll write our own life, and seed a planet far enough away that it'll take billions of years for our little self enhancing programs to do the same.

BillyBobUSA
October 28th, 2009, 7:12 am
I cant go into any discussion of the details, since I am banned from the religion forum, but there is not intrinsic incompatibility between evolution and Intelligent Design.

The latter existed as a theological perspective on the universe addressing the 'why' oif creation long before evangelicals shanghaied it for YEC stuff.

Greyclouds
October 28th, 2009, 9:15 am
Grey...

no other poster says words i mostly know in a way that i can't make sense...but i love your posts!

Thank you, but I think that might just be a problem that I'm ignoring here... it's just too bad that there is so much cool stuff that we've discovered, and so little time to explain it all!

Greyclouds
October 28th, 2009, 9:29 am
Pfff...everyone knows DNA is a quanary programming language. When we figure it out, we'll write our own life, and seed a planet far enough away that it'll take billions of years for our little self enhancing programs to do the same.

Even more interestingly, we could simply rewrite the method by which DNA is made into message.

For instance, there are two major mechanisms by which DNA is eventually turned into the message that directs how a cell lives:

Transcription (the creation of a complementary mRNA strand that has the same nucleotides as the DNA of a gene (with Uracil instead of thymine)).

Translation (the interpretation of the mRNA strand by dividing it into sets of three nucleotides(called codons) and making a protein chain off of those nucleotide "words").


We could modify transcription to be more efficient. I'll spare you all the gory details (unless you really want them, :D ), but there are methods of regulation of transcription that are inefficient. The whole process of transcription is necessary! It's just that we can rework it to make it more efficient and less wasteful.

We could also change the way that the nucleotide codons of the RNA strand are interpreted. Right now, the genetic code has alot of redundancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_code#RNA_codon_table) and this is mostly because there are only 20 commonly used amino acids and 64 possible codon permutations to code for them! We can create synthesis pathways for new and useful amino acids and assign them to codons! Sadly, we can't do such things just yet, but it would be useful to the organism if it had new and useful amino acids that were multi-functional.


Now, having said all that, I do not believe that we should rush into genetic engineering of humans. Why? Because of the social reprecussions of manipulating our gene pool. I mean, racial concepts (which are relatively insignificant genetic differences between human beings) have divided us since our inception as a species! Imagine if we created a human being that could live off of 500 calories a day, had an IQ off the charts, could metabolize all sorts of organic molecules that we currently can't, needed only 4 hours of sleep every night and had a higher level of strength than we currently have?

Such a person would cause social strife in society because of their innate (and incontestable) advantage over other human beings. Resentment would cause conflict as it has in the past.

Greyclouds
October 28th, 2009, 9:31 am
I cant go into any discussion of the details, since I am banned from the religion forum, but there is not intrinsic incompatibility between evolution and Intelligent Design.

The latter existed as a theological perspective on the universe addressing the 'why' oif creation long before evangelicals shanghaied it for YEC stuff.

Depends on your interpretation of ID. If Intelligent design is divorced from the concept of "irreducible complexity" then, yes, I agree that ID and evolutionary theory are not mutually exclusive.

Irreducible complexity (the attempt to argue that evolutionary theory is wrong simply because it seems unlikely to us that things could have progressed in the way that they seemed to have done) is an anathema to logic, imagination and science. "It's too tough for us to figure out."