And you all get to sing along at the end
Okay, now I know why this thread had me a bit confused.
Irreducible complexity is a term apparently coined sometime around 1992. I was nineteen years old or so. Which means that I had already survived Lutheran confirmation and a Jesuit high school, to say the least.
Which, in turn, means I had already considered the fundamental argument behind irreducible complexity and found it lacking.
The answer should be an answer, not a question.
When the answer, in science, is a question, it becomes
the next question.
To wit:
God created the Universe because it is so complex. How could pure chance result in us sitting here and having this discussion?
We all know the answer, right?
I don't know. Why don't you go find out?
Even Aristotle could figure it out. Why does the rock fall to the ground? Because it has falling properties. Now, technically, that can be construed as a correct, albeit grossly imprecise, answer.
Because God says it must? Well, sure, that can technically be construed as a correct, albeit uselessly imprecise answer, but the God involved there
necessarily transcends the conditions of the minor deities people assert in their religious faith. Such a "God" is entirely irrelevant.
At any rate, I digress. The bottom line is that this "irreducible complexity" argument was done away with ... uh ... well, so long ago that even the Jesuits get it.
Indeed, it is something of a psychological alchemy. Clive Barker wrote, "Nothing ever begins", and once you understand what he means by that, and learn to apply it, certain patterns, cycles, and themes start to emerge in life and history.
Nothing ever begins.
...There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.
...The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that; though as the narrator's voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making.
...Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys.
...Nothing is fixed. In and out the shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden among them is a filigree that will, with time, become a world.
—Clive Barker
Weaveworld
Starting in the late 1980s, at the latest, creationists started rewriting their arguments and textbooks. The problem, of course, was that religion was not science. So they invented a fake science to take the place of religion. Creationism became Intelligent Design, God became the Theoretical Designer, and
irreducible complexity became the appropriate term to summarize a millennial literary and oral tradition of theological futility.
The new generation tells the story, and with new words claim it for their own. It is the latest iteration of a desperate effort to keep ancient superstitions alive. The reality is that humanity will not abandon religious thinking unless it so evolves that we are better off without that part of our brains. Rather than reinventing the myths to address new perspectives, as has been done since the beginning of humanity itself, the Gutenberg aeon has spread a fixed record to many hands, so that the old superstitions can hang on longer for being remembered specifically, and insisted upon. Yet each new generation still tells the story in its own way; it is impossible for these traditions to remain absolutely unmoved by the ravages of time.
Thus, the result is that our social evolution has slowed in at least one important dimension. Given the work our hands are capable of doing, perhaps there is some benefit in that. Or, at least, a salve against the hurt of that retardation.
Intelligent design and irreducible complexity are simply part of that process.
Metaphysically, it all makes a certain degree of sense, such that the apparent retardation is more of a diffusion that allows exponentially greater combination and application, trial and error.
But that's metaphysics, which counts for approximately a dog's butt less than zero around here. And it doesn't change the fact that ID and IC are complete shite. As a creative endeavor, only the names have changed. So I can tell, by the lines they're reciting, I've seen that movie, too.
