Thursday, July 17, 2014

North American IDists Screw Up Irreducible Complexity Definition


The North American ID movement’s concept of irreducibly complexity is badly formed; it defines irreducible complexity as the necessary juxtaposition of two or more parts in order for a function to work. But quoting a footnote to one of my blog posts :

Irreducible/reducible complexity: I don’t use these terms in the sense of Micheal Behe’s flawed concept of irreducible complexity. Irreducible complexity and reducible complexity as I conceive them are to do with how stable organic structures are laid out in configuration space. If a set of structures are reducibly complex they form a connected set in configuration space: This means that the diffusional computational process of evolution can bring about considerable change in organic structure. Irreducible complexity, on the other hand, is the opposite. That is, when such structures are widely separated in configuration space it is not possible for evolutionary diffusion to hop from one organism to another. Irreducible complexity, if defined properly (that is, not in the Behe sense), is an evolution stopper.

....the implication being that the Behe definition and that promoted by an ID site like "Uncommon Desent" is not an evolution stopper.
Further details on my view of irreducible complexity can be seen here:
The weakness of the North American concept of irreducible complexity becomes all too apparent in one of PZ Myers posts where he criticizes IDist Casey Luskin’s use of the concept. See here:

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