The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[Angrboda]

I can do that.  Simple: not complex.  You've got a scientific definition of complex, right?  Let's hear it.

Clearly, you cannot. Simple can be defined scientifically. Elementary particles like quarks are simple, for example. Even protons and neutrons aren't simple in this sense, let alone molecules, or sand....

You asked if I could define simple scientifically. I did. Presuming you have a scientific definition of complex. So show us that. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. You're a bit dim, aren't you?

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And that's called ignoratio elenchi.

If I argued that medical problems are issues of reduction, and I illustrated it with a paragraph on vision disorders, do you not think its relevant to cite the paper from which I pulled my descriptions of strabismus, amblyopia, and visual disorders? I consider this a lack of education on how references work.

You weren't illustrating anything but responding to a request for an example of irreducibility. This is pure revisionism. The concepts of dysfunctionality and irreducibility are distinct. You appear not to know what irreducibility is.

What was asked by Nudger was whether the paper claimed that the eye is irreducibly complex. Your argument might support the notion, but the paper does not. Quoting the APA doesn't address the question. Earlier you were asked for an example of irreducibility. Nobody disputes that biological systems can fail. What was needed was support for irreducibility, not dysfunction. An example of dysfunction might be a case of irreducibility, but it might not. Either way, it is not itself irreducibility. Your example, and your reply to this being pointed out to you are both beside the point as neither demonstrate what was in dispute. Unless the paper says that this dysfunction illustrates irreducibility, your inference that it does belongs to you, not the paper. And that inference is incorrect. You seem to not understand the concept of context. At all.

I'm going to be charitable and simply invoke Hanlon's Razor here.

(For what it's worth, medical problems may illustrate that things cannot be reduced in certain ways. But irreducibility means cannot be reduced in any way. The former does not imply the latter, so your argument is a non sequitur.)