When I say that I would like to offer a new argument against Darwinism, I do not mean to indicate that no one has ever thought of it before. That’s as may be. I simply mean that I have not encountered it yet. So here goes:
The argument arises from a question. On the assumption that a good scientific theory should be falsifiable, the question is this. From the standpoint of the evolutionist, does the discovery of ever-increasing complexity in living organisms have any relevance at all? And if it does, at what point does that relevance apply? If it doesn’t, why doesn’t it?
For example, Dawkins grants that life around us has the appearance of design. That appearance arises from the organized complexity. And this means that more such complexity would mean more such appearance. At what point (hypothetically) does the appearance become a necessary reality? This is something that an evolutionist should be able to define beforehand.
For example, we already know that messenger RNA transmits information from the DNA to the ribosomes. This is thought to be merely apparent design. But what if we found out that all the messenger RNA were wearing little brown UPS driver shorts? Now what?
Suppose you are looking at a cloud in the sky, and you see a cloud that resembles a giant bear. You have the appearance of a bear. You know that the appearance is a function of your imagination. But suppose, while you are watching, the picture gets more and more complex — the bear is climbing a tree for some honeycomb, and you have little white bees flying around his fluffy ursine head. If this is not sufficient for you, keep adding complexity. At some point, you would have to acknowledge that you are no longer looking as the results of your imagination, but rather at the results of someone else’s imagination.
Given that there is such a transition point, the question then becomes “where is it?” And “how can we know?” What are we looking for, in other words, and how much of it?
There are two aspects to this. The one already touched on might called the engineering question. At what point of rising complexity does apparent design manifestly become exquisite design? How many moving parts must there be before the fact of design becomes undeniable? Is there such a point, and how might we identify it beforehand?
But the second aspect, not yet discussed, has to do with the amount of time available for evolution to occur. If we were to line up the beneficial mutations necessary in order to arrive at our current levels of complexity, and discover that there are, say, 570 million of them since the first rise of arthropda creepi crawli, to use the scientific sobriquet, this would require an average of one such mutation/change per year. This is because arthropoda arose, according to the official story, 570 million years ago.
Since we are dealing with hypothetical complexities, what happens if we double them? Now we need one of them to occur on average every six months. At some point, the suggested mechanism of natural selection ceases to have explanatory power. Natural selection has been swamped. The best hitter in the world will be overwhelmed if the ball is pitched three times a second. Or, put another way, if we get to a “mutation a minute,” we are no longer talking about Darwinism, but some form of pantheistic magic. So when is that point?
So the argument concerns the impact of a hypothetical level of complexity discovered in the future, as a result of our increasing scientific knowledge. At what levels will this complexity become relevant?
And of course, to address the question honestly should reveal that we are long past the point where it should have become relevant.
Amen
Definition of ursine
1
: of or relating to a bear or the bear family (Ursidae)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ursine
Is this for the benefit of the trolls who will claim that Doug is making up words or introducing irrelevancies?
No, it’s just for folks like me who don’t know what it means. Nothing ever benefits trolls.
Sunlight benefits trolls. #TomBertandWilliam
And the third Billy Goat Gruff. And Hoosiers–I grew up in Indiana, and my wife is a troll–from the lower peninsula of Michigan. (“below da bridge, eh?”)
At least most days she says I’m a benefit. :^) (hey, isn’t our host a troll?)
In case you haven’t run into this already: Tolkien reads.
I welcome the definitions. It was either Aristotle or Socrates who noticed (probably Socrates) that many debates where extended because of different definitions in use by the interlocutors.
Oh good. I was here thinking he had misspelled urine.
Uncle Ubb unearthed ursine urine underneath ugly ungulates.
Couldn’t remember either until I saw the context. Porcine? No. Equine? No. Vulpine? No. Bear? Right. The name Ursula comes from the same Latin root.
Ursa Major, the Great Bear.
I was under the impression that ever increasing complexity of organisms has already been proven to be false. For example, Darwin saw cells as being simple building building blocks because the microscopes which revealed the incredible complexity of each cell had not yet been invented.
I think you are probably right. Natural selection does not always favor complexity.
Atheists like Dawkins specialize in making up stories to go along with whatever data they have so I doubt a big copyright notice in the clouds would daunt them long. Still, good stuff.
Here’s a proposed answer to your question. Each mutation requires time to become spread through the breeding population and replace all the now-deficient critters that lack it. That would need to be many generations of the critter for each mutation. And reproducing each generation consumes a certain amount of time (fewer years for gnats, more for blue whales). So, multiply the number of number of mutations needed to create the critter from lightning-in-mud-puddle stage, times the number of generations needed for each mutation to become dominant, times the number of years the critter has in each generation. If that product… Read more »
Wilson’s argument here is precisely why I don’t believe in evolution. One thing I never hear, and should, is that evolutionist’s primary argument is a Mathematical one, not a biological one. We now know the universe and life are incredibly complex in their makeup. For this to happen by chance you would need many chances. So the evolutionist appeals to infinite time and infinite space (neither of which are proven) to get an infinite number of chances. But the question then becomes, how many chances are necessary? This is what Wilson is pointing out (but differently than I am). He… Read more »
I took a Probability class in college, in which I learned about permutations. If I had a velour bag of Scrabble tiles containing exactly ONE EACH of the 26 English letters, and I wanted to pour them onto the table such that they all landed letter-side up, oriented rightside-up, AND sequenced in alphabetical order … the odds of that happening are 1 : 1.22 x 10^50. That’s a 1.22 followed by 50 zeroes, in case you’re wondering. I don’t think there’s even a name for a number that large. And if I retried this once every second (31,557,600 times each… Read more »
That’s not quite how probability works. It would probably never happen. But it might happen the first try. But I like exercise.
Sure, but since the odds are
122,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 : 1
I’m going to make the very safe assumption that it won’t happen…ever.
Besides, even if it DID happen on the very first attempt, I’d have just ONE ridiculously impossible arrangement. Where’s the second one going to come from? And what’s this remarkable achievement going to do in the middle of the tumultuous chaos swirling all around it–call it my hyperactive 3-yr-old dashing through the living at that precise moment–suddenly reproduce a ka-jillion times of its own accord to prevent being scattered all over the floor?
Give me a friggin’ break…
In the thinking of scientists now, we are a highly unlikely occurance. Highly Unlikely. So how do we talk? We wonder if there is life on Mars, or in the seas under Europa…..
Sure, but since the odds are
122,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 : 1
And I would still buy the Lotto ticket….sigh.
Politely, I think this is a mischaracterization of the common notion of evolution. You’re asking what the chances are that someone could randomly aim a laser at the night sky and hit a particular star in Orion’s Belt. But evolutionists aren’t concerned with whether the laser lights on a particular goal. Instead, they see the world operating as the aggregation of lots of little random events. Whatever the outcome is, that’s what it is. But they shy away from calling one particular outcome (that I have brown hair and am tall instead of blond and short) “special”. That horses have… Read more »
First, are you able to tell me why there is nothing living on Mars or Venus…or the moon?
It seems to me that there isn’t life in other places because God didn’t make life in other places. I’m not condoning their position, just trying to show why slim chances of an individual outcome don’t resonate in the evolutionist’s ears. Let me know your thoughts on this as I restate it: given that the chances are _absurdly_ slim that the product of millions/billions of years of chaotic processes would give rise to humankind instead of a mangled mess of matter, how much more special it is when a human is born with a birth defect, or is extra tall… Read more »
The quantity of amino acids required for RNA to “happen” exceeds the mass of the Earth. Berlinski had an essay on this in Commentary some years ago.
In contemplating the discovery by chance of two RNA sequences a mere 40 nucleotides in length, Joyce and Orgel concluded that the requisite “library” would require 1048 possible sequences. Given the weight of RNA, they observed gloomily, the relevant sample space would exceed the mass of the earth. And this is the same Leslie Orgel, it will be remembered, who observed that “it was almost certain that there once was an RNA world.”
Berlinski’s 2007 Commentary article reprinted at
http://www.discovery.org/a/3209
Wilson wrote: At some point, you would have to acknowledge that you are no longer looking at the results of your imagination, but rather at the results of someone else’s imagination. This argument is implicitly acknowledged by those involved in the SETI project to detect signals from extra-terrestrial life. The search for such signals implies a necessarily ability to detect and distinguish intent from accident. The ability to distinguish an accidental event from an intentional event depends heavily on understanding prior probabilities. For example, it may not be interesting to stumble upon two rocks balanced on top of each other… Read more »
“We rationally infer the presence of intent based on understanding of prior probability.”
This is one of the inherent flaws in our ability to even define “rational.” We like to presume we are rational, but all we really are is able to perceive and interpret the world around us based on prior probability. I suspect that is part of the reason why faith requires us to understand God more like children, before our reasoning brains came into being and convinced us we were rational.
This is one of the presuppostions we encounter in our philosophical discussions on the blog.
Physics depends on Mathematics (for rigor)
Mathematics depends on Proof.
Mathematical Proof (often) depends on Logic.
That Logic (Right reason) is correct is a presupposition.
But we are supposed to love God with our minds as well.
Yes, but our mistake is often in believing that our minds are where reason lives.
I truly don’t want to be argumentatative, ME, but I am both literal-minded and crazily devoted to rationality. Where does reason live if not in our minds? What does it mean to be created in the image of God if it does not mean rational?
Sigh. Of course you don’t wish to be argumentative, but that is exactly how you are with me, a response that is actually emotional, not reason based. I can now proceed to explain why, in which case you can than declare your superior commitment to reason, but I actually find such things boring.
People are not rational, Jilly. Those who believe they are, are generally the worst of the lot. Human beings have a stunning capacity to rationalize just about anything.
I see. I would not like to bore you, so I will stop asking you questions you find tiresome. I was being honest when I said I did not want to argue with you. I like to understand people’s points of view, and when I can’t, I tend to ask questions and ask for explanations and definitions. I get that some people can take that as argumentative but it is really my need to make sense of things. But I have no right to ask you to explain yourself, so I will try not to do that again.
Now see, that is my precise point right there. For someone “crazily devoted to rationality,” your response is actually emotional and you take what I say very personally. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, it is just not based on logic or reason, it is actually rhetoric and emotion.
We are not called to “reason” the Lord our God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, we are called to “love.”
ME is probably alone in perceiving jilly’s question as “emotional.” To me, it seemed like a reasonable question in light of ME’s assertion that is, at the very least, counter to what most people assume.
Well, it is no surprise that women would be so heavily invested in being perceived as rational and logical, since we are so frequently labeled irrational and delusional. So naturally I have triggered a defensive response.
This isn’t an attack on anyone, it’s a simple statement of fact, people are seldom ruled by logic and reason and our ability to even perceive what is rational versus what is not is heavily based on the prior probability of our experiences.
I never (nor, can I see, did jilly) object to the idea that people, self included, are frequently irrational.
But the idea that it is a mistake to believe that “our minds are where are reason lives” says something different from that, and at least to me, who have no problem accepting that people react irrationally much of the time, still requires explanation. Where DOES reason live, if not our minds? And why does that question provoke a response about jilly’s emotionalism, rather than simply an explanation?
Once again as I stated, “This isn’t an attack on anyone, it’s a simple statement of fact, people are seldom ruled by logic and reason and our ability to even perceive what is rational versus what is not is heavily based on the prior probability of our experiences.” As I said above, “We like to presume we are rational, but all we really are is able to perceive and interpret the world around us based on prior probability.” We always assume our brains are full of reason. They are not. If you want evidence of that, look no farther than… Read more »
“We like to presume we are rational, but all we really are is able to perceive and interpret the world around us based on prior probability.”
“Those two statements were not directed at anyone at all, but they triggered an emotional response full of defensiveness.”
Is that a rational conclusion, or are you just perceving emotional defensiveness in the responce?
“Is that a rational conclusion, or are you just perceving emotional defensiveness in the responce?”
In a thread called, “a fluffy ursine head,” plumb full of solipsism, about the closest I can come to a rational conclusion is that there just aren’t any to be had.
Also, the irony is that you’re using rational argumentation to try and prove that people aren’t rational.
No, what’s ironic is that I wasn’t even trying to use rational argumentation to prove anything. The comment, “our mistake is often in believing that our minds are where reason lives,” was simply rhetoric with a bit of sarcasm tossed in.
Rational argumentation seldom convinces anyone of anything. Ask our politicians, it’s all about the rhetoric. The reason why is because people are seldom operating on a rational level. I assumed everyone understood this. Advertising, politics, propaganda, it all speaks to us on an emotional and rhetorical level. It’s so effective because we’re all deluded into believing we’re rational.
Every post you’ve made is based on rationality. Every single one.
Not that it’s absolutely authoritative, but the wikipedia entry for “id, ego, …” says “The ego represents what may be called reason ….”, and the entry for “mind” says “The mind is the faculty of a human being’s reasoning and thoughts.”
There may be some validity to ME’s argument that we humans often do not reason as well as we think we do. For example, I think ME is wrong about where reason is located. :D
Well, I have forgotten that some people get upset about the implication that people may not be fully reason based and rational. I have forgotten especially in light of several recent lectures about the importance of being stoic, emotionally tough, and never needing emotional safety. My bad. From a faith based perspective however, I think Proverbs 3:5 fits in here, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Our own understanding is the part of us we often call reasonable and rational. It is frequently neither. We can think our way into a… Read more »
Remember that the heart wasn’t considered the center of emotion back in Bible times like it is today.
Also, people disagreeing with you isn’t “an emotional response full of defensiveness.”
“Reason, logic, absolute truth, reside in God, not in the human brain. Our ability to understand such things is very limited.”
Reason and logic are God-given abilities that are in our beings, not residing in God. Absolute truth is based on God’s standards, and in that way I suppose you could say it does “reside in God”.
By the way, I am not saying that we humans are totally logical like Spock, as much as we would like to think we are.
I have forgotten especially in light of several recent lectures about the importance of being stoic, emotionally tough, and never needing emotional safety.
Oh dear, I think that I wrote all three of those. How awful of me.
LOL! Jilly, you simply have to stop personalizing everything I say. It is not an attack on you. It is not even about you. There is nothing wrong with having feelings or making statements like you did.
ME, your reply is a perfect example of the kind of interaction that we both seem to have trouble with. You told me that I am personalizing what you said, and that I am wrong to do this. But please look back at what you originally said and the context in which you said it. In the post to which I replied, you told OKRickety that you had forgotten that “that some people get upset about the implication that people may not be fully reason based and rational.” Your comment arose from a disagreement you and I had only the… Read more »
Jilly, you are a bundle of projection, emotion, and personalizing. That is not bad, that is not wrong, beyond the fact that you are more likely to take offense at things based on your subjective response to them, not on what is actually being said. I really do not want you to suffer that way, hence I said, “you need to stop personalizing.” Why? Because you are going to take everything I say as an attack on you directly. It is not. I said, “people are not rational.” I did NOT say, now I am going to engage in passive/aggressive… Read more »
I give up. I don’t mind when people say things that are personal, especially when they are accurate and kindly meant. But I can’t engage with someone who flat out refuses to admit the possibility that they might have intended their remarks to be taken personally when it is transparently clear that they did. If you look at the evidence, ME, I don’t see how you can reach any other conclusion. If you are telling me that you read those three “lectures” elsewhere on the internet, and that by an unusual coincidence, three other bloggers in the last week posted… Read more »
Yes, on reflection, I did take it a little personally because I thought it wasn’t very kindly expressed. I don’t know why our interactions so often end up with my apologizing and your calling me emotional. You often say I am using rhetoric which makes me wonder if you are suggesting I lack sincerity. I clearly have a knack for annoying you. This puzzles me because it is not a problem I have often encountered here. It bothers me because we are sisters in Christ and it should be possible for us to communicate without this happening, even when there… Read more »
Gals, an even way to make this point, might be:
“Everyone opperates from an emotional footing, even the best rationalist, or even the most comically awful “rationalist”.
You might also agree with G K, as follows:
“A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.”
― G.K. Chesterton
(Guys do this as well, even G. K. ! ; -)
That’s a mean thing to say about Krychek_2 and RandMan.
Yes, precisely. Don’t non believers always worship at the alter of their own alleged capacity for reason?
Tell me where is fancy bred ;)
Not that it’s absolutely authoritative, but the wikipedia entry for “id, ego, …” says “The ego represents what may be called reason ….”, and the entry for “mind” says “The mind is the faculty of a human being’s reasoning and thoughts.”
Perhaps you have made in mistake in your reasoning.
I think the sentence “does the discovery of ever-increasing complexity in living organisms have any relevance at all” would capture your thesis better if it said “does the ever-increasing discovery of complexity in living organisms have any relevance at all”. The current version sounds very similar to “does the discovery that organisms are becoming more complex over time have any relevance” which is not at all what you’re asking. If I understand correctly, the first part of your argument is: * There is real design which is different than the appearance of design * There is a point on the… Read more »
You confuse the situation by writing this: If I understand correctly, the first part of your argument is: * There is real design which is different than the appearance of design Real design is an ontological question which is independent from the appearance of design. Someone can disguise man-made structures (such as hillocks and mounds on a golf course) to look natural when in fact their shapes and placements were due to design and not geological forces. On the other hand, the appearance of design is an epistemological question which asks how we come to know what was and wasn’t… Read more »
Thanks for the clarification!
Wilson wrote:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/young-insect-legs-have-real-meshing-gears
‘Remember, kids, this is not design, this is just accident of nature.’
Be sure to look for the walking kinesin protein in the cellular animation below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJyUtbn0O5Y
Enjoy.
“At what point does appearance become a necessary reality.”???
If you are Hillary Clinton, possibly never!
????
You are describing Behe’s mission. He is attempting to formalize “designed” the same way f=ma formalizes mass x acceleration as force.
I buy my neighbor his bullets and he supplies me with a deer or two every year.
I was breaking down the animal (in prayer, I do not like having to kill for food, but accept it prayerfully) and I had the full carcass on my table as I was butchering it. About 1/2 hour in, I exclaimed “No freaking way did this evolve!”
LOL! Yes, exactly. A rather morbid description indeed, but dressing a deer is exactly like that. Those of us who go to the grocery store can purchase a steak that just randomly sprung forth from nothingness and easily deny not only the existence of the animal, but the existence of the butcher, and the Creator too.
At least we don’t still think flies spontaneously generated from steaks (thanks to Francisco Redi)…only that steaks spontaneously generated inside grocery stores, because…evolution!
Timothy, I just read this statement made by Behe in an interview:
“To a surprising extent prevailing evolutionary theory and intelligent design are harmonious. Both agree that the universe and life unfolded over vast ages; both agree that species could follow species in the common descent of life. They differ solely in the overriding role Darwinism ascribes to randomness. Intelligent design says that, while randomness does exist, its role in explaining the unfolding of life is quite limited.” http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Behe:_The_Edge_of_Evolution,_Interview#The_book.E2.80.99s_subtitle_speaks_of_the_.E2.80.9Climits_of_Darwinism..E2.80.9D_Are_you_saying_that_Darwin.E2.80.99s_theory_is_completely_wrong.3F
I am not sure why Behe’s arguments are used to support a creationist point of view.
Hi Jilly.
Why would a designer not create? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Its like saying Bill Blass cannot thread a needle*.
*Christian clothes design is one of those culture things that is very important.
Or better, deliberate clothing design, by Christians.
//Since we are dealing with hypothetical complexities, what happens if we double them? Now we need one of them to occur on average every six months. At some point, the suggested mechanism of natural selection ceases to have explanatory power. Natural selection has been swamped. The best hitter in the world will be overwhelmed if the ball is pitched three times a second. Or, put another way, if we get to a “mutation a minute,” we are no longer talking about Darwinism, but some form of pantheistic magic. So when is that point?// As an Old-Earther, I would tell the… Read more »
I suspect that the Darwinists would claim that the mechanism of evolution (mutation and selection) is such that it leads to ever increasing levels of complexity, thus actual design and apparent design are in many ways similar end products, but that the process is different. Any actual design could theoretically be imitated by apparent design given mutation and selection and enough time. Which then raises the question, if apparent design and real design cannot be distinguished by looking at the product how do we no something evolved and wasn’t designed. The answer to that question will possibly be bad “design”… Read more »
As to your second question, this has been asked. Looking at the difference between chimpanzees and humans on a DNA sequence level, the number of mutations that would be required from a common DNA source (differing from both) and the time for those to arise since the agreed common ancestor divergence, it appears that there is not enough time.
It is related to Haldane’s dilemma which has the problem of having a new mutation become predominant in a population. Remine has written on this and I think he shows it well that Haldane’s dilemma is insoluble.
Complexity gives no increased problem for the evolutionist.
Allowing the simplest of stuff to show up on its own = game, set & match.
The problem you identify is being itself and you’re right. The evolutionist could be completely correct about the history of the universe but he has no answer to this except mumbled fantasies about multiverses. He wants an infinite regress and is terrified of finding the Terminus.
‘Sounds like a bunch of Buzz Lightyears;
“To infinity and beyond!”
Indeed!????
Complexity gives the evolutionist more trouble than you think. There are objective limits to how great a genetic leap a random mutation can make. Behe does a great job of demonstrating this in his work “the edge of evolution”. Still, you are certainly correct that there are other concrete questions we can ask that Evolutionist simply has no plausible answer for
I know there is technically no such thing as neutrality. I believe that. I know. Van Till..Kant. I get it. But I like Enns’ work and I think everyone ought to calm down a bit about this whole evolution thing. Yes. I, too, see the holes in both sides of the argument on how God created the universe. Have you read Enns’ book?
This book helped me a great deal with some of these same issues and thoughts. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0268021988/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Michael Behe’s “The Edge of Evolution” pursues a related line of argument scientifically by attempting to determine what the precise limits of the mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection are. In other words, what is the limit, or “edge”, of what evolution can actually do. Good read.