Intelligent Design: Irreducible Complexity?

[John V]

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?

This complaint was already addressed: "However, if you'd like to move forward in the timeline, that's fine."

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.

You can't have it both ways. What did you mean when you said that circadian rhythms are very easily obtained? Are those rhyttms inaccurate? If so, why would you say they're easily obtained?

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.

No, I'm saying that I could have light sensitive cells on my elbow, but unless they're sending signals to my brain, and my brain can do something useful with that information, then those cells are of no advantage to me. You speak of predators - a predator could be coming at me from behind, and my elbow could detect its shadow. But, since my elbow isn't wired to vision centers of my brain, that does me no good.

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.

This scenario is apparently inaccurate, as the organism has survived to this point without vision of any sort.

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.

Interesting choice of words.

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

I understand that you get nasty and use the dodgy emoticon when you can't answer a question.

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.

I understand the mechanics of the cup. The question is, how does the organism know what to do with that information? A cup on my elbow is no more useful that a patch or single cell on my elbow, because the cell/patch/cup isn't wired to a part of my brain which can interpret the information, then direct other parts of my body to react in a certain way to that information.

Same way as with flat spots, only now over a wider area. This is actually in the resource I linked you,

Then you won't mind quoting it.

so it's interesting that you spent time looking at nitpicks, but not actually absorbing the information therein.

It's interesting that you spend time bitching about my questions, rather than quoting the parts of the link that supposedly answers them.

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.

First, as noted above, they already had ways of avoiding predators, or they wouldn't have been there to begin with. Second, the thing blocking the light could be a food source, and by avoiding it where others don't, they starve. IOW, your predator scenario is simplistic.

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

So?

So, it refutes the remark it responded to, unless you're merely hanging your hat on "after one generation."

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.

If you're going to overcome the irreducible complexity argument, I expect you to show step by step, with each step being sufficiently advantageous to be selected by natural selection.

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.

I quoted the wikipedia definition, and wiki is no friend of creationism.

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.

I quoted TO, an evolutionist source, on the fate of neutral mutations. You're angry that that doesn't fit with your understanding, but that's not my problem.

Besides, unlike the ID people, real science doesn't work by just making things up that might have happened and stopping there.

I'm not debating with a real scientist.

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.

seems to be your way of saying, Oh crap, I'm trapped, better go on the offensive to hide it.

If you really read up on these things, you'd know that scientists have had differing views on the role of genetic drift over the years. They really don't know how much of a role it plays.