In a message dated 9/15/2000 9:32:49 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
nalonso@megatribe.com writes:
<< FMA:
Remarkable, could you please explain why the inner ear is not irreducible
complex?
Nelson:
Lets apply the definition. The function is that it sends vibrations from the
ear drum to the oval window. I can remove, one bone and it will still do
this, I can remove two and it will still do this, heck, I can remove the
whole thing and I could still hear sound when pressure impacts the oval
window. >>
FMA:
Remarkable, I am amazed at your comments here.
Nelson:
Thank you.
FMA:
And yet this was used to argue
against evolution until evolution found the explanation.
Nelson:
Nope, not as an irreducibly complex system.
Nelson:
No, creationists, not IDists, use this to argue that there can be no
incipient stages between the reptile and human hearing. Nothing at all to do
with ID. The issue is transitional stages.
FMA:
You remove one of
the bones and hearing in that ear becomes severely impaired. Sure you can
hear with the other ear. Nelson disagrees with you
"Because design can explain primary discontinuities, the theory gives an
account of phenomena inexplicable on naturalistic scenarios. These
phenomena include the necessary minimal complexity of cells, incongruence
between developmental pathways and morphological homologies in
different taxa, the functional complexity of organismal systems (e.g., the
inner ear), the hierarchical structure of development, genetic pleiotropy,
and
architectural aspects of three-dimensional form and function. I discuss
these
patterns, and present some ideas for the testing of design claims via
well-established experimental methods. "
http://www.origins.org/mc/menus/abstracts.html
Nelson:
Thank you for sharing with me Nelson's views, however, despite similiartiy
of our names, I am not Paul Nelson and Paul Nelson is not me. So your
efforts here are completely redundant.
>>
FMA:
Your comments are a total non sequitor. Why are you assuming that I presumed
you be the same Nelson? I am showing that ID'ers disagree with your notion.
Nelson:
You have shown me one IDer who points to functional complexity. Even if he
did think the inner ear was IC, who says everything Paul Nelson says I have
to agree with?
<<
One thing that should tip you off is that reptiles get by with just a
<< one-bone system.
>>
FMA:
So there is a gap between the bone and the membrane? You do realize that if
you remove one of the three bones in humans that hearing stops ?
Nelson:
No I would still be able to hear when pressure waves impact the oval window.
There is still function even when I remove the entire middle ear.
FMA:
If you accept the one bone system then you have to admit that IC systems are
not evidence of anything.
Nelson:
Since the three-bone system is not IC , I am sorry to inform you that your
argument missed it's target and fell by the way side.
>>
FMA:
Your assertion that the 3 boned system is not IC is shown to be unfounded.
Nelson:
It's not an assertion, I'll quote what I demonstrated above:
"Lets apply the definition. The function is that it sends vibrations from
the ear drum to the oval window. I can remove, one bone and it will still do
this, I can remove two and it will still do this, heck, I can remove the
whole thing and I could still hear sound when pressure impacts the oval
window. "
So , I actually used the definition of IC and compared it to this system.
FMA:
Please show that removing one bone results in a working system. Or take away
the eardrum for instance. If IC systems can be shown in nature, as is quite
obvious, then ICness is not reliable evidence of design.
Nelson:
Why did you ignore how do this very thing twice, above?
<< << FMA:
Also why is the phenotypical level not relevant? Is IC somehow
limited to systems for which supporting evidence is likely not to exist? I
guess this means that the mouse trap example by Behe was irrelevant as well?
Nelson:
The mouse trap is an analogy and an example of an irreducibly complex
system. I never said it was not irreducibly complex. But as far as Darwinian
selection and biological origins goes, it is irrelevant and only an example.
The mammalian ear had the help of a developmental program.Molecular machines
do not, they are what evolution uses.
FMA:
So it's ok to show that IC systems can arise naturally. Since this has been
done, ICness is not reliable evidence of design.
You seem to be desperately contradicitng yourself here. Can IC systems arise
naturally or not?
Nelson:
Here you go again. It has not been done. You have not shown me not once
single natural pathway to any IC system.
Nelson:
Since the 3-bone system is not IC you are arguing a strawman. Since it is at
the phenotypical level it is doubly irrelevant.
>>
FMA:
IC is IC,
Nelson:
Nope, IC had a point to make and that is the point of Behe's thesis.
FMA:
if you can show that a mousetrap can be built in parts, as has been
shown,
Nelson:
If you can , and you cannot, that says nothing about what nature can do.
FMA:
then it shows that IC systems can arise naturally. Even if the 3 bone
system is not IC, there are plenty of IC examples.
"There are at least three different ways that an IC system can be produced
by
a series of small modifications: 1)
Improvements become necessities,
Nelson:
Handwave.
2) Loss of scaffolding
Nelson:
There is no such thing as "scaffolding" that leads to an IC system.
Scaffolding invokes pure chance and assumes plasticity among the parts of IC
systems. This prediction fails since all the parts of IC systems are
universal.
3) Duplication and
divergence.
Nelson:
Gene duplication causes gene silencing, it has never been tested to be able
to make new functions.
FMA's quote:
By Behe's definition, many systems we
see around us are IC, and yet have developed gradually. Think of the chaotic
growth of towns into large cities, the self-organizing
forces behind market economies, and the delicate causal webs that define
complex ecosystems. Evolutionary algorithms run on
computers routinely evolve irreducibly complex designs. So given an IC
system, it could either be the product of coordinated
design, or of a gradual, cumulative, stochastic process.
Nelson:
This can be reduced to absurdity. All these systems were made by intelligent
agents with foresight and a goal, even if they were IC they were designed by
intelligent agency, and have absolutely nothing to do with natural selection
of random mutation.
**Self-organizing forces behind market economies**
It is not a refutation of Behe's statements because, as above, people must
make choices, choices that are presumed to have the choice-makers' own best
interests in mind.
**Delicate causal webs that define complex ecosystems**
Close but no cigar. Complex ecosystems involve organisms, each of which has
different behviors, such as different ways of responding to its immediate
environment. The components of biochemical pathways and structures, atoms
and molecules, do not have behaviors.
**Evolutionary algorithms producing IC designs**
As one very familiar with computer programming, I am not aware of any
algorithms that produce IC systems from non-IC systems without the
assistance of human intelligence.
FMA's article:
The truth is, we
should expect Darwinian evolution to produce such
systems in biology, and not be surprised to find them. The underlying
processes are called co-adaptation and co-evolution, and
they have been understood for many years. Biochemical structures and
pathways
are not built up one step at a time in linear
assembly-line fashion to meet some static function. They evolve layer upon
layer, contingency upon contingency, always in flux,
and retooling to serve current functions. The ability of life to evolve in
this fashion has itself evolved over time. Detecting IC does
not indicate design, and therefore Behe's hypothesis collapses. H. Allen Orr
says it best in his perceptive review:"
Nelson:
Not one single example in nature is even mentioned in this entire paragraph.
This confirms everything I have been saying up to this point About IC being
a reliable eliminator of natural processes.
FMA's article:
"Behe's colossal mistake is that, in rejecting these possibilities, he
concludes that no Darwinian solution remains. But
one does. It is this: An irreducibly complex system can be built
gradually by adding parts that, while initially just
advantageous, become-because of later changes-essential. The logic is
very simple. Some part (A) initially does
some job (and not very well, perhaps).
Nelson:
This is the pinnacle of handwaving and "just so" story telling. A does what
job? What is A? What doesn't it do very well? Why doesn't it do it very
well?
FMA's article:
Another part (B) later gets added
because it helps A.
Nelson:
What part B? This is pure chance, B just happen to get added to A, and
then...
"This new part isn't
essential, it merely improves things."
Nelson:
It isn't essential it just improves things? Improves what? By what
mechanism? What made just happen to get added to A and just happen to
improve things and it just happened to be non-essential?
FMA's article:
But later on, A
Nelson:
Later on? Who decided that? Hmm, getting a little closer to intelligent
agency.
(or something
else)
Nelson:
This just went from a plausible scenario to a completely unfalsifiable in
principle proposal. That something else can be anything and everything.
may change in such a way that B now
becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get
folded into the system. And at the end of the day,
many parts may all be required."
Nelson:
So what has happened? What has this article demonstrated , absolutley
nothing. So undetailed, so vague, so many skipped steps, and , at the end,
it just happens that all the parts are required. Did you notice what I am
noticing? What happened to the well-matched parts?
"The point is there's no guarantee that improvements will remain mere
improvements. Indeed because later changes
build on previous ones, there's every reason to think that earlier
refinements might become necessary. The
transformation of air bladders into lungs that allowed animals to
breathe atmospheric oxygen was initially just
advantageous: such beasts could explore open niches-like dry land-that
were unavailable to their lung-less peers.
But as evolution built on this adaptation (modifying limbs for walking,
for instance), we grew thoroughly terrestrial
and lungs, consequently, are no longer luxuries-they are essential. The
punch-line is, I think, obvious: although this
process is thoroughly Darwinian, we are often left with a system that
is
irreducibly complex. I'm afraid there's no
room for compromise here: Behe's key claim that all the components of
an
irreducibly complex system 'have to be
there from the beginning' is dead wrong." [*]
Nelson:
Unfortunately this does not lead me to extrapolate such a process to a
molecular machine that is irreducibly complex that has no help from any
developmental program.
I also was incorrect, it's the middle ear not the inner ear
Wesley wrote:
"It's the impedance-matching function of the mammalian *middle* ear that is
proffered as an example. I saw someone today
saying that it is unnecessary to mammalian hearing. This ignores the fact
that every piece is absolutely necessary to
the impedance-matching function.
Nelson:
This isn't true, as I have stated above, one can remove the entire 3-bone
system and I would still hear when pressure waves hit the oval window.
Wesley:
That function goes away (with about a 30
dB re 1 microbar decrease in sensitivity, or
about 1 / (2^10) the original sensitivity) if any of the parts are
removed.
Nelson:
Mere observation can tell us this is false, the one-bone system of reptiles
make them hear quite well.
Wesely:
The human blood clotting system, one of Behe's
examples of IC systems, is not *necessary* to circulation in much the same
way."
Nelson:
Why can't any one anti-IDist be specific?
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