Irreducible complexity- the challenges have been rebutted (if not refuted)

Seing how you didn't respond to my previous post, let's do a visual:A) A spider takes a standard "bagworm" approach, simply running lines between two leaves/branches/etc. Lines are fairly irregularB) The crossing of random lines increases its strengthC) The lines take a more organized crossing approach, maximizing strength while saving silkD) When running between two branches that are too far apart, the spider, instead of going all the way up when attaching its point to string, starts only partway up, and stops partway down. It treats this as its new stopping point.E) Now that the spider is climbing on its own threads, it occasionally doesn't go all the way up either, but does the occasional cross thread instead simply by taking a different route.F) the pattern of cross threads becomes more ordered, and more occur at different angles.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Are these diagrams supposed to demonstate how
simple a spiders web is to make. I'm not sure of the significance
of them. Very interesting though I must say.
I am incredulous about the nice guesswork involved in
the silk gland having a couple of intermediary uses
but you won't be because of the circular reasoning
in incremental evolution. This kind of chain of events
is about as unscientific as you can get. making hypothetical
guesses to provide the missing information in the evolution
of the web maker.

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I am incredulous about the nice guesswork involved in
the silk gland having a couple of intermediary uses
but you won't be because of the circular reasoning
in incremental evolution.

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Your personal incredulity is your sole defense against evolutionary theory?

Gemster, honestly, who cares what you're incredulous about?We deal in evidence and logic, here. So far you've presented neither. There's still time, though. You could start by pointing out what it is about the proposed pathway that you find impossible.

That would be assuming that the geometry of spider webs is determined by inheritable genes, and are not "learned" skills which cannot be passed to the offspring.
Wouldn't the geometry of spider webs be more a behavioural adaptation? And as such, for evolution to apply to it wouldn't it have to be governed by gene(s)? So anyway, have any genes been found which code for the spider's spinning behaviour?

You are right, it is unscientific. To be scientific we require evidence, and testable hypothesises. This is neither. Nor is it any kind of evidence for evolution. What it is though, is a demonstration that a spider web is not irreducibly complex, and an elegant one at that. Therefore any argument against evolution based on spiders webs being too complicated to evolve is refutted.You're earlier description of the evolution of spinnerettes however is a testable hypothesis. If it is true then the spinnerettes will be expressed by the same part of the genome as codes for their analogues in King Crabs.

Yes, spiders do need to be able to adapt to their situation. As a consequence, they follow rules, and not preset designs. However, the rules that they follow are inhereted, and are mutable. Insect brains often have clusters of neurons that perform a complete task - for example, a recent Japanese experiment involved hooking up electrodes to a cockroach's brain. Just by stimulating one part, they can make it walk forward - even though walking is a complex task involving several muscles. They made the roach able to walk and turn by remote control.If the timing were to change on the nerve cells that control that walking, it may walk in a different manner. It may race, stride, sidestep, or whatever. The same thing can apply in the length a spider is willing to travel down a thread before it decides to attach a new string there and head off in a different direction. Also affected could be things such how the spider reacts to being on different kinds of materials; the thickness of its thread that it is walking across; whether it encountered an intersection of threads; how long it has been walking on thread as opposed to leaves/branches; etc. Reactions could involve stimulating a part of the brain that codes for "walk until you reach the next intersection, then turn right". Yes, such studies (to the best of my knowlege) have not been conducted on spiders. But, given how other insect brains work, it seems quite likely that this is how they function.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Gemster writes:

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"This kind of chain of events is about as unscientific as you can get. making hypothetical guesses to provide the missing information in the evolution of the web maker. "

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This is a logical error that seems habitual in standard-issue creationists.They make a claim that something is impossible to evolve gradually, in principle.They recieve replies showing how something could evolve gradually, in principle.They counter with "but you don't have evidence that this is how in fact, things happened".That's irrelevant.If you make an argument about what can happen in principle, you don't need to counter this with evidence, because the creationist claim isn't about what did happen, it's about what could happen.Think about it - does a creationist care if a single possible evolutionary path is proven or disproven? Of course not. They want to claim that there is no possible path.Gemster - if you want to argue that the proposed pathways are impossible, please go ahead.

LOL! I misread the topic title and came up with a rather whity missnomer for ID.Incredulous complexity!HAHAHHAHAHAH!!!wow.... sorry. I had to.I'll be going now.

It's ironic how you criticise me for lack of evidence when you
have none your self. You speculate on how a spider may have come upon the ability to make webs using only natural Darwinian mechanisms
You can't prove any of them, yet you say that I am the one lacking
real evidence. The remark that evolutionist use logic and the creationists don't is moronic. Logic says that if the law of entropy always operates and the only thing to slow its working is information
ie photosynthesis etc, then the law of entropy would have destroyed all precursors essential to the formulation of a cell long before it arrived at it's irreducable complexity even if the components could come together by chance. That is logic. What you guys deal with isn't
logic. Its illogical flights of fancy based on the religious paradigm
of evolution

But there's plenty of evidence - similar structures performing slightly different actions in other species.Anyway you didn't ask us to prove that this pathway is the one that happened. All you said was "under Darwinian evolution, this is impossible." We provided a plausible evolutionary pathway. To ask for evidence that it and not another pathway happened is moving the goalposts.Essentially:Gemster: It can't happen.
Us: Yes it can, like this.
Gemster: You haven't proved that it happened that way.That's moving the goalposts. You're faulting us for not doing something you didn't ask us to do. We rebutted your original claim, that it's impossible. If you disagree you have to show us why it's impossible. Simply saying "you haven't proved that it did" is no argument at all, because we didn't say it had to happen that way, only that the most likely scenario is that it did happen that way. You just made that up, or someone did. The Second Law of Thermodynamics - the "law of entropy", as you mistakenly put it - says nothing about information. Making up stuff isn't logic.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 09-23-2003]

maybee this little piece will show you how information is related to
the second law of thermodynamics........any increase in organized complexity (i.e., decrease in entropy) invariably requires two additional factors besides an open system and an available energy supply. These are:
1. a program (information) to direct the growth in organized complexity
2. a mechanism for storing and converting the incoming energy.

Nope, without a reference, I have no reason to believe you're not making this up, or that you're getting it from somebody that's making it up. It's never appeared in any reference to the 2nd Law that I've seen. The 2nd Law is about usable energy, not complexity or order.It's called "citing your sources." Look into it. (I guess you've never been in a college-level class...)[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 09-23-2003]

This is, of course, off topic. Before it goes futher can some one find the 2nd law thread or start another.(Gemster is also wrong. The sunshining on the earth, decreases entropy here.)

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Note from a pedant:

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Technically, it's the 'Argument from Personal Incredulity' that is a logical fallacy. In other words where the argument simply consists of 'that sounds absurd to me', there is a logically valid from of the 'Argument from Incredulity' where one supports the argument with evidence for the event(s) in question being fantastically unlikely.

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Of course, of course.Thanks for the correction.