The next step the narrator takes, actually takes us right out of the realm of scientific investigation, into the world of political posturing and nonsense.
Of
course when religious apologists, New-Agers, Conspiracy Theorists
(does anyone actually self-identify as this?), or Creationists,
Intelligent-Design proponents, and Irreducible Complexity advocates dare
to use the standard debating techniques, such as:
(1) Ad Hominem - attacking the person who is the source of an idea.
(2) Appeals to Numbers - suggesting that the majority is always right.
(3) Appeal to Authority - what the experts / authorities say must be followed.
...whenever opponents use these popular tactics, they are shot down mercilessly and exposed, mainly because "such methods of winning arguments are unscientific."
Secondly, everybody who has ever had experience in a courtroom (in ANY country), knows that courtrooms are literally full of lies, nonsense, injustice, and obfuscation.
Only a fool would today claim that "truth" is best resolved, or in fact resolved at all in a modern courtroom. It matters not whether the case is big or small, rich or poor, intelligent or moronic. Courtrooms are of course run by lawyers, and without prejudice, lawyers are human beings, most of whom are motivated mainly by money, secondly by political passion, and perhaps as a limping third, justice and truth. Or at least community justice, or perhaps pragmatism.
Yet when a court rules in favour of the cause of Evolution, we are suddenly treated to the most amazing fairy-story of all:
Courts are now the "ultimate" arbiters of truth: Perhaps even the best discoverers and establlishers of scientific truth.
Suddenly,
the lawyers have become our heroes, accurately dissecting the bitter
pill of Intelligent Design, to discover the horror of Creationism, masquerading as 'science' and daring to "infect our children".
Please.
If a person born anytime during the post-war baby-boom knows anything, he knows this is pure horse-manure.
Next the video-maker runs through three examples used by Irreducible Complexity advocates;
(1) The Eye,
(2) The bombadier Beetle,
(3) The Mouse-Trap example of Michael Behe.
We skip the bombadier Beetle example, because frankly, its nowhere near
the required complexity in the first place, to qualify as an example. In this the narrator is probably right, not about its evolution, which begs the question, but that its a FAIL as an example of Irreducible Complexity.
The Mouse-trap example is more interesting, but as far as we and the
narrator are concerned, its not a living creature, and probably not an
example of Irreducible Complexity either.
Nonetheless, without a perfect or complete scientific methodology, we
can still be 99% sure that the mouse-trap was not a natural formation,
but the result of an Intelligent Designer. There is little point in
arguing about this.
We know the mouse-trap is a Designed Object for a number reasons, all of
which can be scientifically investigated, analyzed, and expressed,
provided we want to bother to put in the time.
Its not only 'complexity' that results in a good case for Intelligent Design, but a number of factors, including circumstantial evidence. For instance:
(1) The mouse-trap is made of iron wire, something we can already identify as man-made.
(2) It has a mechanical spring, the material, size and shape of which
never occurs in the natural world, outside of man's activity.
(3) It has a logo painted on it, identifying the company and where it was made.
This brings up the problem of the huge hole in the video's narrative.
The narrator makes no proper distinction between Intelligent Design and Irreducible Complexity. He simply lumps everthing together under "Creationism", and labels that a 'religious ideology'.
He has no excuse, for later in the video he is quite careful about the definitions and philosophical implications of Irreducible Complexity.
Since he doesn't give Intelligent Design anywhere near the same care and attention, its obvious he's not being scientific, or even thorough:
He's being a propagandist.
Yet to any real scientist, the two ideas are quite clearly distinct,
and this distinction is crucial to fields such as cryptology and military surveillance.
The narrator makes an important point following the discussion of the mouse-trap here:
Thus the narrator is quite capable of making the crucially important distinction between LIVING things and NON-Living things.
But what is the real significance of this?
The whole original inquiry is based on this critical observation: Living Things Don't follow the 'natural laws'
that utterly fix and determine the behavior of dead things.
(1) Living things make copies of themselves. Dead things don't.
(2) Living things evolve complex information systems and machinery.Dead things DON'T.
(3) Living things operate AGAINST both thermodynamic and Informational Laws of Entropy. Dead things don't!
Its futile to insist that Living things follow the same physical and
chemical laws as dead things, which is an underlying 'text' of atheistic
evolution,
when the whole point of real science is to investigate why they DON'T.
To miss this is to misdirect what science actually is, and what the real business of scientific investigation should be.
Another remarkable thing about the video,
is that the narrator, after having made such a fuss about "quote-mining",
is absolutely adamant about his own quotation games.
He repeatedly "quotes" unknown, unidentified 'opponents',
but refuses to accept objections by posters that these are contrived,
or that he is himself engaging in "straw-man" arguments.
He explains that its okay for him to use "quote-marks",
because he is using them 'legally', as indicators of an idea unders discussion only:
Of course few opponents (or even neutral parties) are going to buy this kind of obfuscation.
Anyone can make up "quotes", leave them vague and general, fail to identify where they came from,
and tar all opponents as if they themselves had said or would have said same.
Our biggest objection here however, isn't that the narrator is playing as many games
as any professional debater or snake-oil salesman,
but that we have been gypped again: This isn't science, scientific method, or even "Evolution-Science". This is debating about debating. The video-maker has really misled us,
and wasted precious time.
In both the original video, and in the subsequent "rebuttal",
he has literally spent most of his time wasting time on trivialities,
and debate-points, rather than on science.
We expected and wanted serious criticism of Intelligent Design,
and accurate discussion of the scientific methodology which would
settle the issues.
Instead we got more propaganda from the Evolution Propaganda people.
We asked for silver.
They showed us silver-plate.
=======================
"Eye Opening Evolution"
Immediately after whining about Darwin misquotes,
the narrator plunges into a sketch of how the eye could have evolved.
Naturally its vague, dubious, and oversimplified.
His main point (in order to support Darwin's original conjecture),
is that the eye, with its complex parts could have evolved in stages,
as each smaller advance gave the creature better survival and reproductive chances in a process of Natural Selection.
His attitude is that this sketchy sketch is more than enough to "refute" opponents,
and silence Darwin's critics regarding the plausibility of "eye-evolution".
Of particular interest is his illustration of at least four of perhaps six 'main steps' in a gradual evolution process:
(1) A proto-eye, consisting of a simple patch of light-sensitive cells
(2) A curved-cup shape, allowing detection of light-direction.
(3) A 'pin-hole' camera overgrowth, giving a real 'image-projection, presumably allowing also the development of processing circuits...
(4) A simple lens, formed originally of mucus, hardening into translucent tissue.
In support of his thesis, he points to species of animals in each of these stages of 'development':
Of course several issues, difficulties, objections can be made in opposition to this hypothesis.
(1) These modern creatures certainly didn't literally evolve from one another. Each must be a speciating branch of an evolutionary tree. What was the real multi-stage process of "eye-evolution"?
(2) Why are some species apparently back at the very beginning of biological time in their (arrested) development, while others (mammals etc.) have the most advanced optical systems?
(3) What possible processes could have created the Information System which is fundamental to the complex optical systems of higher animals?
The narrator objects that critics and opponents demand too much from the
hypothesis. That the model is by nature a mere sketch, lacking in the
rich detail of the historical reality:
He complains that it is a "no win" situation, since for every 'missing-link' provided,
there will be another 'gap' to explain, between the new steps in the step-list.
Like the famous puzzle of Hercules and the many-headed hydra,
its an impossible task, if two heads grow back for every one cut off.
We can allow for and somewhat sympathize for the video-maker's plight:
A theory of this kind must necessarily start sketchy, and be filled in with
extended efforts of scientific investigation.
But the real point is that again the Evolutionist protests too much.
Don't bewail and lament because a sketch isn't a theory at all, perhaps not even a hypothesis,
and then turn around and claim its not only 'plausible' but somehow must be true.
Its just sketch. A child's drawing; the beginning of a hunch, a hypothesis.
Its not a convincing scientific theory, and it should never be presented as such.
Worse than all this, the narrator continues to beg the question:
Whether the eye evolved or not is the issue of contention.
Its not an assumption or axiom, either in the case of advanced optical systems,
or even in the simplest of light-sensitive structures.
Any or all of these devices could be pre-coded in genetic information,
or simply created in a lab.
Irreducible Complexity (IC)
suggests that certain cases of objects or systems of extreme
complexity could not have spontaneously happened, because natural
events are not truly random, but follow specific statistical and
physical laws. These laws preclude their initial assembly by mere
accident, because the steps are sufficiently long and complex, and the
environments so delicate and unlikely, that the objects/systems must
have been forced into existence by deliberate intent. Sentient and
directed willpower is the simplest alternate explanation and most
likely force to have made the environments and carried out the steps
to create those objects (highly complex systems) .
Here is a very good video response to this subject of "irreducible complexity": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W96AJ0ChboU
This is an interesting video.
However its not a scientific argument against Irreducible Complexity.
Its actually just another cleverly constructed propaganda piece with recent Evolutionist objections.
The very opening gives us a good idea what we can expect in what follows.
"Quote Mining" Darwin...?
0:00 - 1:20 min, The 'reasonable' sounding narrator with the
English accent begins with a complaint against opponents about
"quote-mining", although as expected, he names no offenders.
Apparently these unknown "quote-miners" misuse Darwin, because they
quote his remarks about the apparent absurdity of an EYE evolving, out
of context, and without qualifying statements..
We will take the narrator's word for it that he himself has provided adequate context:
The above shows Darwin did believe the eye evolved (obviously).
The last quote however, is not as unambiguous as the narrator would like:
First of all, it does seem rather clear that Darwin here concedes that
the 'evolution of an eye' does at least appear absurd, and since he is
addressing fellow-scientists, including brilliant physicists who opposed him,
it can't be portrayed as "stupid" or "ignorant" to have a healthy skepticism,
when it comes to the evolution of complex organs like the eye.
If healthy skepticism by other scientists weren't normal,
the narrator would not be making a useful point at all.
That is, if only stupid or uneducated or non-scientific people
doubted the evolution of the eye, or such opinions only were tenable
100 years ago, then how can this last statement have much meaning today?
Yet the narrator goes out of his way, not only to emphasize this point,
but repeats it twice more in this video, and uses the quote again,
as an apt summary of all objections to apparently implausible evolutionary conjectures or specific sequences.
If this statement is to carry the seriousness and profundity with which
the narrator intends it to hold, then by obvious inference,
its quite reasonable to be skeptical, not only of the 'evolution' of complex organs like the eye,
but also of any vague, suspicious, or implausible reconstruction,
including the whole general theory.
And this is quite a sensible position, because the very nature of real science
demands that we be skeptical of our current knowledge, in order to
effectively search for new knowledge.
(1) Posing an Intelligent Creator does nothing to properly explain the organized complexity of life. If it did, the first 'Intelligent Creator' you posed would also need a second 'Intelligent Creator' to explain His own existence, etc., ad infinitum.
(2) Because an Intelligent Creator would also possess as much 'organized complexity' as his creation. If 'organized complexity' needed an explanation of this type, such an Entity would also need an explanation of the same type.
(3) The result is an ever-regressing paradox. A never-ending quest. Neither Atheists nor Theists want to accept such a situation.
Although many atheist apologists are simpletons, Dawkins' cleverness here is quite slick, and might fool many reasonably intelligent people. It therefore requires a response.
Zeno's Paradox
Dawkins has here created a kind of 'Zeno's Paradox'. In the original version, the fast Achilles can supposedly never catch the tortoise, if it has a headstart:
Suppose Achilles runs up to the starting-point of the tortoise. In that instant, the tortoise will have actually already moved ahead some small amount. Each time Achilles reaches the next point, the tortoise will have crawled just a tiny bit further. As long as Achilles' speed isn't instantaneous, and the tortoise keeps moving, it stays ahead.
Although logically impeccable, the paradox is unsound, at least in the real world. For us, speeds have meanings in terms of absolute distances and universal times, at least locally. Using that other more mundane math, we can describe and predict that Achilles will easily sprint past the tortoise and even name when and where, just as in real life!
Dawkin's Paradox
So what exactly is wrong with Dawkins' Paradox?
As with all clever tricks, he begins with subtly shifting the goalposts.
Dawkins is directly attacking two concepts used frequently by Creationists, although he doesn't actually name them:
Intelligent Design (ID), and Irreducible Complexity (IC).
Intelligent Design (ID) poses that an object with an obvious function and purpose, that is highly unlikely to have spontaneously occurred, and can't be explained as being incidentally formed by any known natural processes, probably had an intelligent inventor, designer, and builder.
Irreducible Complexity (IC) suggests that certain cases of objects or systems of extreme complexity could not have spontaneously happened, because natural events are not truly random, but follow specific statistical and physical laws. These laws preclude their initial assembly by mere accident, because the steps are sufficiently long and complex, and the environments so delicate and unlikely, that the objects/systems must have been forced into existence by deliberate intent. Sentient and directed willpower is the simplest alternate explanation and most likely force to have made the environments and carried out the steps to create those objects (highly complex systems) .
Hawkin's Exaggerations and Creationist Claims
Intelligent Design (ID) doesn't claim to actually explain complexity by posing a Designer. It merely poses the necessity of a designer in the face of evidence that a design exists. That may seem subtle, but its a much more modest achievement.
Finding a watch in the forest.
If we find a watch, lying on a tree-stump in the forest, we may rightly assume a watchmaker exists. Why? A combination of factors: A watch is a complex object with orderly structure, directed action, obvious function and apparent intentional purpose. At the same time, there is no known natural process which could have made it and placed it. It must have fallen out of a pocket or a plane, or been put there intentionally. It is evidence of intelligence and even civilization. We are well-justified in hypothesizing a sentient intelligence responsible for its design, manufacture, and even its placement. Not even a die-hard atheist or skeptic would claim it spontaneously grew out of the ground from the bedrock, formed in a seabed, or grew from a tree.
Potential Alien Artifact
If we found a similar device dropped by an alien visitor we would be equally justified in posing his existence (or that of a forger). That insight in itself would not explain in any way the workings or purpose of the device, nor predict the object's complexity. Nor would we claim that it could. But we don't need to understand in detail the workings and purpose of an (alien) device either, in order to pose an intelligent designer/creator. We only need to find enough properties to confirm the object was not likely made by any known natural processes.
Every known watch (and every real or fake alien artifact) had an intelligent designer, with a probability approaching practical certainty. How intelligent a designer? The design itself can only set a minimum requirement for the designer's intelligence. The designer can always be smarter than we think. We can only really say, "The designer must be more intelligent than (x)."
What Intelligent Design is Not
Intelligent Design (ID) is not a stand-alone explanation for complexity or an all-in-one proof of God. Its a useful framework for local causation that takes into account the purposeful action of sentient beings. The existence of sentient activity, at least in humans and animals is hardly under dispute. Its also a practical technique of classification which separates objects, processes and circumstances incidentally resulting from natural forces (like a waterfall or a geode), from those objects and events which are created and directed by intelligent beings (watches, computers, etc.).
Intelligent Design has not been discredited nor should it be abandoned. Its more essential than ever, in a world where 'ordered complexity' now extends to artificially bred animals, genetically modified foods, even man-made species and DNA-based medicine. It is more important than ever to be able to distinguish natural objects and systems (like existing biological and eco-systems) from those invented, designed and consciously guided by sentient intelligence and man's will. Intelligent Design must remain a relevant aspect of our worldview and science.
Where and How ID can be Improved
Dawkins and others may be right in that Intelligent Design has been over-applied, and exaggerated in its claims. Like all recent innovations and inventions, ID has occasionally been naively and unscientifically applied and abused. There are certainly difficulties with scientific applications of ID concepts.
For instance, Dawkins is right to insist that posing a Designer God doesn't explain God, even if it does in some limited sense 'explain' the origin of life. But this is not any kind of paradox, as his clever banter suggests.
I can fully investigate the origins, workings and purpose of a watch, without knowing very much at all about the watchmaker. Failing to explain the watchmaker doesn't make any part of the analysis of the watch invalid. Its just an admission of the incompleteness and limits of the investigation. There is no paradox. It can be even worse: I can get the entire function and purpose of the 'watch' wrong (is it a stopwatch? does it mark a religious calendar?) and still be 100% right on the main point: The Watch has a Watchmaker. Some facts hold.
We investigate what we can, and deduce what we can.
Irreducible Complexity (IC)
Irreducible Complexity (IC): some objects or systems of extreme complexity could not have spontaneously
happened, because natural statistical and physical laws don't allow it. These laws preclude their
initial assembly by mere accident, because the steps are sufficiently
long and complex, and the environments so delicate and unlikely, that
the objects/systems must have been forced into existence by deliberate
intent.
This is the sense meant by "Irreducible" here: A complex system such as a Pentium Computer could not have evolved randomly out of geophysical processes, and there are nonetheless millions of them because men are actively and deliberately making them.
Car Evolution in Action?
We don't see 'half-cars' forming from pools of lava, because we know they are made by us, and if we discover one in a forest, we are 100% certain it didn't accidentally grow there: it was abandoned by actual people. The existence of a car-part is not 'reducible' to forces of erosion, lightning, or meteors.
The deliberate and directed willpower of a sentient being (Man) is the simplest alternate
explanation and most likely force to have
carried out the steps to create those objects.
Creationists apply this thinking to DNA-based life. It is apparently a complete, self-enclosed, adjustable, very complex and ordered, evolving system that could not have been formed from simple chemical reactions in a primordial soup. Whether or not that argument is convincing, the reasoning process is plain enough.
What 'Irreducible Complexity' Cannot Do:
Dawkins' reasoning is itself flawed: There is in fact no 'law' that requires that a complex object must be made from an equally or more complex object.
Dumb Factory makes Smart Computer
An automated factory might be quite simple in comparison to a sophisticated integrated-circuit based computer which it manufactures. The most complex computer in the factory could be a very primitive controlling-monitoring unit.
The boxed units going out the door could be an order of magnitude more complex than the whole factory.
In fact, in some sense that is Dawkin's whole argument: that very complex things can arise out of the simplest crap. So his paradox is as fanciful as Creationist claims that DNA-based life "prove" there's a God.
But if something as complex as life actually does require a designer, all bets are off. What if for instance, some complex things require more complex things to make them, and other complex things don't? The current state of science can't even comment on these possibilities, let alone disprove them.
The problem is, that both Dawkins and the Creationists have presumed that there even is some kind of single absolute 'scale' by which complexity can be measured, upon which all complex objects can be placed and compared, and upon which there is some kind of clear line or boundary that says, in essence, "things this complicated need a designer", whereas, "everything below this line could have been generated spontaneously by (non-living, non-sentient) physical processes".
But lets put it to the test. Its likely that there isn't such a universal scale of complexity, at least constructible by us, because we haven't currently got a scientific Theory of Complexity to use to make it. One scientist might view robust self-replication as a higher order of complexity than say, sentient puzzle-solving ability. The selection of multi-layered scales and weighting of orthogonal features will be arbitrary. Thus, one might rate cockroaches higher than mice, or vice-versa.
But if there is no such scale, its a moot point for Dawkins to insist that each 'cause' we backward-trace must be more complex than the last. The intuitive idea that any 'designer' must be superior to or more complex than his 'creation' would be an unscientific notion at best.
It may be that "Irreducible Complexity" will need alot of refining before it can be accepted as a well-grounded, well-defined scientific concept and measure, but it does do what it was supposed to: raise the question of whether or not the entire super-ecosystem of DNA-based life could have 'evolved' out of nothing.
The Death Blow to Dawkin's Paradox
The main problem with the paradox is now before us. If two 'systems' or 'processes' or 'complex objects' are sufficiently different in nature and kind that they can't even be placed on the same scale for measuring their "ordered complexity", then it is worthless to insist that they both require the same kind of "explanation".
Designs, and Designers, Creations and Creators, are from all experience, clearly completely different entities, in both order of magnitude and kind. Comparing a Design to a Designer is plainly comparing apples to oranges. How similar is a watch to a man for instance? There will be as many similarities as differences.
If only an Orange can explain an Apple, then it does not follow in any logical sense that only an Orange can explain an Orange.
Dawkins' insistence that the explanation for a "Designer-God" must be the same in kind and force as that for an ordinary creation of "ordered complexity" is a hollow and ineffective critique of the proposition that designs require designers. There is no logical, mathematical, scientific, or even magical requirement that 'designers' need any explanation at all in the same sense as a discovered design does. Nor is there any reason to reject a possible explanation for one object, simply because we can't provide a similar explanation for an entirely different one.
