Atheists - Where is the fallacy in this statement?

Question

Life is built on information, contained in that molecule of heredity, DNA. Natural selection is a logical process that can be observed. However, selection can only operate on the information already contained in genes - it does not produce new information. Without a way to increase information, natural selection will not work as a mechanism for evolution. All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it. Scientists have found that within the cell, there are thousands of what can be called biochemical machines. All of their parts have to be in place simultaneously or the cell can't function. Biochemist Dr Michael Behe (see The mousetrap man) uses the term 'irreducible complexity' in describing such biochemical 'machines'. It always takes (greater) information to produce information, and ultimately information is the result of intelligence. Code systems require an intelligent origin or inventor. More...

There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this. We can therefore deduce that the huge amount of information in living things must originally have come from an intelligence, an infinite being not bound by limitations of time, space, knowledge, or anything else. Without an a priori restriction as to 'acceptable' explanations, it becomes clear that God, or a Godlike being, MUST exist.

Answer 1

Ah... I see that you have copied and pasted from Ken Ham, at answersingenesis.com... without providing a citation for your source. answersingenesis is a notorious 'Liars for Jesus' (LFJ) web site, famous for misquoting scientists, misrepresenting scientific data and outright lies. Many of those lies and misrepresentations are so egregious that some Creationist organizations have disavowed them.

Between extton and elrddm, the first part of this was handled quite nicely, so I'll let that be, and jump right to the end...

"There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this."

< First of all, there really is no such thing as a 'natural law'. All that the phrase 'natural law' denotes is a system of dynamic interactions or relationships that is observed to occur in nature, and for which scientists have noticed a mathematical relationship which can be applied to predict future conditions or deduce previous conditions within that context. Rest assured that there are many such systems or dynamic interactions for which scientists HAVE NOT yet noticed a mathematical relationship.>

"We can therefore deduce that the huge amount of information in living things must originally have come from an intelligence, an infinite being not bound by limitations of time, space, knowledge, or anything else. Without an a priori restriction as to 'acceptable' explanations, it becomes clear that God, or a Godlike being, MUST exist."


You (or should I say Ham?) seem to be making the case that 'complexity' shows the unmistakable hand of a designer, and that the degree of complexity is shown by the amount of information contained in a system... or the amount of 'information' that is required to describe it. Well, consider a pile of jagged, concreted, aggregate rocks. By your analysis, since each rock requires a huge amount of information to provide a complete detailed description, they would be characterized as 'complex'. Now imagine that among those jagged rocks lies a rock what is perfectly spherical and homogeneous. The amount of information required to precisely describe it is minimal; a material specification, the fact that it is spherical, and its radius... a shining example of 'simplicity'. So... is it really valid to denote 'complexity' as being indicitive of a designer?>

Answer 2

Every sentence is a statement. Most of these are true, and with the order you place them in, it makes the logic sound like nonsense.......

1) "...(natural) selection can only operate on the information already contained in genes - it does not produce new information.Without a way to increase information, natural selection will not work as a mechanism for evolution. "

True. Natural selection does not produce new information...
True. There needs to be a source of new information....

The key is that natural selection does not work by itself.... Natural selection plays its role after consderable genetic mutations have taken place. Natural mutations are the source. If the mutations are favorable for the existence of the species, natural selection will ensure the repetition of this new gene combination.

2) All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it.

False. Consider this... if you have a row of genes that are similar, if you mutate one of them (point mutation), you have a more unique and peculiar combination. If something is more unique and peculiar than what you had before, it contains more information, by definition.

3)...All of their parts have to be in place simultaneously or the cell can't function....

True...but there is nothing wrong with having a complex machine built out of simpler components or simpler machinery. It happens all the time. We humans can do it rapidly because we are smart. We are "smart" because we can simulate reality in our heads, and speed up the evolutionary process mentally. Remember that evolution does not claim instant, or even a moderate evolution process. Nature evolves slowwwly. This does not mean that a complex machine evolves slowly, it means that it takes a very very long while for nature to snap up a "complex process".

4) "Biochemist Dr Michael Behe (see The mousetrap man) uses the term 'irreducible complexity' in describing such biochemical 'machines'. "

Please don't cite authorities. Science does not work that way. The adjective "irreducible" is not necesarily accurate or objective, that is just this guy's opinion.

5) "It always takes (greater) information to produce information"

Not true. Read about chaos theory. Very complex structures can develop from very simple rules. Read about it, its some pretty interesting stuff.

6) "information is the result of intelligence."

Not necesarily. Intelligence operates by managing information, It does not work the other way around. Just because Humans handle information using intelligence does not mean that some intelligence created the same information. Just like a hammer is a tool for inserting nails, does not mean that existence of nails imply a hammer.

6) "Code systems require an intelligent origin or inventor."

Deciphering code systems require an intelligent **observer**....origins and inventors are just the giant leap creationists want us to believe.

Answer 3

The logical fallacy is that that statement assumes that "natural selection" is the only force at work in evolution, and that genes have no way of changing on their own.

That isn't true.

There's also another important factor: mutation. That's how genes change. There are a lot of different ways it can happen; radiation, copying errors, viral infections, etc. Here's the wikipedia article about it if you want to learn about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation

"Irreducible complexity" itself is part logical fallacy, part failure to understand biology.
It's a logical fallacy in that it assumes that if a human cannot think of how something came to be, then it must not be possible. This is incorrect; a human failure to understand something does not constitute evidence of intentional intervention by a supernatural power.

It's a failure to understand biology because it assumes that biological structures have a "purpose". They don't.
They seem to, to our human way of thinking. And when you remove a part of a mechanism, it ceases to perform the function that we see it as fulfilling.
But that's not how evolution works. A structure that fails to perform a function due to a missing part may yet perform a *different* function in this altered state, and will therefore still give an organism an evolutionary advantage.

The moustrap example: if you remove the latch from a mouse trap, you can't use it to catch mice, right? So does that mean it's irreducibly complex?
Not exactly. Without the latch, you can't catch mice. But you can still use it for other things; for example, you could use it as a clip to hold a potato chip bag closed.

It is also incorrect to state that it "always takes greater information to produce information". That's basically just a false statement; it's an unsubstantiated assumption. It's a play off of some other guy's concept of "conservation of information", which is also an unsubstantiated assumption.

It's important to understand, first, what "information" is. Information, as we use the word, is not something that is necessarily inherent in an object. Information only exists when you interpret it to exist.
For example, for a person who doesn't speak english, and doesn't know the roman alphabet, everything i've written here is nonsense. It may as well be a bunch of random lines and dots - as far as they're concerned, there may be no information here.

Genes only have information because we interpret them as having information; we give them letters, and we think of a person's DNA as being like a book or instruction manual. In reality, in terms of how they function, they're actually a lot more like cogs in a machine, or transisters in a computer.

Order is different, though. You can objectively measure the amount of order, unlike the amount of information.

For order in a system to increase, you need an input of energy. That's it; as long as you have an input of energy into a system, the order of that system can increase. It's thermodynamics.
And earth, as a system, does in fact have a constant input of energy: it gets its energy input from the sun.

Put a different way, this means that seemingly complex systems can arise on their own, without intelligent intervention, providing there's an input of energy. It happens on its own due to the way that things in the universe naturally interact.

Think of it like bees. Bees are very stupid animals; the individual bee knows, essentially, nothing. They're drones.

And yet, a bee nest is a very complex structure. It's almost like a little society of bees, where they live and work and interact.

So, how do stupid bees make a complex structure like that? By interacting with each other.
No one, individual bee knows how to make a nest. Not even the queen bee (all the queen does is reproduce; she's as stupid as the rest of them). But, because the way that they interact with each other, a form of order emerges on its own due to the simple behavior and interactions of thousands of little bees.

Same thing happens on an atomic and molecular scale; electrons and protons and atoms and so on and so forth all behave according to sets of rules, and it's the sum of their interactions that results in chemicals and objects, and in life itself.

It's called "emergent behavior". Here's the wikipedia article about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_behavior

Answer 4

well i think even if v can explain everything the question of whether god exists remains.suppose v explain everything from the beginning of the universe including the big bang.but where did that matter come from.

but i disagree with ur theory.if ur saying that these irreducibly complex structures had to b created by god working outside of the laws of nature, then y make it at that point and let it evolve.y not just make humans beings as one finished product instead of making us in an intermediate form and letting evolution doing the rest

Answer 5

Genes mutate. Individuals are selected. Populations evolve.

I found it interesting that the only sites I found that discuss your theory ("All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information") are creationist websites; no scientific sites state this at all.

Answer 6

Not entirely true mutation can increase complexity suddenly and without intelligence! As for cell complexity that only applies to a cell structure that already has a given level of complexity!

Answer 7

I'm a polytheist rather than an atheist, but I can see plenty already. One big one is that just because you don't understand how something works, doesn't mean that the only feasible explanation is that something more intelligent (ie God) did it.

Refer to the sourced material. Pay special attention to mutation.

Answer 8

You are comparing apples and oranges.... Evolution functions on a macro scale... on species... Natural Selection DOES not function at the molecular level, nor has it ever pretended to.

Try this book to catch up with REAL theories...

"The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" by Stephen Jay Gould

Answer 9

"Irreducible complexity": stopped reading right there. Just because we haven't figured it out yet doesn't mean it's a valid proof of God. It was once thought that molecules were the smallest building blocks... then atoms... we now know about a lot more.

God was used to describe the Sun, the Moon, and the seasons once...

Answer 10

Where is the question for atheists? Your question fit better in science section. Anyway I prefer to believe in evolution than in a supernatural selfish "being". The explanation of why the neck of the giraffe is long convince me more than the stories of the bible.