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Specified complexity

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  • Originally posted by DayOneish View Post
    There is one thing you're right about, yet ironically, it's actually further evidence for I.D.: human intelligence has never been able to engineer life from non-life. So, while life uses the same tools and principles we're familiar with, it uses them at a level which blows our scientists and engineers away. That's evidence for I.D., not against it. After all, if even brilliant men can't create life, there's no logical reason to believe a fortuitous chemical soup could.
    So life could be designed because we can't engineer it. Obviously if we could and did engineer life from non-life that would also be evidence that life could be designed.

    So both us being able to engineer life and us not being able to engineer life lead to the same conclusion. How convenient.
    The designer-free explanation is incredibly weak, and since science is ultimate a competition of explanatory hypothesis, when one explanation is weakened, the alternative is simultaneously strengthened.
    Er... no. Not least because there is invariably more than one alternative.
    If you gentleman don't start arguing in good faith and with reason and logic, I'm not even going to waste my time here.
    DayOneish is a fortuitous name. He may not manage DayTwo.
    Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

    MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
    MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

    seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

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    • Originally posted by Seeker View Post
      To conclude, try to do two things: define what ''specified'' means in the context of this discussion, and by extension, try to to define ''specified complexity'' in a way that is not circular.
      Which I posted a reply to, which you have not responded to!

      He's saying the argument is circular because the word specified is circular.
      Well, how so? Referencing the definition of "specified" that I posted.

      Blessings,
      Lee
      "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

      Comment


      • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
        Actually no, 'looking designed' from Dempski's nor your perspective is an anecdotal claim.
        Not if the object passes Dembski's explanatory filter.

        The flagellum has been adequately described by science as naturally evolved with no evidence of the so called ID 'specified complexity' that would determine that it could not have evolved naturally
        Well, the last answer I got was "scaffolding", to which I replied with a question: So this means that something more complex than a flagellum needed to evolve first?

        Even functioning organelles related to flagellum with missing parts are known to be functional in other organisms.
        References, please?

        Blessings,
        Lee
        "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

        Comment


        • Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
          Not if the object passes Dembski's explanatory filter.
          You've been unable to explain how the explanatory filter can be used objectively - in fact, you've admitted it can't be. As such, it's subject to personal opinion, and thus arbitrary.

          Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
          Well, the last answer I got was "scaffolding", to which I replied with a question: So this means that something more complex than a flagellum needed to evolve first?
          That wasn't about the flagellum. That was about IC systems in general. For the flagellum, see immediately b

          Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
          References, please?
          You discussed the Matzke review YOURSELF. Do you even pay attention to your own arguments?
          "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

          Comment


          • Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
            You've been unable to explain how the explanatory filter can be used objectively - in fact, you've admitted it can't be. As such, it's subject to personal opinion, and thus arbitrary.
            All opinions are arbitrary?!

            You discussed the Matzke review YOURSELF.
            As I recall, Matzke proposes that the flagellum is derived from a secretory system. This would not be "functioning organelles related to flagellum with missing parts are known to be functional in other organisms", i.e. a flagellum with missing parts is functional.

            Blessings,
            Lee
            "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

            Comment


            • Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
              All opinions are arbitrary?!
              Yes. Opinions are not evidence. I wouldn't have thought that needed to be explained.
              "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from trolling."

              Comment


              • Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                All opinions are arbitrary?!
                Yes.

                As I recall, Matzke proposes that the flagellum is derived from a secretory system. This would not be "functioning organelles related to flagellum with missing parts are known to be functional in other organisms", i.e. a flagellum with missing parts is functional.
                Yes.
                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                Frank

                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                  Which I posted a reply to, which you have not responded to!


                  Well, how so? Referencing the definition of "specified" that I posted.
                  No you did not give an adequate explanation how 'specified' that you posted remotely applied to science, nor how your view of specified complexity' leads to a falsifiable hypothesis. I gave a constructive falsifiable use of how 'specified complexity' is relevant to science.
                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                    Not if the object passes Dembski's explanatory filter.
                    No known object has ever been falsified by a hypothesis as not capable of forming naturally based Dempski's explanatory filter.

                    Well, the last answer I got was "scaffolding", to which I replied with a question: So this means that something more complex than a flagellum needed to evolve first?

                    References, please?
                    Provided many references which you have failed to respond to, nor apparently understand.

                    Sources relevant to Dempski's claims. The video is ok for understanding on a basic level of organic chemistry.

                    Source: http://evolutionfaq.com/faq/isnt-it-true-bacterial-flagellum-could-not-have-evolved


                    Isn't it True That the Bacterial Flagellum Could Not Have Evolved?

                    This is a statement often asserted by proponents of Intelligent Design, but it is simply not true. The argument goes that since the flagellum (the tail-like structure many bacteria have which helps them "swim") is a very complex machine, it could not have evolved naturally. This is because if you remove any of the proteins that make up the flagellum's motor, it can no longer function.

                    However, as this video beautifully demonstrates, the flagellum does function with fewer proteins, just not as a flagellum. Every part of the flagellum is made of proteins already in the cell, performing other functions. This is one of the most interesting aspects of Evolution: that adaptations can change roles, or combine with other adaptations to perform new roles.

                    © Copyright Original Source



                    Source: https://ncse.com/creationism/analysis/claims-evolution-flagella



                    [Dempski's] Claims about evolution of flagella

                    Submitted by Susan Spath on August 5, 2008 - 17:20

                    Claim: "[T]he proteins in the motor are older than those in the pump"

                    Explore Evolution again misleads readers. This issue is currently debated within the community of flagellum researchers (reviewed briefly in Pallen & Matzke 2006), and about half the papers go each way. The definitive study has not yet been done. Even if it turns out that the type 3 secretion system is derived from the flagellum, it will still prove that (a) Behe was wrong that reduced subsets of "irreducibly complex" systems "are by definition not functional", and (b) that a subset of flagellum parts has a plausible function different from motility. Furthermore, only the ID advocates think that the type 3 secretion system is the only known relative of the flagellum: the actual scientific community, in contrast, knows of several others.

                    Claim: The pump only accounts for 10 of the 30 proteins

                    Furthermore, critics of co-option point out that the bacterial motor is a machine with about 30 structural parts. While roughly 10 of these protein parts are found in the needle-nose pump, the other 20 are found in no other known bacteria or organism. They are unique. So, where are you going to 'borrow' them from? they ask.10
                    This is yet another claim copied straight from the ID literature. Here are several previous examples:

                    It follows that the TTSS does not explain the evolution of the flagellum (despite the handwaving of Aizawa 2001). Nor, for that matter, does the bacterial flagellum explain in any meaningful sense the evolution of the TTSS. The TTSS is after all much simpler than the flagellum. The TTSS contains ten or so proteins that are homologous to proteins in the flagellum. The flagellum requires an additional thirty or forty proteins, which are unique.

                    William A. Dembski (2003). "Still Spinning Just Fine: A Response to Ken Miller." DesignInference.com. February 17, 2003.

                    With the bacterial flagellum, you're talking about a machine that's got 40 structural parts. Yes, we find 10 of them are involved in another molecular machine, but the other 30 are unique! So where are you going to borrow them from? Eventually you're going to have to account for the function of every single part as originally having some other purpose. So you can only follow that argument so far until you run into the problem of you're borrowing parts from nothing.

                    Scott Minnich (2003), in the video Unlocking the Mystery of Life, online at The Apologia Project.

                    Miller's scenario faces at least key three difficulties. First, the other thirty or so proteins in the flagellar motor are unique to it and are not found in any other living system. From where, then, were these protein parts co-opted?

                    Stephen C. Meyer (2004). "Verdict on the Bacterial Flagellum Premature: A Response to Begley's ‘Evolution Critics Come Under Fire…' in the Wall Street Journal." Discovery Institute website, February 19, 2004.

                    Additionally, the other thirty proteins in the flagellar motor (that are not present in the TTSS) are unique to the motor and are not found in any other living system. From whence, then, were these protein parts co-opted?

                    Minnich (2005) expert report, March 31, 2005 / Scott A. Minnich & Stephen C. Meyer (2004). "Genetic Analysis of Coordinate Flagellar and Type III Regulatory Circuits in Pathogenic Bacteria." Second International Conference on Design & Nature, Rhodes Greece. Wessex Institute of Technology, September 1, 2004.

                    With regards to the flagellum at least 2/3 of the parts are not known to be shared with any other structure therefore might not be even a sub-part of another system at all.
                    Casey Luskin (2006). "Do Car Engines Run on Lugnuts? A Response to Ken Miller & Judge Jones's Straw Tests of Irreducible Complexity for the Bacterial Flagellum." Evolution News & Views. April 19, 2006.

                    In the Unlocking video, Scott Minnich stands in his microbiology lab and quietly assesses the Darwinian TTSS scenario. Yes, he says, it is remotely possible that the TTSS injector came first, and he affirms that its ten proteins do seem to parallel or match the core proteins of the flagellum. But that's where you bump into a huge problem. Where did the cell find the other thirty or so proteins to build incrementally from the TTSS all the way to a rotary-motor flagellum? You come to the point where you are borrowing from nothing, and the plausibility of the scenario fades quickly.
                    [...]

                    Many observers watching the shifting battles over Behe's theory feel that Kenneth Miller was premature in loudly declaring victory, insisting that the flagellum could possibly have evolved from the TTSS, when the evidence indicates that the TTSS was the fruit of reverse-evolution. Miller's exercise in hand-waving (arguing that the TTSS led right on to the flagellum) has always depended upon the other thirty proteins – floating in from the cellular environment. But what's the source? Are they just easily bubbling up from day-to-day cellular processes, in wondrous variety, ready to be recruited to build from ten TTSS proteins up to the flagellum's set of forty?here

                    Thomas Woodward (2006). Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, p. 80. Italics original.
                    The ID proponents are all telling the exact same story as Explore Evolution. (The difference between 20 or 30 unique proteins depends on whether or not regulatory proteins are included.) And they seem terribly confident that they know what they are talking about. After all, the flagellum is the "icon of ID," the ID movement's flagship example of something that could not have evolved, and must have been intelligently designed instead. Explore Evolution repeats the talking points almost word-for-word, with the only difference being that the "intelligent design" conclusion is tactically left out. Scott Minnich seems to be the original authority for the claim, and he is a published researcher on type 3 secretion systems. Furthermore, Minnich made the same claim in his expert report for the Kitzmiller case. As a named coauthor of Explore Evolution, he presumably checked or edited this section of the textbook, if he made any substantial contribution to the book at all.

                    Apart from dishonestly pretending that Explore Evolution is not making an ID argument here, the only problem with the "20+ proteins are unique to the flagellum, where did they come from?" argument is that it is wildly, hopelessly, false, and is obviously so to anyone familiar with the actual scientific literature and data on the subject. Pallen & Matzke (2006) reviewed the evidence on this specific point and published a table listing all 42 "standard" flagellar proteins (structural and regulatory) in the most-studied lab strains of E. coli and Salmonella typhimurium.

                    Here is a summary of the table published in Pallen & Matzke (2006) (the table is freely available online here):

                    Total number of proteins listed: 42
                    (this table excludes the chemotaxis proteins; there are ~10 chemotaxis proteins in standard E. coli, but the number can range from 0 to 10+ in various bacteria)

                    Total number thought to be indispensable in modern flagella: 23 (55%)
                    Total number "unique" (no known homologs): 15 (36%)
                    Total number of indispensable proteins that are also "unique": 2 (5%)

                    © Copyright Original Source

                    Last edited by shunyadragon; 02-20-2019, 07:41 PM.
                    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                    go with the flow the river knows . . .

                    Frank

                    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by lee_merrill View Post
                      Well, how so? Referencing the definition of "specified" that I posted.
                      You mean this one?
                      For a pattern to count as a specification, the important thing is not when it was identified but whether in a certain well-defined sense it is independent of the event it describes. … to count as specifications, patterns must be suitably independent of events. I refer to this relation of independence as detachability … For side information to detach a pattern from an event, it must satisfy two conditions, a conditional independence condition and a tractability condition. … the tractability condition requires that the side information enable us to construct the pattern D to which [event] E conforms.


                      I asked you three times for an example of a gene sequence that was independent of DNA, and you dodged every time. You have not shown that a gene sequence can be constructed from side information. You simply assert that gene sequences and DNA are independent over and over and over.

                      The argument is circular because your specification is assumed to exist based on your conclusion, and never actually provided.

                      You've had 19 pages of posts and every single one of them confirms what I said in post #2: "[Specified complexity is] a con because the things IDers claim have specified complexity aren't actually specified anywhere. "
                      Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                      MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                      MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                      seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                      Comment


                      • On what basis "evidence" it's all random? Again you've failed to prove anything and decided to come out with more nonsense. At least beagle makes an attempt. Says a lot. Yes I guess the mechanics of photosynthesis is random too *giggles*.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by JohnHermes View Post
                          On what basis "evidence" it's all random? Again you've failed to prove anything and decided to come out with more nonsense. At least beagle makes an attempt. Says a lot. Yes I guess the mechanics of photosynthesis is random too *giggles*.
                          That post certainly made no sense whatsoever.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by HMS_Beagle View Post
                            That post certainly made no sense whatsoever.
                            I thought so too.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                              No you did not give an adequate explanation how 'specified' that you posted remotely applied to science, nor how your view of specified complexity' leads to a falsifiable hypothesis. I gave a constructive falsifiable use of how 'specified complexity' is relevant to science.
                              Well, all this does not tell me why the word "specified" is circular.

                              Blessings,
                              Lee
                              "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
                                Yes. Opinions are not evidence.
                                Well, even if I grant you your point, that doesn't mean all opinions are arbitrary!

                                Blessings,
                                Lee
                                "What I pray of you is, to keep your eye upon Him, for that is everything. Do you say, 'How am I to keep my eye on Him?' I reply, keep your eye off everything else, and you will soon see Him. All depends on the eye of faith being kept on Him. How simple it is!" (J.B. Stoney)

                                Comment

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