Intelligent Design: Irreducible Complexity?

[Esquilax]

I asked for step by step development. Why would you jump in and claim to know all the steps if you don't?

Except that you asked for a step by step process, got it, and then decided that it's not good enough because it doesn't describe things that happened before step one. How far back do you want to go, John? Are you going to be criticizing me because my step by step guide of the development of the eye doesn't tell you how life began?

Then circadian rhythms aren't a reason that a light sensitive cell is advantageous.

That's true, which is why I never claimed it was, and nor did the source you quoted. However, being able to more accurately set a circadian rhythm is an advantageous trait.

How does the organism know what to do with that information? Again, I could have a light sensitive cell on my elbow, but it's not doing me any good.

This question is almost madness. You do know what "light sensitive" entails, yes? It means the cells in question are... sensitive to, you know, light? If you have photoreceptive cells on your elbow that aren't connected to anything then how are they any different from regular cells? What you're saying is this: "I could have light sensitive cells that aren't light sensitive, but those wouldn't do me any good!" Being light sensitive requires that the organism have a sense for light.

As for why an organism might react to that? Well, for one, those that didn't would be weeded out of the gene pool, as light sensitivity wouldn't be conferring a survival advantage to that particular creature if it doesn't react to the data being fed to it, in an environment where the only possible things interacting with it would be via predation or obstruction. Secondly, we're talking about a very simple organism here; reacting to simple stimuli in rote ways is pretty much what it's built for.

How does the organism know that a signal from one cell indicates one direction, while a signal from another indicates another direction?

Do you understand just how fucking petty it is to ask questions about the thought processes of long dead animals?

As it stands, it's a simple matter of actually thinking about the mechanics of this: in a flat eyespot the only direction one can sense light is "forward" relative to you. With a cupped eyespot, light that would need to be directly ahead to register in a flat spot can now register earlier by hitting the edge of the cup, causing you to head toward a light that you might have missed entirely with the limited range of vision afforded by a flat eyespot. Even that limited scope is worth something.

How is the organism being signaled from those cells?

Same way as with flat spots, only now over a wider area. This is actually in the resource I linked you, so it's interesting that you spent time looking at nitpicks, but not actually absorbing the information therein.

How does the organism know that a signal from those cells indicates danger?

Let's be really clear, here: these organisms don't really "know" anything, they aren't that cognitively advanced. But in an environment like they were in, the organism that reacts by moving away from something blocking the light source avoids predators that others don't, and thus survives where they don't. Being careful is always an advantage, even if it's an autonomic, indiscriminate caution.

According to the TO link I provided, "most neutral alleles are lost soon after they appear."

So?

I asked for a step by step explanation. If you can't provide that, you shouldn't have butted in.

Look, if the answer is "initially they developed through a random mutation via the imperfect replication of genomic data during reproduction," then that is the goddamn answer to the question. Don't then pretend that the answer hasn't been given because it's not guided and intentional enough for you. I'm expected to give the answer that's true, not the answer you'd like.

Impossible? No, but every time you need to posit neutral mutations hanging around, you're unwittingly supporting irreducible complexity. You don't seem to know what the irreducible complexity argument is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity

Irreducible complexity (IC) is an argument by proponents of intelligent design that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler, or "less complete" predecessors, through natural selection acting upon a series of advantageous naturally occurring, chance mutations.

So, when I ask for a step by step explanation in a thread on irreducible complexity, it's implied that each step is advantageous on its own.

Sorry, the fact that you don't understand evolution and neither do the ID fucktards doesn't suddenly make my argument wrong. Advantageous mutations have never been the only mutations to persist via evolution, and so to pretend that they must be in order to kowtow to your officious harping on individual words would simply be wrong.

But if you really think that saying that neutral mutations had a hand in the evolution of something is tantamount to calling it irreducibly complex because we're not attributing it all to advantageous mutations only, then you are gravely misunderstanding what the aim of intelligent design and irreducible complexity is, or you're just attempting to score points.

It's trivial to say that anything that exists could possibly have evolved if you allow neutral mutations to build up until they're advantageous.

I'm sorry that the argument isn't conveniently assailable to your incorrect stance on the matter, but that's what happens when you're right. You've basically come out and said that evolution as it actually happens in biology can't be correct because it's harder to argue against than your strawman version.

Besides, unlike the ID people, real science doesn't work by just making things up that might have happened and stopping there. No, we actually have, like, data and observations that show how the eye evolved, not just a convenient story that's consistent.

It's so very telling that one of your contentions here is that my position is so general that if I were to just make things up it'd be easy, though. Emblematic of your approach to science, there.