How do atheists explain the immense complexity of Human Life while acknowledging complex objects need a design

Question

When we apply the general principles of detecting specified complexity to biologic systems (living creatures), we find it reasonable to infer the presence intelligent design. Take, for example, the bacterial flagellum's stator, rotor, drive-shaft, U-joint, and propeller. It is not convenient that we've given these parts these names - that's truly their function. If you were to find a stator, rotor, drive-shaft, U-joint, or propeller in any vehicle, machine, toy or model, you would recognize them as the product of an intelligent source. No one would expect an outboard motor -- much less one as incredible as the flagellar motor -- to be the product of a chance assemblage of parts. Motors are the product of intelligent design.

Furthermore, the E. coli bacterial flagellum simply could not have evolved gradually over time. The bacterial flagellum is an "irreducibly complex" system. An irreducibly complex system is one composed of parts, all of which are necessary for the system to work.

Answer 1

They don't acknowledge that complex objects need a design, so your argument's dead in the water before you even start.

Answer 2

Strawman. Atheists - or more exactly those who reject origin by design - do not 'acknowledge' that complex objects need a design. In fact, objects known to be designed (i.e. by humans) tend to be *simpler* than those which occur naturally. Even an F-22 jet is orders of magnitude simpler than a single living cell.

Try this next time you fly on a plane: Look down and try to decide which areas below are still 'natural' and which have been altered by man. Man-made structures (including cultivated farmland) tend to show simple shapes with straight lines; natural shapes are irregular and complex.

The 'theory' of Intelligent Design is embodied by the Watchmaker Fallacy. In theory, a person who is walking through the woods finds a watch and immediately realizes there must be a watchmaker because it is obviously a designed object. Supposedly the 'obvious order' of the universe then 'proves' there must be a designer. The problem is that a watch in the woods stands out for 3 reasons:
1) The watch has an obvious order and design which indicate a purpose beyond its mere existence. The so-called 'order' of the natural world is irregular, chaotic, messy, inefficient, and does not have any apparent purpose.
2) The watch is actually far *simpler* than the natural objects around it. It contains no extraneous or irregular parts. At one time pocket watches were indeed one of the more complex things humans made, but the idea of watches being 'complex' and natural objects being 'simple' predates knowledge of cells, atoms, and so on.
3) We know watches are designed because WE MAKE WATCHES. We know that humans cannot manufacture trees, or even a single cell. Even tweaking the instructions of living cells is still a tricky business. This suggests that 'intelligent' beings *cannot* design or make such things from nothing.

Answer 3

Complex objects need a design, do they?

Poor Darwin, who'd have thought that 140 years later after the publication of 'Origin of Species' there would be so many people ignorant - through choice, about it.

All cases of irreducible complexity have been explained but I don't know why biologists bother if its to refute creationism - isn't showing how the eye could (and did) develop gradually proof against the IC argument? Why do you God of the gaps people not give up when you're proven wrong 1000 times in a row?

If there was such a thing as intelligent design, there wouldn't be anything as stupid as a theist existing.

Answer 4

On the bacterial flagellum, Dawkins covers it thoroughly in The God Delusion. Irreducible complexity is a straw man, few people dispute that. The evolutionary pathways are always apparent even in the most surprisingly complex forms, even where intermediate forms have long since vanished from earth. On your logic:

1) Complex objects need a designer
2) God is the most complex object imaginable
3) God needs a designer

If you haven't got an answer to Who Made God?, your own logic falls flat. Try doing some proper research instead of cutting and pasting from Answers in Genesis or suchlike. They make money out of this sort of rubbish, you don't.

Answer 5

"The examples offered to support the irreducible complexity argument have generally been found to fail to meet the definition and intermediate precursor states have been identified for several structures purported to exhibit irreducible complexity. For instance, precursors to the flagellum's motor can be found being used as ionic channels within bacteria, known as the Type III Secretory System. This is true for most of the structure of the flagellum in general; of the 42 proteins found in the flagellum, 40 have already been found in use in different biological pathways."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_Complexity

edit:
pugwashjw:

"Through natural selection, different types of eyes have emerged in evolutionary history -- and the human eye isn't even the best one, from some standpoints. Because blood vessels run across the surface of the retina instead of beneath it, it's easy for the vessels to proliferate or leak and impair vision. So, the evolution theorists say, the anti-evolution argument that life was created by an "intelligent designer" doesn't hold water: If God or some other omnipotent force was responsible for the human eye, it was something of a botched design."

"Here's how some scientists think some eyes may have evolved: The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.

Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.

In fact, eyes corresponding to every stage in this sequence have been found in existing living species. The existence of this range of less complex light-sensitive structures supports scientists' hypotheses about how complex eyes like ours could evolve."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html

and for extra material

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Go read a science book or two. These questions have been answered time and time again, the argument from design was demolished almost three centuries ago by Hume. Irreducible complexity has been reduced in every example that has been cited, your examples are out of date even by Creationist standards.

Atheists have in fact managed to explain the seemingly designed quality of nature extremely successfully, Creationists explain nothing at all by simply claiming 'god did it'.

Answer 8

Just to make another point; you say that "any vehicle, machine, toy or model" would be recognized as a product of intelligent design therefore so should the E. coli bacterial flagellum, but you are failing to understand the immence timescale in which evolution occurs. All of those four things you mentioned can be made in under a day while any complex organism takes BILLIONS of years to evolve. And in reply to "pugwashjw" comment, you are just attacking the gaps in scientific knowledge and replacing it with an easy answer.

Answer 9

It's called evolution. Fossils show that organisms tend to grow more complex over time. That's why if you examine a Australopithecus skeleton it will look primitive as compared to a modern man. The same thing works for other life forms.

Answer 10

How do religious people explain how the world was only made, what 50,000 years ago when there is clear evidence that the world is much older. How do they explain how we came about when it is obvious that we have evolved over time as explained through science. What real evidence do they have of any god existing apart from trust?