Debate:Specified complexity

some idiot decided to archive this mess, a large portion of text appears to be in there twice and some may have been inadvertently removed. Sorry! Christopher (talk) 20:26, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

'As a reminder to all debaters: please sign and indent'' all comments so as to keep this semi-organised and readable. Now, debate away.''' Meh (You) 16:48, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Let's argue about who's the thirstiest
My question remains simple.... Why isn't the presence of these specifically complex functions enough evidence for intelligence?--Kingdamian1 (talk) 20:04, 26 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Because they aren't - unless #you, Kindamian1# can specifically prove that they didn't evolve naturally for some other purpose/the life forms in the pre-oxygen world did not just enjoy consuming 'cyanide flavoured other life forms.' And if there was an intelligent designer there would be #many# other things said ID would give priority to. 86.146.100.79 (talk) 21:43, 26 April 2017 (UTC)


 * And - the main problem is that #we can be poisoned by cyanide# - so not a very effective intelligent design. 86.146.100.79 (talk) 21:53, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

All of you are moving the goalposts... My goal IS NOT to show whether something could or could not have happened... neither is it to educate people about prussic acid... WHAT I AM TRYING TO SHOW here is that life's functions show OBVIOUS signs of design... Let's go with another example... the feeling of thirst................There are receptors and other systems in the body that detect a decreased volume or an increased osmolite concentration. They signal to the central nervous system, where central processing succeeds. Some sources, therefore, distinguish "extracellular thirst" from "intracellular thirst", where extracellular thirst is thirst generated by decreased volume and intracellular thirst is thirst generated by increased osmolite concentration. Nevertheless, the craving itself is something generated from central processing in the brain, no matter how it is detected. This is the mechanism for the feeling of thirst.... Fine... let's go with the Evolutionary Theory that this feeling evolved.... EVEN in that case it DOES NOT MAKE any sense... because what we have is RANDOM mutation + Natural selection..... But the feeling of thirst is SPECIFIED to drinking.... In other words a BLIND process (random mutation + natural selection).... could NOT have KNOWN that the feeling of thirst was necessary........... I will put it in another way...... The feeling of thirst is ONLY (and I do mean ONLY) relevant IF (and ONLY IF)... there already is the need and the ABILITY to drink water..... The water drinking ability is a DIFFERENT MECHANISM....... The feeling of thirst IS completely different..... According to evolutionary theory they must have evolved separately..... WHICH DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE.... because someone HAD TO KNOW that this feeling WOULD BE NECESSARY FOR survival.... In other words their is a NEED for someone who KNOWS that the ability to drink is already present.... The need to drink (organism needing water).... is already present..... And now there is a need for a SIGNAL... which functions DIFFERENTLY....... Such SPECIFIED COMPLEXITY cannot come from a BLIND PROCESS.... Thank you!--Kingdamian1 (talk) 03:09, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

So you have moved on from cyanide - but your argument #still# does not provide evidence for 'Specified Complexity' - any more than, for example, 'a collection of decorative crystals' does - and you have to counter #each and every# entry in List of mistakes made by God. RW users (and wikians across much of the wikiverse) do need a lot more convincing than you provide.

It is convention not to use more than three full stops in a row, and not to use too much capitalisation (Judith Butcher 'Butcher's Copy-editing' is a standard reference work - a pdf is available). 86.191.125.229 (talk) 09:43, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * 86.191.125.229 - let's not be grammar Nazis, mmk? But it's a valid point that Damian needs to utilise. Now, Damian, do you understand how natural selection works? Yes, it is a blind force. No, it does not know that the feeling of thirst was necessary. But I think you're missing the point of natural selection. The organism which had a mutation for the feeling of thirst, even in a rudimentary form, would have been better suited to pass on its genes than another organism because it would have been - well - not dead. After a lot of time, the rudiments of thirst would have been selected for because they were helping the organism to survive and pass along its genes. #Can'tComeUpWithACleverSignature 13:13, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I understand natural selection... but here are the problems with that.......... 1st) Mutations are RANDOM... in your theory this VITAL function is by CHANCE... I DO KNOW that natural selection IS NOT CHANCE... however mutations ARE!.... 2) The brain controls many such functions (e.g urge to urinate, hunger, bowel movement urge, urge to breathe etc).... I ask us all, is it REASONABLE to suppose that these VITAL functions which seem closely related (as in they would need similar kind of mutations)... are simply a genetic copying error which then happened to be useful? 3)Mutations are mostly neutral... MANY are damaging... and there are ANOTHER kind of mutations, IN A BACTERIA... which are called beneficiary (e.g nylonase)... BUT THEY ARE NOT RANDOM... We have yet to bring an example of a truly RANDOM mutation which resulted in a gain of information.... But we are not just talking about SOME information... We are talking about SPECIFIED information....

If we assume that these mutations of thirst HAD TO closely COINCIDE with the ability to drink... This theory is starting to seem more unlikely.... I'll put it in another way.... (you dont have to answer....) .... Which evolved first... The need to drink (your body needing hydration), The ability to drink..... Or the feeling of thirst, and how long did they exist without each other???....... As these functions ARE VITAL... and work ONLY together... I find it ABSURD that these VITAL functions are just genetic copying errors...--Kingdamian1 (talk) 22:23, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Here's the issue with your point: you start with an a priori assumption that organism A is complex enough to 1) need to drink, 2) have the ability to drink, and 3) have the feeling of thirst. You've done a wonderful job here, as if we start with an a priori assumption and work backwards, those three traits are nigh impossible to disentangle from one another. But, if we start at 0 and work forwards without assumptions, we see that it isn't necessarily so difficult of a problem.


 * We must start at 0 with single celled organisms. Take the amoeba, for example. This organism neither A) drinks nor B) has the ability to drink, nor C) has the feeling of thirst. But, it still takes in water to remain isotonic with the surrounding environment. Now, the amoeba is a fairly complex example, even in its single celled state, but the principle still holds for all single cell organisms at the beginning of life. They would have taken in water, passively or actively, in order to remain isotonic. Note that this is not a conscious decision to drink. It is a reaction to the environment. The organism is not drinking water and does not have thirst, nor does it have the ability to drink. If we work forward, as we move towards more complex multi-cellular organisms, it would make sense that a passive intake of water begins to become an active intake of water, perhaps to maintain a turgid state (should it have a cell wall and not simply a plasma membrane), or perhaps so that it can transfer water to other cells in the same organism that may not be in contact with the water source. Note again that this is not a conscious organism and that it is not thinking about drinking and it is not drinking, nor does it feel thirst. It is remaining isotonic. At this point, if we make the assumption that you meant 'drink' to mean 'to take in water', then we have 1) covered.


 * Our multi-celled organism, as it grew larger than it was in the last paragraph, would happen upon the rudiments of what you would call the act of drinking. Though it is not a conscious life form, actively taking in water forms the basis of the act of drinking. Now we have 1) and 2) covered.


 * Finally, as we approach conscious life, the feeling of thirst arises as our now multitude-of-cells organisms don't have to remain isotonic to the environment in the traditional sense, like a single cell would. The need to take in water obviously remains, but as it doesn't have the drive to remain isotonic because it is approaching a more.. mobile form of life, like an animal, the feeling of thirst would evolve in order to drive the organism to seek and drink water. It's not a drive to remain isotonic so much as it is a drive to stay alive. Does this make sense? I do hope so.


 * On an unrelated note, check Richard Lenski's work with E. Coli and you'll see a random mutation that results in a gain of information. "But," I hear you saying, "You're telling me something I already know! That's in bacteria you idi-"


 * I'm phrasing it wrong. My apologies. "BUT.. that was in BACTERIA and its a BENEFICIAL mutation.. NOT RANDOM CHANCE.." to which I reply, yes, it was in bacteria and yes, it was random, but no, it's not a 'beneficial' mutation like I think you're thinking of. A beneficial mutation is a mutation that gives resistance to penicillin. Based on the amount of antibiotics that the U.S. prescribes, it was inevitable and hardly random chance. Lenski's work, on the other hand, saw a Citrate- colony of E. Coli mutate and become Citrate+, which was unprecedented and, frankly, random. It resulted in a net gain of information. #Can'tComeUpWithACleverSignature 01:43, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

You do not seem to objecting to the term RANDOM MUTATION..... this is a genetic copy of your DNA that isn't perfect... In your writing you give a timeline in which it would be necessary to develop this feeling of thirst... What are the chances of that random mutation happening at that timeline when IT WAS NECESSARY.... let me put it in another way... We do agree that the feeling of thirst is ABSOLUTELY necessary for survival... If we follow the evolutionary model, we can give a rough timeline when this would be NECESSARY... But along with this we do accept that changes happen through random copying mistakes in the DNA.... This is cognitive dissonance.... RANDOMNESS does not know purpose, order or anything like that.... NATURAL SELECTION can ONLY work with the random mutations that OCCUR... it cannot develop new mutations....

Lenski's works should stay, as you put it, on the side note.... Because... NONE of them have been able to show the type of mutation necessary... and the WHOLE experiment is based on the assumption that evolution happened!!

I did not cherry-pick bacteria, so as to make your argument less convincing... but the bacteria function way different from us... And some of them use horizontal gene transfer function to actually develop these mutations.... so it might be confusing...

Your example of antibiotic resistance is an over used one.... AND IT DOES NOT SHOW THE TYPE OF MUTATION necessary for microbe-man evolution... It is roughly the same one used for the nylon-eating bacteria... Antibiotic resistance is a GOOD example of natural selection (which is observable)... But nothing really that would attempt to illustrate Specified Complexity being developed...

You also avoid to answer that the mechanism of developing thirst... would roughly have to be the same for the feeling of hunger (SPECIFIED for eating).... the urge to urinate (SPECIFIED to fluid excretion)... The urge to breathe (SPECIFIED to carbon dioxide build-up).... and the corneal (or the blink) reflex (SPECIFIED to eye protection)....

I ask a SIMPLE QUESTION... and I need a YES or NO answer... IS IT REASONABLE to suppose that these SPECIFIED functions all started out as a random copying mistake--Kingdamian1 (talk) 17:17, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

You are asking the wrong questions.

There #are# random copying changes - which will be varyingly neutral, positive or negative #in the particular environment in which the entity now inhabits or comes to inhabit#. And most of these changes are subtle/long term (some 'results' are incompatible with surviving or allowing the entity to reproduce and others which enable the gene-holder to better survive and/or reproduce slightly better than non-holders will take time to spread through the population.

And most changes are gradual/cumulative rather than 'flip-over entirely to new set up.' 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:55, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Whether gradually or not... the question is still unanswered... I need a yes or no... Is it reasonable to suppose that the above examples STARTED OUT (initially began)... as RANDOM copying mistakes?--Kingdamian1 (talk) 16:57, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

The whole point is #There is no yes or no answer# - some of the aspects are totally random, but these changes and the particular environment can (and sometimes do) result in particular consequences (including complexity). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:23, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

The functions I have named... Blood clotting... Blink reflex... Thirst... Pain... Balance... Breathing reflex....Is it reasonable to assume that these particular functions started out as a random copying mistake... Yes or no? Is it or is it NOT reasonable to assume that these particular functions started out as an imperfect copy of DNA that later happened to be advantageous? Wether they started out as COMPLETELY RANDOM or not.... If their BEGINNING was not random.... then tell me what... if it was, then answer me if that is reasonable! --Kingdamian1 (talk) 20:30, 2 May 2017 (UTC)