Comment Irreducible Complexity and a Small God (Score 2, Insightful) 1766
Let me get this first bit out of the way. I love science, and evolution works - heck, without an evolutionary nothing in my field of study (biology) makes any sense at all. So yeah, I'm biased. But I still would like to share my views on intelligent design, so I quit lurking as AC and made an account for this post.
Anyway, let's talk about irreducible complexity. These are supposed phenomena that have occurred in science (biology in these cases) that have caused some folks to say, "Well, I can't possibly imagine how that would have come about through evolution, so this must disprove evolution - Aha! A creator!" Time and time again such "irreducibly complex" structures have arisen (and later been reduced), so that most arguments now center around the difficulty evolution would have making the first cells. I mean that's it, we have mountains of evidence for evolution in everything else, so ID boils down to observing tiny, marvelously complex things and using those observations to support a Designer.
It's been discussed here already that such a stance on a discovery would necessarily end further inquiry, and as such is particularly detrimental to scientific investigation, but what does it say about the Designer? To me, this results in what I call a small god. So you believe in an all-powerful creator who set in motion the cosmos and caused the Earth to produce life, but early on this Designer got careless or lazy, and fudged a few of the details. How is that an attractive idea? You've got a Designer who set up the universe flawlessly - except for a little bit where his evolutionary process couldn't quite cut it making I don't know, flagella or something*, so he just stuck it in there himself and called it a day. I'd much rather believe in a creator who actually made everything run smoothly on its own, who had so much foresight and cleverness that all he had to do was configure an infinitely small point of matter properly, such that it exploded into the wonderful universe we have today. To me, this is a much more attractive, larger god than the one that produces irreducible complexities. And who knows, maybe the Big Bang itself isn't irreducibly complex, as I've represented it. But the point is that we won't know if we dismiss things as irreducible and preclude scientific inquiry.
Along with the lack of qualities that describe a good scientific theory, this small-minded approach lies at the heart of my problem with ID. Just because we know how the Earth works doesn't make it any less amazing - in fact, I would argue that it makes it even more impressive. I know how plate tectonics creates mountains, but mountains are still beautiful to behold, and I feel the same way about the infinite complexity of life.
Anyway, let's talk about irreducible complexity. These are supposed phenomena that have occurred in science (biology in these cases) that have caused some folks to say, "Well, I can't possibly imagine how that would have come about through evolution, so this must disprove evolution - Aha! A creator!" Time and time again such "irreducibly complex" structures have arisen (and later been reduced), so that most arguments now center around the difficulty evolution would have making the first cells. I mean that's it, we have mountains of evidence for evolution in everything else, so ID boils down to observing tiny, marvelously complex things and using those observations to support a Designer.
It's been discussed here already that such a stance on a discovery would necessarily end further inquiry, and as such is particularly detrimental to scientific investigation, but what does it say about the Designer? To me, this results in what I call a small god. So you believe in an all-powerful creator who set in motion the cosmos and caused the Earth to produce life, but early on this Designer got careless or lazy, and fudged a few of the details. How is that an attractive idea? You've got a Designer who set up the universe flawlessly - except for a little bit where his evolutionary process couldn't quite cut it making I don't know, flagella or something*, so he just stuck it in there himself and called it a day. I'd much rather believe in a creator who actually made everything run smoothly on its own, who had so much foresight and cleverness that all he had to do was configure an infinitely small point of matter properly, such that it exploded into the wonderful universe we have today. To me, this is a much more attractive, larger god than the one that produces irreducible complexities. And who knows, maybe the Big Bang itself isn't irreducibly complex, as I've represented it. But the point is that we won't know if we dismiss things as irreducible and preclude scientific inquiry.
Along with the lack of qualities that describe a good scientific theory, this small-minded approach lies at the heart of my problem with ID. Just because we know how the Earth works doesn't make it any less amazing - in fact, I would argue that it makes it even more impressive. I know how plate tectonics creates mountains, but mountains are still beautiful to behold, and I feel the same way about the infinite complexity of life.
