Is complexity an argument against design?

It is amusing that a thread devoted to intelligent design quickly devolves into a discussion of religion and scripture.I thought ID was supposed to be science. What gives, eh?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

There is scientific evidence for evolution; there is no scientific evidence for an intelligent designer.ID is just a dishonest scheme cooked up to replace creation "science" after it was booted from the classrooms by the U.S. Supreme Court.The evidence is all around, and particularly at the Discovery Institute. Check out the evolution of their webpage over the years, and the infamous Wedge Strategy where they told how they were going to try to force a theocracy on us all, beginning with science (I'll provide links if you want).And it is still amusing that the proponents of ID are so wont to quote scripture and the bible rather than scientific evidence, and how many of them cry "religious persecution" the moment their brand of "science" is criticized.Ya can't have it both ways. Either ID is real science, and gets by on its merits and the evidence, or it isn't. So far it isn't.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Creation "scientists" don't get to define the methods and interpretations of science any more than astrologers and phrenologists do. That is a task (thankfully) left to scientists. You do more preaching in the science threads than anyone else I can remember.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

It has passed the point of arguing the merits of science; what we are getting is witnessing.It has reached the point that we are being told "I don't care what the facts are, I have my belief and nothing can change my mind."And as Heinlein noted:

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

You are the one who refuses to learn, or to understand, what a theory is.Science is doing fine with its definition of "theory" but you can't tolerate that definition for religious reasons, so you make up your own definition, one which you can feel comfortable with.Fine. But don't labor under the misunderstanding that what you are doing is science, or that it has any bearing on what scientists do. You are off in your own little world with your definition.This reminds me of a line...

(I don't suppose you have read much of Heinlein though.)Edited by Coyote, : Commas and periods really are different, and should remain so...

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

You have been told time and time again that in science no theories are proved, and that all sciences follow the same scientific method. You have refused to learn, and have simply descended to the point of repetitious trolling on this issue. You just make yourself look sad and defeated, without a second argument you can use.And the theory of evolution does serve a huge purpose; if it didn't, creationists wouldn't be frothing at the mouth. It serves the purpose of explaining (that is what theories do--explain) the evolution of species from a common ancestor through mutations, natural selection, genetic drift and other similar forces. There is no scientific evidence for a creator. Why should scientists introduce a creator and a bunch of dubious miracles into the life histories of plants and animals? Fundamentalist nonsense. When you run out of scientific argument (note: that's argument, not arguments), you resort to preaching. That carries no weight in a scientific discussion.In fact, based on this, we can herewith introduce: Coyote's Law:

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

IC, as presented by Behe, has been falsified.I believe the specific examples he relied on have all been discounted.The following page contains a lot of information, as well as links to pertinent articles: Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe: Do Biochemical Machines Show Intelligent Design?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Statistical analyses only produce reliable answers if you are correctly modeling the correct variables, and attributing to them the correct weightings. What are the chances of a mathematician coming up with all of the correct variables with their correct weightings when biologists can't even come close to such a model? (Reminds me of the tale wherein a mathematician proved conclusively that a bumblebee can't fly.) Try this online lecture: Making Genetic Networks Operate Robustly: Unintelligent Non-design Suffices, by Garrett Odell

This suggests that the mathematicians have been modeling biological systems very poorly, and calls into question all of their "not enough time" conclusions.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

It looks like the results of the Nature article are remarkably compatible with those in the online lecture I linked you to above.In both cases there is a great deal of robustness in the systems, and more than one pathway led to the same result.I don't see how this in any way lessens the theory of evolution or advances irreducible complexity. It is just another study that shows that irreducible complexity is neither irreducible nor too complex.If you are reading something more into this, you are ahead of me, as well as the authors.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

I read the Nature article, but the Discover article has a bad link in both of your posts.The Nature article is not kind to the hypothesis of irreducible complexity, as it shows how organisms can develop "irreducibly complex" features through a multi-step process.I believe that all, or almost all, of Behe's examples have been shown not to be irreducibly complex and that his hypothesis is now being disregarded by all but creationists.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

The relevant section from the Discover article is as follows:

When the Avida team published their first results on the evolution of complexity in 2003, they were inundated with e-mails from creationists. Their work hit a nerve in the antievolution movement and hit it hard. A popular claim of creationists is that life shows signs of intelligent design, especially in its complexity. They argue that complex things could have never evolved, because they don’t work unless all their parts are in place. But as Adami points out, if creationists were right, then Avida wouldn’t be able to produce complex digital organisms. A digital organism may use 19 or more simple routines in order to carry out the equals operation. If you delete any of the routines, it can’t do the job. “What we show is that there are irreducibly complex things and they can evolve,” says Adami.

This does not seen to offer much encouragement to the IC hypothesis. In fact, I see this as just one more instance in which it is falsified.So far, pretty much all of the claims that a particular features is irreducible complex have been falsified by someone showing how the constituent parts could have evolved.This mathematical model does the same thing.IC is one of the primary legs upon which ID has attempted to stand. So far, there is no reason to think that either IC or ID have been supported by the scientific testing of their ideas.By the way, this does not necessarily make either ID or IC scientific; so far it just makes them wrong.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

OK, you stick to creation "science" and believe what you want. I'll stick with real science that follows the evidence.To me the evidence is pretty clear.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.