Irreducible Complexity

In answering yet another round of G’s talking points on design theory and those of us who advocate it, I have outlined a summary of design thinking and its links onward to debates on theology,  that I think is worth being  somewhat adapted, expanded and headlined. With your indulgence: _______________ >> The epistemological warrant for origins science is no mystery, as Meyer and others have summarised. {Let me clip from an earlier post  in the same thread: Let me give you an example of a genuine test (reported in Wiki’s article on the Infinite Monkeys theorem), on very easy terms, random document generation, as I have cited many times: One computer program run by Dan Oliver of Scottsdale, Arizona, according Read More ›

Newbie commenter Andre, in an exchange with Mr Matzke, asks some interesting questions concerning DNA. First, let us remind ourselves of what we are discussing, courtesy NIH: Next, Andre’s comment: DNA has the following; 1. Functional Information 2. Encoder 3. Error correction [4]. Decoder . . . can you please show me in a step by step fashion how such a system could randomly without any intelligence, and totally unguided build itself? Where did the functional information come from? What was first the encoder? The decoder? Error correction? Functional information? This is an irreducibly complex system any part removed and the system fails to function. Can you prove otherwise . . . ? It would be interesting to see the Read More ›

Sometimes, we run across a sleeper that just begs to be headlined here at UD. EA’s short primer on ID, drawn up in Sept 2003, is such a sleeper. Let’s observe: __________ >> Brief Primer on Intelligent Design   Having read a fair amount of material on intelligent design and having been involved in various discussions on the topic, I decided to prepare this brief primer that I trust will be useful in clarifying the central issues and in helping those less familiar with intelligent design understand its basic propositions. This is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis of intelligent design, nor is it intended to respond to criticisms.  Rather, this represents my modest attempt to avoid the side Read More ›

Going back to my undergraduate days, I have long been struck by the engineering elegance and intrinsic beauty of that familiar icon of intelligent design, the bacterial flagellar nano-motor. In tribute to this masterpiece of design, I have just published a detailed (31 pages, inclusive of references) literature review in which I describe the processes underlying its self-assembly and operations. My essay also attempts to evaluate the plausibility of such a system having evolved by natural selection. Here’s a short excerpt to whet your appetite. The bacterial flagellum is a reversible, self-assembling, rotary nano-motor associated with the majority of swimming bacteria. There exists a number of different models of this rotary motor (Pallen and Matzke, 2006; Soutourina and Bertin, 2003). Read More ›

The vid is embedded here at 640 wide. Appealing to the WordPress gods to allow an embed here: [youtube 00vBqYDBW5s] And, let me clip the linked KF post: . . . Of course, there is a hot — and too often quite uncivil — controversy surrounding the inference to design on empirically tested signs such as complex, functionally specific organisation and associated information, or irreducibly complex functional organisation. However, much of that controversy is not driven by the actual balance on the merits but by the determination of institutionally dominant evolutionary materialist factions to retain their (now fast-crumbling) hold on science, the academy, education, most mass media, public policy and the public square. Sometimes, even the pulpit. If you doubt Read More ›

For some time now, one of the ID Foundations series, has been on the UD “most popular” list. I had occasion to visit it just now, to see why. I found a statement by a Mr Peter Griffin regarding an exchange with the pseudonymous anti design theory web personality known as Zachriel, and find myself compelled to reply to the issue of violation of confidence and willful poisoning and polarisation of issues by embroiling attacks to the person. In particular, I must note how this post plainly reflects a violation of confidence of correspondence in the teeth of an explicit act of protest regarding earlier violation of confidence. It seems that Zachriel thought he could get away with such violation Read More ›