An example of irreducible complexity

[wienerdog]

http://home.attbi.com/~bernhard36/honda-ad.html

[dizzle]

Now that is pretty funny!!! If anyone is wondering why WD didn't post the ifnormation here, it is a cool video, not an article, but you must see it.

[CobraA1]

Cool :smile:

[chavalon]

It's worth following one of the links on that page to one of the articles describing the filming of that ad. It was take 607 :eek: . That's right six hundred and seven. And it really did happen as filmed, no image manipulation.

[wienerdog]

I didn't understand how they got the tires to roll uphill, but the link said they weighted them on one side with bolts 'n stuff. I like the electric connection that starts the fan, that then blows itself across the floor until it unplugs itself, but still has just barely enough forward motion to start the next link in the chain. Oh, and the windshield wipers. I liked them, too.

[Em7add11]

Those tires would have had to have been balanced perfectly before they were hit, which explains the 700 takes. :hrm:

[wienerdog]

Dude, half the stuff in there had to be balanced in a ridiculously precise way, not just the tires. And each time it didn't work, they had to reset everything again. Precisely.

[Sher]

There's a new theory that it evolved from dominoes ... over millions of seconds :ahem:

[justathot]

Hey Weinerdog... or WD... it's justathought.... or JT, i guess. I'll have to get a cool picture like you.

Is this a strict analogy to irreducible complexity in nature? If not, where does it not apply?

The fact that nature does not get it wrong 699 out of 700 times can either be a challenge to the analogy or an indication of the system designers' abilities.

Also, nature allows a mechanism for flexibility to handle changes in the environment where this system does not... so that argues against strict analogy... but still argues for a designer in my view... why is that?

This system is not self-replicating, which introduces additional complexity to the tune of several orders of magnitude (a guess). Has the same implications as the last comment.

gotta go.

[wienerdog]

Is this a strict analogy to irreducible complexity in nature? If not, where does it not apply?
Strict analogy? No. The link doesn't work anymore, but it showed a video of car parts in a series of events toward a particular goal, hence, teleological.

The fact that nature does not get it wrong 699 out of 700 times can either be a challenge to the analogy or an indication of the system designers' abilities.
Well, I think a Darwinist would argue that nature can and does get it wrong the vast majority of the time. But once in a while something goes "right" and allows for a new type of something or other. Part of the problem is that in the development of one type of organism to another, any apparent intermediate stage would not be advantageous, and would probably be lethal. Similarly in the video if any of the steps didn't work just right, then nothing happened. It had to be organized by an intelligent agent in order for it to function.

Also, nature allows a mechanism for flexibility to handle changes in the environment where this system does not... so that argues against strict analogy... but still argues for a designer in my view... why is that?
I think you (and I) believe that because "flexibility" does not necessarily repudiate irreducibility. Just because a system is diverse enough to handle changes, it doesn't follow that the system is simpler or not as irreducible. You still have to ask how the system came to be, as well as how it will continue to be. The fact that it now has the capacity to handle changes in the environment without failing doesn't imply at all that such a capacity is how it came into existence in the first place.