I misspoke. I will restate. You need to address how to determine whether something is designed or not since mere observation is
absolutely not enough.
There are many things in nature with various levels of complexity that have the appearance of design but were formed by geologic processes -- certain crystalline structures, pebbles sorted sorted by size on a beach, faces on rocks, etc. The reason we know they are not designed is not because we just look at them as can tell, we know because we can tell you how they were formed.
This is no different in biology. Since we know and can explain how complex things can form from things less complex, we know they aren't designed.
The IDers must define exactly how to determine unequivocally what is designed and what is not. They must create a set of rules otherwise they create a circular argument -- It appears to be designed because it is complex. If something is complex, then it is designed.
There are no rules that they have come up with. This is merely the fallacy -
appeal to incredulity (I can't fathom how it could come about naturally, so it must be designed).
Please. You are using an argument hundreds of years old. Darwin knew about Paley's teleological argument when he discovered natural selection. You aren't saying anything new here that we haven't all heard before.
I've always found it fascinating that people stick with that particular argument. I understand the attraction to it at face value, but to me it seems that even the most rudimentary and brief exploration into it reveals this "logic" to be propped up by popsicle sticks and bubble gum. It's a shame that religion would limit or inhibit altogether such a simple lesson of life: that admitting and learning from mistakes or misconceptions will always yield improvement. Yet, the faithful are willing to turn this completely upside-down out of apparent necessity, because unfortunately for them it is this very process (at the heart of the scientific method) that ends up challenging many specific claims, and in many cases renders them completely untenable (young earth, worldwide deluge, etc.) Many methods are then employed by the faithful to attack science, but this idea that "I'll stick with the one that sticks to its guns and never changes" and therefore the evolving, improving nature of science is "wishy-washy" has to be one of the most fundamentally weak and irrational of all possible arguments. It is literally embracing stubbornness and stunting the growth of one's own knowledge as a virtue.No ID advocate has demonstrated the validity of irreducible complexity. It can be shown how the eye possibly developed in stages by examining extant species. We have microorganisms with light sensitive patches that can tell when their environment has light or not. There are species of worms that have similar light sensitive cells at the bottom of a shallow cup. We have the chambered nautilus that has a cup that begins to fold over on itself creating a sort of pinhole camera, a lensless eye that fills with water. Every step toward the modern vertebrate eye can be broken down into smaller steps that have useful functionality. The eye is not irreducibly complex.
Don't worry, I understand more than you might think since I have advanced degrees in biological sciences.
Funny, if you google
evolution of flagella you get many links explaining exactly the opposite of what you claim.
Your argument is not new, it is hundreds of years old. Darwin knew about Paley's teleological argument (argument from design) and addressed it in
Origin of Species. Like the OP, I question whether you have read it or any other book on this subject like Dawkins'
The Blind Watchmaker.
This is just a fancier version of the
appeal to incredulity.
You make the same mistake I see many make about evolution and that is that no one thinks organisms came about by single step selection like your 747 but cumulative selection, one piece at a time. Mutations are random but natural selection is the antithesis of chance and randomness. This is the whole basis behind Darwin's discovery.
I'll use an example from Dawkins about a monkey banging away at a typewriter for enough time will produce all of the words of Shakespeare. Let's just use one phrase from Hamlet, "methinks it is like a weasel"
The chance of getting the phrase of 28 letters correct at once is 1 in 27 to the power of 8 or about 1 in 10,000 million million million million million million.
However, using cumulative selection where a random set of letters can be 'bred' with a chance of random error -- 'mutation' -- in the copying. If we examine the mutant nonsense phrase and choose one that is more like, however slightly, our target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. Subsequent generations of phrases will begin to look more our goal. A computer program can be run to simulate this and the target will be reached in less than 100 'generations.'
Of course this is simplistic and partially incorrect as natural selection is not goal oriented. This does however explain the power of cumulative selection over the single step selection mischaracterization that you attributed to evolution.
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