It is a mistake to think that simple fundamental laws and principles are incapable of producing complex outcomes. We observe this both with evolution and with things like spontaneous order, a major component in a free market society. You have not offered any way to either a.) measure complexity, or b.) determine “how much” complexity a process like evolution could create. Since this is in fact a futile task, the argument for ID inevitably reduces to hand-waving, as it has here.
There is no such thing as a “spontaneous” order. Planets move according to the laws of nature while people make decisions based on their rational self interest and preference. The order we see is as spontaneous as the things that causes them to be. That is why we call it order and not complexity. A complex entity is something that is more complex than the laws that create the order we see around us.
I feel we are getting somewhere. You have raised some good points. Why would it be futile? If we can observe that some things are more complex than others that it is a given that we can measure them as well otherwise everything would look the same. I would agree that it is difficult to measure complexity but it would be very easy to disprove ID this way. All you had to do is show me something that was created by the order of nature and is more complex than the simplest existing living being and you would have automatically disproved me. I am willing to argue about the complexity of anything you can think of.
Michael Behe wrote a book about this called the Edge of Evolution. One example of the power of evolution would be Malaria. It evolves and reproduces so fast that it becomes immune to any kind of medicine in a single year, but even after thousands of years it still can’t beat someone who carries the genes for sickle cell disease. People with such a disease have a very high resistance against malaria and millions of people in Afirca have the genes for it and only a few outside of it. It is also possible to gain immunity by a different mutation that does not causes any disease, but Africans simply weren’t lucky enough to get it in the past few thousand years (some dude in the west has got it).
Indeed. I have no idea where this simplicity or complexity in the universe is coming from but it is a straw man. If ID is to be believed, you have to accept the simple contradiction that the universe can naturally create/form/pop into existence an unproven supernatural entity of unlimited power so incomprehensible it is way beyond our understanding, but yet that same universe cannot naturally form a single celled ameba that is so simple you can explain it to schoolchildren in biology class.
If that were true I doubt you would be able to claim that a single celled amoeba is simple. Okay let me try to explain. A single celled organisms need matter and energy to survive and replicate. Therefore it has the means to consume matter for this purpose. Than it needs to break the matter into parts using sophisticated machines so that new machines could be built. In the process energy is created, but that energy must be stored. To store energy the cell needs an energy storage. The cell also has to be able to transfer parts and energy storage units inside the cell. All these functions must be regulated by a software. The software must be stored in a data storage unit and machines capable of interpreting the commands of the software must also exist. Information must be transfered to the control unit and change the behavior of the software when necessary. All the parts of the cell must be created inside the cell based on the software therefore all the machines must exist in reality and in the storage unit at the same time. Also when the cell divides the software must regulate the division so that both cells will survive the process. The storage unit and all the information inside it has to be replicate as well without too much errors.
And I didn’t even got into the details…
If that’s simple I don’t want to know what you consider to be complex.
Unlimited power? When have I said anything like that? Unproven? There was a time when the theory of relativity didn’t even exist so naturally that was unproven as well. Supernatural? From a philosophical standpoint it would have to be natural, but since the laws of nature aren’t necessarily the same as the laws of physics supernatural could be accurate from a scientific model based view of the Universe.
Daniel, it looks to me as if you are not arguing for intelligent design (which is perfectly compatible with evolution), but for outright creationism.
The life we can now observe is not the same kind of life that would have existed at the beginning. Human beings didn’t spring forth out of primordial ooze ready to make teddy bears. At some point, non-living matter formed into living matter; we know this because we have life. Some believe that the building blocks were formed before the dust swirling around the sun congealed into planet earth. That we do not still witness events of abiogenesis is unremarkable given that those building blocks probably formed prior to the earth’s formation (and given the process of natural selection, including the extinction events that natural selection inevitably brings). No matter how the first life formed, from that point on ID and evolution are in agreement. ID was invented by and for religionists as a tactical retreat from creationism; it amounts to bible-thumpers saying, “Ok, so the earth isn’t 6,000 years old and the basic assumptions of evolution are indisputable facts, so that “Adam and Eve” story is obviously bullshit. Wait! Not bullshit, just a parable (Whew! Good save). But… Who started it?”
We, as humans, have an intimate knowledge of recombinant DNA and its effects. This mechanism facilitates all sorts of processes, including the passing of familial traits, viral infection, mutation, and (of course) evolution. Human beings have been manipulating DNA directly for decades and indirectly for millennia. Today’s Dogs, cats, livestock, bananas and other crops are all the result of human beings influencing the same processes at work in natural selection. Do you believe in DNA, Daniel?
ID is not compatible with evolution and yes I am arguing for creationism, but what choice do I have if I am going to argue against evolution? Every complaint of mine is thrown back at me in the form of argument against ID or creationism. People don’t even try to think about these things.
When I speak of life I usually refer to the simplest known living being and not humans or something that has supposedly existed assuming that evolution is true. That would be assuming the conclusion.
No matter how life formed? The problem is, it does matter and it should matter. That’s like saying no matter how Jesus got resurected or no matter how the donkey talked or…
I do not care who invented ID or the theory of Gravity (Fundamentalist Christian -> Newton). What matters is whether something is true or not. Just because you admit you are biased doesn’t mean you are right.
I have already made several explanations and possibilities about DNA regarding ID. But here let me quote:
Dante, on 20 March 2012 - 02:54 PM, said:
That is the case because the original code is the baseline for the modified organism’s code, which is also what happens in evolution. There would be no reason for a designer to operate in this way.
Dante, on 20 March 2012 - 02:54 PM, said:
Yes. It is a confirmed prediction of the theory with no reasonable alternative explanation.
Dante, on 20 March 2012 - 02:54 PM, said:
The fact that you think I could possibly give you every piece of evidence in favor of evolution in one forum post illustrates that you clearly don’t understand the breadth and the depth of the evidence, stretching much farther back than the snippet I just gave you. The fact that evolution made this prediction about the genome before it was confirmed is a strength of the theory.
Dante, on 20 March 2012 - 02:54 PM, said:
The part where completely useless code that a designer has no reason to bother with, because it does not show up in the phenotype, follows patterns completely consistent with evolution through common descent. The only reason a designer would have to write the code in this way would be active deception; to make it look like things had evolved from a common ancestor even when they hadn’t.