Quote:
Originally Posted by Stu Pidasso
Intelligent design makes a prediction that some organisms will have attributes that are irreducibly complex. Irreducible complexity (IC) is an argument made 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.
ID also argues that that one can rigorously show by applying no free lunch theorems the inability of evolutionary algorithms to select or generate configurations of high specified complexity.
You claim ID depends on the words of Jesus. Now is your chance to tell us what, if anything, did Jesus have to say about the No Free Lunch Theorem or Irreducible Complexity
Stu
Are you really asking people to show why ID is fundamentally different from String Theory? You see the word theory twice and think it means the same thing in both cases? You're asking for this thread to turn into a microcosm of ID at its root.
There is a reason that the P=NP problem is still open. It's basically because we don't know if they're distinct classes of problems, or if we just haven't figured a way to solve the NP ones yet. See, nobody will honestly assert that NP is not equal to P, unless someone devises a clever proof by contradiction and uses that as the base assumption.
Any assertion of Irreducible Complexity is going to be indefinitely open, and while sounding scientific it's really just a fancy name tagged on a way to get a "gap god" tossed into the science classroom.
The No Free Lunch whatever is yet another way of attacking open questions and asserting that the lack of an answer right now implies a designer.
So we have the same concept from 2 angles. If you don't have an answer, propose a designer. Surely you see that the 2 theorems you just tossed out are the exact same thing in different guises. Every single theorem of ID can be boiled down to the same. I'm not patient enough to step through every other potential ID assertion and explain why they, too, are saying exactly the same fundamental thing.
So, much like you claim that you don't comprehend the fundamental difference between ID and String Theory, and I take the bait and explain it, ID is attempting to do the thing on every level imaginable.
"The eyeball is irreducibly complex."
"No it isn't, here's why."
"Crap. OK, the elbow is irreducibly complex."
"Nope. Here's why."
"OK, here's another body part that is irreducibly complex."
"OK, I don't know that one yet, but we're working on it."
"IT MIGHT BE A DESIGNER!"
The same holds true for every single aspect of ID, and is precisely why it's worthless. To ever prove that there is a designer, you must first prove that we kow everything that there is to possibly