Talk:Irreducible complexity

T-URF13

Some presumed Discovery / ID creationists delete the paragraph on T-URF13 all the time. They claim, it's not a response of the scientific community. But that's nonsense, the debate has been documented and can be followed. I strongly recommend to leave this paragraph as it is or to correct it in minor parts. Also, it's possible to publish a counter-argument. But the entire deletion is inappropriate. Stop it! Darwin upheaval 11:08, 19 June 2022 (MESZ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darwin upheaval (talk • contribs)

Your presumption is blatantly false, also no personal attacks is policy. Your addition is too long and hard to follow, and given too much weight by its placing. The Panda's Thumb source gives a much better summary, a short paragraph summarising how it relates to IC would be worthwhile, but drastic shortening and clarification is needed. . . dave souza, talk 10:42, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Then modify the passage, but don't delete completely! What's hard to follow? 2003:C3:372D:2E01:6991:5BF2:AAE8:D013 (talk) 12:52, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Shortened and simplified as suggested. 2003:C3:372D:2E01:6991:5BF2:AAE8:D013 (talk) 12:57, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree that it's too long, muddled and undue. I think This is a sufficient summary: T-urf13 is a protein that causes both male sterility and disease susceptibility in CMS-T corn varieties. It is irreducably complex, having arisen from the fusion of several non-protein-coding fragments of mitochondrial DNA and the occurrence of several mutations, all of which were necessary to produce the protein. PepperBeast (talk) 14:08, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I accepted your suggestion. Please have an eye on it to prevent that creationists delete it again and again. 2003:C3:372D:2E01:5978:77DA:F515:CC89 (talk) 14:17, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

There is only one creationist here, except the IPs and new accounts that come here, and he did not revert you.

Your new section does not fit in there. It is just some text you wrote which is not integrated into the article. Even after reading it several times, it does not make sewnse at that place.

Of course, Neukamm is one of the good guys, he has been fighting creationism for years. But that is not a reason to just add some random findings of his to the article. The section starts with five sentences and only after that mentions irreducible complexity. That is not how articles are written. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:16, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

You don't have any expertise, man. Look for another sandbox, you DI troll! 2003:C3:372D:2E01:C85:4F82:A865:2225 (talk) 18:43, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Try doing a better job of reading the room. Hob Gadling is about as orthogonal to being a "DI troll" as one can get. Just plain Bill (talk) 19:12, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

The more unprofessional is this embarrassing deletion behavior. If he's unable to recognize a good and important argument against irreducible complexity, he's a blattant miscast as a "referee". Do what you want, I am sick and tired to explain this theme to ignorants. 2003:C3:372D:2E01:643F:277:13BB:8150 (talk) 20:22, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

This article is supposed to be understandable for laypeople. Your paragraph is not. Maybe you should start listeneing to what people are saying instead of inventing fantasy personas for them.

If you still think the people who revert you are creationists: ID is stupid, DI is stupid, creationism in all its forms is stupid. Everybody who reverted you agrees with that. We have to defend this article against ID creationists all the time, and now, sadly, we have to defend it against someone who is on our side, the science side, but seems to have no experience in writing for the general public. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:26, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Mate, I reverted your content. Be a darling and don't try to label me a creationist. PepperBeast (talk) 20:56, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

• Check out Panda's Thumb. If anything goes into this article it'll have to be more concise, but at first glance the point is "As we will see, all data support the finding that the irreducibly complex URF13 protein emerged within a few decades from sequences lacking any genuine protein-coding capability. That supports the thesis that gene sequences which accomplish irreducibly complex functions are not as improbable as Behe supposes. The immunization tactic of the Discovery Institute, once again, aims at disputing the evidence, which refutes their premise, by referencing to just the same, obviously flawed, probability argument!" . . .dave souza, talk 21:43, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

  Think this works as a brief paragraph added to Methods by which irreducible complexity may evolve, could do with a wikilink for the DI's flawed probability argument. . . dave souza, talk 09:42, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

  Much better place in the article and better wording. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:24, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, any better idea than link to Texas sharpshooter fallacy for their flawed probability argument described in the "Panda's Thumb" article? Don't think it's ideal. . . dave souza, talk 20:28, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

It should not be an Easter egg, so I separated the Texas sharpshooter link and the flawed probability argument. Still not ideal, since Beyer et al do not call it that. Wikilawyers could take that apart.

I also improved the text flow a bit more. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:12, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, think it's important to mention corn was bred during the 20th century, and PT refers to false premises, so have tried to refine that and just say akin to the Texas sharpshooter. The latter link isn't essential, but think it's helpful. . dave souza, talk 13:58, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

• Does not seem to make sense or be a valid inclusion. Seems just a badly paraphrased set of claims about a non-item. So a propaganda publication (snarkily titled Pandas Thumb) published a piece claiming to have found something IC — did any third party such as DI agree that it is IC, or any actual scientific organization agree that IC even exists? Then another propaganda publication (DI) opposes it, but from all this WP only tries to convey the eventual counter-counter-propaganda exists and the names used “evangelical” and “flawed”, without cites to the earlier pieces or attributions or information about T-URF - this is just presenting the PT judgemental claims. Seems just a non-notable trivia bit of one convoluted article of no particular note or validity. I’ll also point out that the WP phrasing of it is bad at ‘irreducibly complex has evolved’ (as if about later versions of the T-URF13), or ‘the corn was bred during the 20th century’(as if T-URF13 was made by human manipulation). Suggest IP go back and reconsider covering a confusing mudfight trivia at all. If so, try to be NPOV and accurate - at least state it as a dispute and cite all three sources directly. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:04, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  Even if the Panda's Thumb (what's "snarky" about that?) were a "propaganda publication", the same text is on "AG Evolutionsbiologie". You cannot simply frame all sites that agree with the scientific consensus as "propaganda" and pretend they are on the same level as the disinformation platforms that propagate the pseudoscience of ID. There is nothing wrong with citing WP:RS while refraining from citing non-RS.

  @IP: See? This is the one creationist who frequents this page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:33, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

So it seems if Hob Googles reeeaaally hard, he could find a PDF copy of the PT piece is at a German website. Not coverage of someone writing about it, not an independent scientific piece, just a pdf copy at one non-English site saying the same stuff. Thank you Hob for illustrating this convoluted spat between two propaganda sites is a tidbit far below DUE. Seriously, if someone wants to cover the topic I would suggest using looking at the references mentioned that are actual scientific publications, e.g. Trotter el at 2014, which is reputable science and has others referring to it, and not trying to use what someone writes at PT about ‘ooo what they said about our snark is soooo wrong!’ as the source about this topic. If the article result includes ‘PT called DI “evangelical” and “flawed”’ then it’s just focused on covering name-calling and not information about T-URF 13. If the article is saying in WP voice ‘evangelical DI’ and ‘flawed’, the kindest way I can state this is that is somewhere WP has failed to accurately convey the material. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:01, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Ignoring the posturing and meaningless blather, it seems you are trying to say that... sorry, I cannot find the actual reasoning. Could you please repeat it without all that hot air around it?

BTW, since flawed reasoning is what DI specializes in, there is no problem with using Wiki voice. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:35, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

User:Hob Gadling Sure, I can simplify it down for you: This garbled mis-reporting about name-calling trivia does not make sense and is not a valid inclusion for the topic.

• This convoluted relating what name-calling PT did to DI makes no sense and is not about IC or T-URF13.
• If someone wants to cover what actual science said about T-URF13 and IC then go to scientific publications and convey what they say about T-URF13.
• Parroting PT snark and propaganda in wikivoice (without attribution or as opinions) is just a misportrayal.
• No, the logic that 'DI bad' justifies wikivoice is contrrary to the actual guidance WP:WIKIVOICE, particularly Avoid stating opinions as facts. and Prefer nonjudgmental language.

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:46, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

You believe that flawed probability argument based on false premises is "opinion", "snark" and "propaganda"? Baffling. For any competent person, those are just facts.

Face it: Creationism lost the debate in the 19th century, and the ones who still trying to win it are just fossils. "Evolution: The fossils say no!", although it originally had a different connotation, is a rather fitting description. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:51, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

User:Hob Gadling Face it, this is a poorly written WP section focused on the unimportant trivia that PT had a convoluted exchange with DI and used these phrases. Too long, muddled, and undue. WP conveying only the judgemental language is poorly written as it does not give who declared that, what it is referring to, what flaw(s) they assert, or really any information about IC or T-URF13. Not that the PT phrasing had any impact or note anyway, but in isolation and wikivoice it’s pretty meaningless.

Besides, declaring IC exists sort of contradicts the rest of the article saying science rejected the concept. And any “probability argument” is Specified complexity anyway. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:06, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

You just have to achieve consensus then. And don't ping me, I have a watchlist. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:12, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Hob, per request not pinging you, so long as you do me the equal courtesy and *do* ping me for any posts intended for/about me, which also serves for clarity and a functional need. Meanwhile, I will just post a citation needed tag and start a new TALK for the rewrite which will ping the others previously involved. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:38, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

A citation was requested for "An example of a structure that is irreducibly complex", and as this phrasing seems to have caused confusion I've changed it to "An example of a structure that is claimed in Dembski's book No Free Lunch to be irreducibly complex, but evidently has evolved" cited to ToA. Hope that helps. . . dave souza, talk 17:57, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

User:Dave souza I think the “has evolved” phrasing a bit unclear, it sounds like a side remark that T-URF13 later evolved to an unstated something else. It is not clear that it is about the origin of T-URF13 being spontaneous formation. (A. Hunt in 2007 said there is evidence T-URF13 had spontaneous formation by a recombination event, showing that a gated ion channel analogous to the protein channel Behe wrote was Irreducibly Complex in Darwin’s Black Box can form spontaneously.)

Also, mention of Dembski seems odd outside of Specified Complexity. Do you have a cite which points to his 2002 book No Free Lunch somehow using the 1996 Behe example for IC ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 17:02, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@ Markbassett, the cited source notes that Dembski likes to say that "irreducible complexity is a special case of specified complexity". The paragraph discusses Behe's 2019 book Darwin Devolves, The New Science About DNA That Challenges Evolution which "contends that recent scientific discoveries further disprove Darwinism and strengthen the case for an intelligent creator" [Amazon description], but wasn't ready for Dover so hasn't had its day in court. Same old ID gibberish, Hunt's point is it's a natural process, which IC claims is too improbable to happen without creationist intervention. . dave souza, talk 15:50, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

User:Dave souza Thanks for reply ??? The cited source ? The Wein piece is not pointing to his 2002 book No Free Lunch somehow using the 1996 Behe example for IC.

The replacement cite to section 6.3 #5 in the Wein piece against Dembskis book No Free Lunch does not include the phrase you mention, nor does that phrase support stating as a fact T-urf ‘is IC’ in the article.

The “special case” phrase you mention does occur at Wein in section 4.2 page 5 “Dembski likes to say that "irreducible complexity is a special case of specified complexity" (p. 289), as if this demonstrated the integration of two concepts into a coherent framework. But we have already seen that specified complexity is merely a label we apply when we have no plausible natural hypothesis to explain some event. So, to say that irreducible complexity is a case of specified complexity is just another way to repeat the claim that we have no natural explanation for the origin of the bacterial flagellum (which is the only biological system Dembski has shown to be IC in his sense).”

But that’s saying the protein channel or flagellum is SC, not that ion gated channels or T-urf is IC. And saying Dembski claims anything IC is somehow SC is not saying that anything SC is IC or that T-urf ‘is’ IC in wikivoice. Claiming that anything IC is improbable is a SC assertion, not an IC claim.

Still think the article section needs a rewrite to eliminate the muddled mis-reporting of item, or else just remove as an unnecessary trying to convey name-calling trivia. Still prefer the original “spontaneous formation” phrase over “has evolved”. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:03, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Rewrite T-URF13 ? (Or delete)

The June article addition about spontaneous formation of T-URF13 (here) seems to have wound up a focus to the exchange between Panda’s Thumb and Discovery Institute, and the use of labels “evangelical” and “flawed probability argument”. I don’t think the June PT post and WP saying PT and DI have a spat is really DUE, or fits in location ‘Response of Scientific Community’ ‘Methods by which irreducible complexity may evolve‘ and that the text is poorly paraphrasing it anyway.

So I am going to ping involved editors below, excepting Hob who asked for no-ping and the IP who I cannot ping, and ask thoughts on rewrite content and phrasing (or delete). In particular about:

• Start with “Spontaneous formation”, to make the method clear ?
• Should the content have ‘spontaneous formation has been seen’, ‘PT and DI spat’, both, or something else ?
• Should the section exclude as extraneous the “evangelical” or “flawed probability” and “Texas sharpshooter” (since probability is Specified complexity not IC) phrases ?
• What cites? The recombination of T-Urf has Genetic and molecular basis of cytoplasmic male sterility in maize, Sofi (2007), and others. But if I avoid the content of blog Pandas Thumb and a focus in PT-DI spat, then I only found one weaker source at Skeptic.com where I see linkage to IC mentioned.

(pings) User:Pepperbeast, User:McSly, User:Dave souza, User:Darwin upheaval, User:Just plain Bill

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:17, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Deletion of Nature article

This deletion [1] was correct because the article does not mention IC. The edit summary Not a rebuttal - Behe's argument is that removing any aspect of a complex system causes the entire thing to collapse, not that complex systems cannot arise from simple ones is nonsense though, since "complex systems cannot arise from simple ones" is Behe's false conclusion from "removing any aspect of a complex system causes the entire thing to collapse". --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:10, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Removal of off-topic comment from lead

User:Dave_souza - ??? The edit note on your returning the off-topic comment in lead isn't seeming connected to the removal reasons nor the material of cite or article Perhaps you would revisit it and remove it as an unrelated comment not part of the body, or explain further your edit note ???

I tried to remove a line with note "remove long-standing side comment from lead - not said anywhere in this article, and factually incorrect as it is confusing CS with IC"

From: Creation science presented the theological argument from design with assertions that evolution could not explain complex molecular mechanisms, and in 1993 Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, presented these arguments in a revised version of the school textbook Of Pandas and People.

To : In 1993 Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, presented his arguments in a revised version of the school textbook Of Pandas and People.

I thought the editing note was clear enough, but in more detail:

• This is an WP:OFFTOPIC aside that instead of saying something specifically on Behe or Irreducible Complexity is making a compound statement about Creation Science, theology, teleological argument, and what things Creation Science asserted.
• The line is not suitable for LEAD per the guideline WP:LEAD to have the lead summarize the major parts of the article and nothing at all about this seems in the article.
• This is factually incorrect where it is conflating Irreducible Complexity with Specified Complexity (or maybe Intelligent Design generically).

The edit got undone with remark Undid revision 1118026258 by Markbassett (talk) "Even the bacterial flagellum, the iconic example of the ID movement, is found in the creation science literature before Behe promoted it "

But -- that does not seem responsive to the line being a non-IC side comment, not being in the article body, and its conflating IC with SC or ID generically.

It is actually saying "ID" movement and not something about "IC" concept, and is also making a detached claim about flagellum being in some unstated Creation Science literature. Seriously, while I thought Henry Morris was all about Flood Geology, it really would not matter if he mentioned flagellum in some context unrelated to Irreducibility, unstated where and not part of this article.

The cite at the lead goes to NIH which does include Behe defines an irreducibly complex structure as one with many components, all of which must be in place for the structure to function. He typically illustrates the concept with a mousetrap, which requires the simultaneous presence of a spring, bar, platform, and some other parts to catch a mouse, but his favorite biological example is the bacterial flagellum.

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:41, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

These sentences explain where the ideas came from. Without them, it seems as if they sprang from nothing, ex nihilo. But all bits of intelligent-design reasoning were intelligently designed. You can see that from the fact they have a purpose: the hostile takeover of science by religion. They are not off-topic at all.

We would not want to hide the religious origin of the pseudoscience of ID, would we? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:12, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Agree, subsequent edits clarifying the definition of IC move the theology to the first para which works better and simplifies the second para. The Creation Science literature is cited in the Scott EC, Matzke NJ (May 2007). "Biological design in science classrooms" source, including the flagellum whipped up by Richard D. Lumsden before Behe published it in Darwin's Black Box. dave souza, talk 09:47, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Dave souza - nope, the edit merely duplicated the same assertion muddling of the concepts, no clarification or support. At - The central concept of irreducible complexity is basically the theological argument from design it just makes a nonsensical assertion that ‘nothing simpler works’ *is* ‘designed to this end’ with no explanatory rationale? Perhaps they meant ID generically, but it seems also confusing theology with teleology, so may just not be making distinctions and waving the phrase “central concept” as filler. This did add a cite to the Eugenie Scott Biological design in science classrooms, but no such statement seems to be in that so I'm just going to revert it to the prior form: Irreducible complexity is one of two main arguments used by intelligent-design proponents, alongside specified complexity.

The other part about Creation Science having it before seems an odd item for CS rather than “common”, but I note that questioning predecessors to the flagellum or eye or other cases date back to Darwin’s own papers and discussions of his day, so if we’re trying to identify origin of the IC concepts then it more properly goes back to then. In any case the line with claim of "common" or "1990" at The argument that evolution cannot explain complex mechanisms because intermediate precursors would be non-functional was already common in creation science by 1990. also seems unsupported by cite and to be flase to facts, so I will remove that separately. I note with apologies that this is again a removal of an off-topic item from lead getting it back to where my first removal was, so seems more the issue -- but really, I'm not looking for some better worded off-topic and unsupported line, I'm looking to keep the lead to be within WP:LEAD guidance, plus facts and making logical sense.

Please look again at the concerns voiced before: 'does not seem responsive to the line being a non-IC side comment, not being in the article body, and its conflating IC with SC or ID generically.' Can we just let this line go ? If not, how does it fit ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:22, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

User:Hob Gadling - that’s a fairly large conjectural leap, and the line is still an unrelated comment about Creation Science without supporting cite. It is good to identify the origin of Irreducible Complexity, but that is done with the book mention and not this confused line. While one might WP:SPECULATE that the motivations are similar, it simply makes no logical sense the concept ‘cannot be simplified and still function’ comes from flood geology or ‘too complex to be accidental’, and it’s not in the NIH cite. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:59, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Nobody says it came from flood geology. If you use the creationist debate tactic of misrepresenting what your opponents say, there cannot be a meaningful discussion.

For Henry Morris, as for creationists in general, the criterion for reasoning was not "is it sound?", it was "can I use it to support my case?" Flood geology was not his only subject. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:05, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Flood geology of The Genesis Flood is what Creation Science is mostly known for, so any vague line like this is looking wrong. If it is going to claim Creation science presented the theological argument from design with assertions that evolution could not explain complex molecular mechanisms then those are five topics with nothing about the Irreducible Complexity ‘nothing simpler will do the function’, and no cite given. Just not connected conceptually. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:18, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

It does not matter what you "mostly" know it for. It does not matter how it looks to you. I have been debating creationists for thirty years, and I know their tricks. Replacing Morris by flood geology, concluding "only" from "mostly", they will not work on me.

[2] quotes Morris: Dembski often refers, for example, to the bacterial flagellum as a strong evidence for design (and indeed it is); but one of our ICR scientists (the late Dr. Dick Bliss) was using this example in his talks on creation a generation ago.

So, the idea to apply the drop-the-lower-jaw,-goggle,-and-mutter-"that-thing-cannot-have-evolved" tactic to the bacterial flagellum came originally from "creation scientists". They did not use fancy vocabulary like "irreducible complexity" as justification for dropping their jaws, but the principle is the same. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:53, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

That unrelated concepts are being confused by mashing together should matter to you, WP should be providing information and the distinctions -- not confusion. That the work of Robert McNab showing flagellum complexity circa 1978 got noted by creationists meant it joined the ranks of Darwinian era questions about eye evolution and “what good is half a wing”. Does not connect to the Creation Science flavor of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible, just that there was general muttering about complexity back to Paley and kept doing it -- including the Specified complexity variation of attempting probability estimation as proof. Basic A level studies on the teleological argument provide education and information, would be nice to do that here. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:42, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

User:Hob Gadling 'It does not matter what you "mostly" know it for' is incorrect -- it matters that a policy of [[WP:WEIGHT] is ignored, because it means something untrustworthy is going on. Plus when something that seems false is stated out of thin air and also is not related to anything later instead of the guide that WP:Lead is a summary of the body. I've been researching further the RS about the distinction of IC is not CS with Souza below, but the deletion of an oddball line still looks to have good reasons. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:15, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

I will have to bold a word now: 'It does not matter what you "mostly" know it for'. You are not the measure of all things. Flood geology is only one aspect among all the bullshit they repeat. I guess that for someone who agrees with them about everything except flood geology, flood geology seems more egregious than for those who are aware that all the rest is on the same level of science illiteracy. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:02, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Lack of WEIGHT

User:Hob Gadling Making this a subthread for readability. The WP:WEIGHT statement I made was "Flood geology of The Genesis Flood is what Creation Science is mostly known for, so any vague line like this is looking wrong." That is stating the WP:WEIGHT of what is said by RS makes the lead here look wrong. For example, flood geology is prominent by Numbers in The Creationists, seen in WP content at Creation Science "The most commonly advanced ideas of creation science include special creation based on the Genesis creation narrative and flood geology based on the Genesis flood narrative." One can also Google the topic and look at places like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to also see WP:WEIGHT in prominent mention of Gish, author of 'Evolution: The Fossils Say No!', and perhaps some other places find more. But the issue of WEIGHT is that the line the article has not met WP:BURDEN to show similar WEIGHT or prominence in RS for "Creation science presented the theological argument from design with assertions that evolution could not explain complex molecular mechanisms". Nice that one can find comments about the eye orsuch were also there, but that's a minute detail and were present in the prior Darwinian era. Creation Science is a different set of inventions, and mentioning some earlier bits as if that's what Creation Science was is simply misleading. Please do mention any quotes of WEIGHT similar to Numbers or such that go that way, nothing does WP:V like actual cites. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:43, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Mark, see below; Scott and Matzke state "an analysis of ID shows that in both content and history, it is a subset of an earlier antievolution movement known as creation science." And discuss it in detail. .. dave souza, talk 18:57, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza - Yes ??? Is there any other source or is that still it ? Yes, this subthread is where I point out that cite to NCSE flyer as being a low WP:WEIGHT in publication and low academic authority POV. Just not deserving of overriding mainstream Pubs or getting WP:Lead prominence.

It was just an NCSE advocacy piece making a casual conflation in the 2007 Biological design in science classrooms of no particularly wide note or publication or deep scholarship. As opposed to what the more common, prominent, and scholarly references such as a book by Numbers say about Creation Science which I phrased as what it is "mostly known for". The Scott flyer seems specifically to be trying to sell that "The content of ID is a subset of the claims made by the older “creation science” movement" by playing up that creationists, "Creation Science", or "Intelligent Design" sometimes mention the same examples of biological oddities and yet again flogging the tired "cdesign proponentists". They do not look much at any differences in approach or what differences the branches of Creationism have or that different terms "Creation Science", "Intelligent Design", etcetera have different meanings, or that such examples had non-creationist questions. But not going into details outside the script is sort of expectable in the limited space of a brief advocacy paper. At any rate, the point in this subthread is that it is a low WP:WEIGHT POV which does not match larger WEIGHT content. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 16:20, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

There are few reliable sources on creationism because it is so stupid. Numbers and NCSE are the main ones. No reason to exclude one of them.

And they do not "play up" anything. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:04, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Design argument, creation science and IC

I've restored two points to the lead: The central concept of irreducible complexity is basically the theological argument from design, ...... The argument that evolution cannot explain complex mechanisms because intermediate precursors would be non-functional was already common in creation science by 1990.
Both are well supported by Scott & Matzke "Biological design in science classrooms" [emphasis added]:
"Behe defines an irreducibly complex structure as one with many components, all of which must be in place for the structure to function. ... any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional” (14). Instead, the functional system must have been produced all at once, as a “purposeful arrangement of parts,” much like a watch or any other human-designed machine. Hence, irreducibly complex structures, like human machines, are the product of an intelligent agent, not natural selection. ....
Long before the ID movement arose, creation scientists constantly invoked design arguments. .... Design as an argument against evolution has historically been a constant theme in creationist periodicals such as the Creation Science Research Quarterly. A cursory search shows that design arguments are invoked for tetrapod limbs (51), the yucca and its moth (52), the hummingbird (53), and long lists of adaptations from across biology (54, 55). All of these examples of design use some version of Behe's irreducible complexity argument .... Even the bacterial flagellum, the iconic example of the ID movement, is found in the creation science literature before Behe promoted it (59, 60). In fact, creation science leaders have criticized the ID movement for stealing their arguments. ...... The concept of design thus is central to both creation science and ID. ..... when it comes to design, creation science and ID speak in one language. This language is that of William Paley, whose argument from design in his 1802 Natural Theology proclaimed that structural complexity of biological organisms was evidence for the existence of God (62)."
We can refine the wording, but these are significant parts of the topi which belong in the lead, and in the article. . dave souza, talk 10:43, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

User:Dave souza - Better, not quite there. You seem to tq the prior line but have dropped “common” to Creation Science (which seems wrong) and highlighting of “1990” in particular (which seemed weird). Note also that the cite switched to saying “ID” with a dee when speaking of design, not IC with a cee. Structural complexity or ‘too complex to be random’ is speaking about the Specified Complexity part of ID, not IC.

And since it and the article notes Paley et al re flagellum (eyes and other cases existed) which long predate Creation Science and are unrelated to the approach or major works of Creation Science, I do not see why CS should be particularly highlighted either. It would be better if that were either dropped or replaced with the broader term “creationists” to make it include more of the Forerunners section of the article.

I just still see no way the side-comment is specific to Irreducible Complexity much less is a significant part of the article which WP:LEAD would put in the lead.

On a side note, the recent edit is ambiguous where to wording ‘alongside Specified complexity’ you added ‘which adds mathematical support for it’. It can be read that SC is maths about IC. Might be better said ‘which adds mathematical support for ID’ ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:49, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

User:Dave souza - Removing your added side-comment from lead “The argument that evolution cannot explain complex mechanisms because intermediate precursors would be non-functional was already common in creation science by 1990.” Acting in lieu of any response or BRD discussion, assuming the lack of response means no attention given rather than agreement. Again, this comment is re Creation Science and not about the article topic Irreducible Complexity, and was not supported by cites. It simply is not a major portion of the article or external references so by WP:WEIGHT and WP:LEAD does not belong in the lead, even if you find some remote cite that also makes such a side comment. Also, while it may be interesting when things share commonalities, unless there is a notable amount of all coverage saying this or some direct logic of progression noted by folks, it’s just a personal side remark about the coincidence and I don’t see a point to it. It isn’t Creation Science (claiming science of something somehow supports Young earth or Noah’s flood) if someone in CS also made a remarks about flagellum any more than it is Irreducible Complexity (no simpler version of something would function) if someone in IC made a remark about Noah. Fellow travelers are still different topics. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:21, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd note that the "History" section tells us about the same argument being used before acquiring the name "Irreducible Complexity". And "Creationism" is not restricted to "Young Earth Creationism". TomS TDotO (talk) 01:52, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

TomS TDotO - not sure which one(s) in the History section you think show that, but the lead text said Creation science, which *is* restricted to "Young Earth Creationism". CS is efforts to make scientific support for Young Earth creationism -- stereotypically geological arguments trying to show biblical accuracy in the creation of Earth and the occurrence of Noah's flood. Nothing in that seems about the article topic concept of something being Irreducible, and not showing Behe as reiterating someone else's pre-1990 statement about irreducibility. The Origins section does mention Behe gave some credit to Paley "and suggests that his application of the concept to biological systems is entirely original." Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:34, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Since there seems to be confusion about the relationship between CS and IC, I've edited the lead to clarify points well covered by Scott & Matzke as cited above. TomS TDotO, you're right that this essential context is shown in the "History" section. Markbassett, see the Creation science article, it *is not* restricted to "Young Earth Creationism". In particular, see Creation science#Intelligent design splits off. In this article, Behe gave some credit to Paley "and suggests that his application of the concept to biological systems is entirely original" is unsourced, at best a self-description by the unreliable Behe, so I'll deleted that point. . . dave souza, talk 09:05, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza - I must disagree. Please note a split occurred and ID is recognized by RS as a different branch of creationism, which Creation science#Intelligent design splits off also says. (e.g. “By the mid-1990s, intelligent design had become a separate movement.”) And as Behe’s statements are phrased as something he said, so he is an appropriate sourcing. RS means credible for what the article line says, and covering the statements of the concept origin must by nature come from Behe as the developer of the concept.

From the ref you list, The creation science movement is distinguished from the intelligent design movement, or neo-creationism, because most advocates of creation science accept scripture as a literal and inerrant historical account, and their primary goal is to corroborate the scriptural account through the use of science.

CS *is* limited to YEC as shown both by definition of trying to produce evidence of biblical inerrancy (of the creation myth and flood myth) and by the demonstrated practices of it adhering to YEC, stereotyped as flood geology or fossil criticisms. CS is also explicitly and openly espousing God as the Creator.

Please consider and remove the line stating that “The IC argument was already featured in creation science by the mid 1960s.“ It does not suit WP:LEAD guidance as not a major part of this article, and goes against portrayal that the terminology “Irreducible Complexity” is from Behe. Whether the article would have Behe’s statements in the body giving credit to Paley also seems a body content item, and optional.

Cheers, Markbassett (talk) 14:27, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

As the cited source in particular makes clear, there was a transition in creation science from overtly biblical creationism to supposedly scientific ID, a branching evolution of creationism with the arguments Behe labelled "irreducible complexity" appearing in both CS and ID. Your "either / or" approach, like the creationist "two model" argument, is wrong: transitional forms of creation science *were not* limited to YEC; see the sources in Timeline of intelligent design#The ID movement begins. For example, "Creation science does not include as essential parts the concept of catastrophism, a worldwide flood, a recent inception of the earth or life from nothingness, ex nihilo, the concept of time, or any concepts from Genesis or other religious texts."[3] Similarly, this article shows transitional forms of CS presenting the same argument that Behe subsequently labelled IC. That's essential context, so needs to be shown in the lead. Paley and the like are, rightly, covered in the lead by "the theological argument from design". Both antecedents must be duly covered in the lead to meet due weight policy and avoid the misleading impression that Behe created IC ex nihilo. . . dave souza, talk 21:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

The argument which Behe named as "Irreducible Complexity" had a long history. As documented in the "History" section of this article. IC is not a distinguishing feature of ID. In particular, it does not distinguish ID from CS. TomS TDotO (talk) 01:38, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza - CS is in YEC. I am struck that you are espousing Dr. Kenyon, author for Pandas, as the authority here. Despite that quote of Dean H. Kenyon, which Dr. Forrest felt indicated he didn’t see any significant distinction between creation science and intelligent design, I think WP:WEIGHT of other authorities simply do slot CS as being in YEC by definition and practices. I also respectfully submit that IC precursors not stating a claim of something as “irreducible” are just not showing any obvious link to the IC concept, so seem unrelated side remarks — your stating they are “essential context” seems hard to see any connection let alone how it is “essential” context. Perhaps you can expand or link an explanation cite of how it relates which clarifies it as not just a unrelated side note?

I seem to see most RS *do* draw a distinction between CS and ID as different branches of creationism, with CS firmly as part of YEC, see Creationism#Types and Creationism#Creation_science. Common features of creation science argument include: creationist cosmologies which accommodate a universe on the order of thousands of years old, criticism of radiometric dating through a technical argument about radiohalos, explanations for the fossil record as a record of the Genesis flood narrative (see flood geology), and explanations for the present diversity as a result of pre-designed genetic variability and partially due to the rapid degradation of the perfect genomes God placed in "created kinds" or "baramins" due to mutations. For another example, Categories of creationists … “Creation science” is the attempt by YEC proponents to use scientific means to bolster their view.“ versus OEC “Intelligent design (ID) is a newcomer to the scene and while it accepts an old Earth and most science, it also claims...”

Just seems like a muddled conflation or confusion here, not desirable for an article credibility or reader understanding. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:20, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

ID does not either accept or reject any age of the Earth. TomS TDotO (talk) 10:04, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

'The essential point of creation has nothing to do with the timing or the mechanism the Creator chose to employ, but the element of design or purpose. In the broadest sense, a "creationist" is a person who believes that the world (and especially mankind) was designed, and exists for a purpose.'

Phillip E. Johnson

Darwin on Trial, 2nd edition

chapter 9, page 115 TomS TDotO (talk) 17:57, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

TomS TDotO ???? ID accepts Old Earth, a quote claiming all creationists accept design does not address that.

And it seems a bit off the thread topic that the Irreducible Complexity term and concept as stated by Behe was not part of Creation Science - the article text is going offtopic there. While there were statements before Behe about developmental pathways of the ‘what good is half a wing’ sort, they were not a statement about a concept termed Irreducible Complexity or an assertion that something - with specific and currently present examples - was irreducible. If Behe said IC about something previously complained about does not change that it is a new complaint about that something. There are after all only so many biological parts and people do say different things about the same parts.

We could try looking at ID contrasting the ‘legal definition’ of CS (this to that), or look to where CS/YEC rejects ID, or to where RS taxonomies list them separately - but really the topic is that IC was not in CS, and the line in the IC article about CS is an unrelated side remark that looks like a muddle or confusion. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:53, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@ User:Markbassett, the fact is that ID accepts Old Earth and Young Earth. As the topic expert Eugenie Scott writes on p. 133 of Evolution vs. creationism : an introduction (2009 edition), "Most ID proponents accept an ancient age of the universe and Earth, but there are some prominent ID supporters who are YECs, such as Paul Nelson and John Mark Reynolds. These creation science adherents reject evolution altogether," [unlike Behe]. The ID movement is a "big tent", avoiding discussion of the age of the Earth, and indeed Paul Nelson was part of the Pajaro Dunes conference where Behe first presented his ideas about "irreducible complexity".[4] TomS TDotO has got it right, in 1999 Johnson said "he wants to temporarily suspend the debate between the young-Earth creationists, who insist that the planet is only 6,000 years old, and old-Earth creationists, who accept that the Earth is ancient. This debate, he said, can be resumed once Darwinism is overthrown."[5] Dean H. Kenyon's affidavit shows a creation science proponent moving (for legal purposes) to accepting OEC, before editing Of Pandas and People where cdesign proponentsists first published ID as a renaming of creation science, and where Behe published IC in the second edition. . . dave souza, talk 08:53, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza Ultimately this still does not address that it is not IC as such, nor are similarities a major item so it does not belong in the lead. I note that describes a truce of a YEC advocate with the OEC ID movement, YEC and OEC remaining distinct by definition and practices,. Such a truce might a topic for Intelligent design movement but not for an article about IC. I'm basically seeing RS talking of CS and ID as conceptually separate, including it seems the named Reynolds & Nelson in Three Views on Creation and Evolution (1999) or a more recent work involving Ham and Meyer Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design (2017). For the purposes of this article on IC, irreducibility speaks to whether natural selection is feasible for the allegedly item -- it simply is unrelated to a CS style effort for showing biblical text to be accurate, so the line just seems a fundamentally incorrect conflation. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:44, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

@ User:Markbassett, your second paragraph is meaningless unsourced opinion, unacceptable original research. The Scott & Matzke paper cited above is a good source that Creation Science Research Quarterly articles used "some version of Behe's irreducible complexity argument " before he'd published it (in Pandas) or named it. Scott (2009) p. 126 summarises the point; "Behe's idea of irreducible complexity was anticipated in creation science; much as in Paley's conception, creation science proponents hold that structures too complex to have occurred 'by chance' require special creation". Behe's complaint (which he first published in the creation science textbook Pandas rejigged to refer to ID) restated creation science arguments. He added the term IC three years later. . . dave souza, talk 09:19, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza ?? My second paragraph where I am quoting the categorization of "CS firmly as part of YEC, see Creationism#Types and Creationism#Creation_science" ???

Scott does not seem to be speaking of IC in particular, nor "IC argument was already featured in creation science by the mid 1960s". His "anticipated in creation science; much as in Paley's conception" etcetera comes across as a generic that "too complex" or "design" were mentioned before, not that the specific concept Specified Complexity or the assertion of the 'irreducible' concept of this article existed before. Is this just his generic blurb that design was mentioned by CS and Paley before them, or did he provide evidence of someone in CS prior to Behe making a claim "irreducible" ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:07, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

His? Eugenie C. Scott and Nick Matzke make it clear – "The content of ID is a subset of the claims made by the older “creation science” movement. . dave souza, talk 18:30, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza Yes, Scott should be "Her". But the point remains : the comment "anticipated in creation science; much as in Paley's conception" etcetera comes across as a generic that "too complex" or "design" were mentioned before, not that the specific probability approach of Specified Complexity or that this articles topic of 'irreducible' complexity was common in CS in the 1960s or a major part of this article. I think obviously that irreducibility was not a common part of CS in most descriptions, hence my removing the item as simply an incorrect weird thing being said that is not connected to the article body. A summary comment in the abstract saying "ID" should not be read to have said "IC", that's simply conflating I think I've shown looking at a number (no pun intended on Numbers) of cites did show not finding any such as description of it as being in Creation Science, would hope you'd have decided this isolated line just isn't LEAD material by now. If you won't listen to Numbers or Carlisle, well then you won't. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:12, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

@ User:Markbassett, you could try looking for reliable secondary sources for the ‘legal definition’ of CS: you link to two unreliable primary sources: Access Research Network, an offshoot of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC) promoting intelligent design, and a Discovery Institute page from 1998 giving their legal opinion which subsequently failed spectacularly at Kitzmiller. Gives the unfortunate impression that you're just parroting DI arguments. . . dave souza, talk 09:34, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza you gave Dr. Kenyon (an author for Pandas) as an authority, so I don't think you can object to me showing a link to where ARN denies that and shows detailed distinctions between the ID and CS with links to the legal cases about CS. Now if you want to propose that neither of us use WP:BIASED advocacy sources to show their own positions, meaning neither Discovery Institute nor National Center for Science Education, then I can seek some cites from academic sources such as Ronald Numbers or some WP:WEIGHT pop coverage. But really -- I already saw such, that's why I'm saying CS and ID are categorized separately and IC is not indicated as part of CS. At the end of it all, an assertion in "IC argument was already common in creation science by the mid 1960s" (now "featured") has WP:ONUS to provide a cite to such a work. Not to a vague Scott blurb saying he feels that he has heard things like ID before, but to something specifically IC or that shows developed into IC. Otherwise it's just intentional conflation. Again, I request you just reconsider this line as an odd diversion and just remove it. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:27, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza - I didn't hear further that you were open to actual input from RS, nor that the ARN was pointing to actual court cases, but I have been looking a bit on my own and we both have points - it's complicated. Yes, ID actually is not OEC - since as solely a design-statement, it has no statement about how long that took so is neither YEC nor OEC. ID is portrayed as it's own theme or branch of creationism whose points are not rejected nor supported by other themes there, except obviously the creator-agnostic stance being contrary to Theistic Creationists. ID is also stated as being conflated with CS, so a conflation within WP should be able to find RS - although I have not seen any such WP:V. Seems observable that there is just not a lot of RS comparing CS to IC or ID -- which is to say the WP:WEIGHT for such here is not apparent. Most works on the topics were contemporary and focused to whichever was the topic of the day, about CS or about IC -- but not doing a compare & contrast. I'll give it a bit more looking then post the RS results. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:37, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break; sources on IC related to CS

Mark, try reading carefully the RS given at the outset, Scott and Matzke state "an analysis of ID shows that in both content and history, it is a subset of an earlier antievolution movement known as creation science." You've found some primary sources highlighting their differences, but a subset doesn't mean they're identical. They just use the same argument to claim that complex mechanisms needing all their parts to function couldn't have evolved from a simpler predecessor, therefore The Designer dunnit. dave souza, talk 18:41, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza Yes, that short advocacy pub is the one misstated in the article text, and I've been trying to find some larger overall works with a taxonomy or comparison of the kinds of creationism to show where the topic is in WP:WEIGHT of scholarly works. (I recall seeing a couple taxonomies but finding those again is an issue.) What I've found so far includes:

• That work itself -- "an analysis of ID" simply does not support a line specifying the "IC argument". Where the Scott text says "anticipated in creation science; much as in Paley's conception" etcetera it comes across as a generic that the Intelligent Design "too complex" or "design" were mentioned before, not that specifically the probability maths which is Specified Complexity nor the assertion of the 'irreducible' concept of this IC article existed before. Scott just does not support a line specifically saying for IC "IC argument was already featured in creation science by the mid 1960s".
• The Creationists (Numbers, 2006) - Ch 17 Intelligent Design p380 “Despite the obvious differences between it and creation science (which required a recent special creation and a geologically significant flood), many publications, including the New York Times, used the terms interchangeably, as did one federal judge.” [15] Where the mentioned NYT conflation [15] at pg 548 references NYT (1996) “70 Years After Scopes Trial, Creation Debate Lives” viewable here
• The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion (Harrison, 2010) Excellent short book of discussions, has no taxonomy or direct comparison of CS and ID but P233 mentions design is not liked by religionists re design power skill & goodness is not sanctity mercy, and a future judgement – the essence of religion.
• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Intelligent Design' (Carlisle, 2006) Ch 3 – Intelligent Design cs. Creationism pg p24 “ID supporters contend that both the philosophical assumptions and the way ID goes about its inquiry are fundamentally different from the assumptions and methodology of “creation scientists”. and p28 “The confusion between Intelligent Design and creationism may in part be generated by the insistence of mainstream scientists to blend the two."
• Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design (Phy-Olson, 2010) - Part of the Controversial Issues series … excellent text, does well at describing the history and individuals involved and their personalities, but no comparison of the concepts or taxonomy.
• Science, Evolution, and Creationism (National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, 2008) - limited booklet from NAS, just gives their position on the topics and did not give info nor delineate the types of creationism. (Quite reasonable that NAS sticks to their science and not go into what the other side says, but only RS for their positions and not an academic study.) It did say ID, in speaking only of design, does not take a position on the old or young earth and describes IDC as a "successor" to the creation science movement which dates back to the 1960s. ID does not contradict young earth, old earth, and progressive creationists -- but theistic creationists however were not welcome.
• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - their article on Creationism mentions the Arkansas case and legal definition of science, and also briefly contrasts tradtitional creationism to Intelligent Design. In significant respects, they are clearly not the same. Most Intelligent Design Theorists believe in a long earth history (even the scientific estimation of a universe of about 15 billion years in age) and most accept overall common descent. In a recent book, The Edge of Evolution , Michael Behe has made this point very clear indeed. However, there are major overlaps, sufficient to encourage some critics (myself included) to refer to Intelligent Design Theory as ‘Creationism-lite’ (Ruse 2017, 114).
• Three Views on Creation and Evolution (Reynolds & Nelson, 1999) - views from different proponents - has no direct comparison of these branches of creationism, but is displaying their views as separate POVs.
• Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design (Ham & Meyer, 2017) - later work similar to the three views
• ARN rejection saying ID is not SC, which also points to Edwards v Aguillar definition that scientific creationism is committed to the six propositions.
• Legal definition for Creation Science -- TARN was referring to a legal definition of Creation Science. As defeated in the Edwards v. Aguillard case to teach creation-science, the Keith bill defined it to include six propositions: "the scientific evidences and related inferences that indicate (a) sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing; (b) the insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living kinds from a single organism; (c) changes only within fixed limits or originally created kinds of plants and animals; (d) separate ancestry for man and apes; (e) explanation of the earth's geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of a worldwide flood; and (f) a relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds." These six tenets taken jointly define scientific creationism for legal purposes. The Court in Edwards ruled that taken jointly this group of propositions may not be taught in public school science classrooms.
• A BBC article The BBC types of creationism separates YEC vs ID, though it is not detailing specifically the subtopics of IC vs CS.

I think that's enough, and again suggest you remove the line from the lead as not part of the body, and not supported by WEIGHT of coverage. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 16:23, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Those aren't all "scholarly works" by any stretch of the imagination. XOR'easter (talk) 02:03, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

User:XOR'easter ??? Nobody said they would all be scholarly. If yuo're interested, of those 12 references looked at for this topic, 6 seem scholarly works, one a popular book, one legal work, one journalist article, two are short advocacy pubs (the Scott NCSE bit and the ARN reply), and one is a general NAS position piece. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:50, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

You wrote, I've been trying to find some larger overall works with a taxonomy or comparison of the kinds of creationism to show where the topic is in WP:WEIGHT of scholarly works. XOR'easter (talk) 14:20, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. No such taxonomies found. My line continued " (I recall seeing a couple taxonomies but finding those again is an issue.) What I've found so far includes:" followed by a list of non-taxonomy things I've looked at so far, starting with the cited item I characterised as a "short advocacy pub", then several scholarly books and etcetera with characterisations such as "no comparison of the concepts or taxonomy.". Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

1. Scott, Eugenie C.; Matzke, Nicholas J. (15 May 2007). "Biological design in science classrooms". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104 (suppl_1): 8669–8676. doi:10.1073/pnas.0701505104. ISSN 0027-8424. is published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as a RESEARCH ARTICLE" – it's a high quality source for mainstream views on the detail of the topic, not the "short advocacy pub" that Mark seems to think it is. As discussed above at #Design argument, creation science and IC, Behe has given a definition of IC in which he restates arguments and examples which had earlier been published by CS advocates. The references in that research paper give the dates of these CS publications, and more detail is given in the body of this article. . . dave souza, talk 09:10, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

That is a "short advocacy pub" as self-evident by it being from the National Center for Science Education and under 35 screens of text (approximately 11 pages) as contrasted to typical book length publications with hundreds of pages. It also does not appear to be a mainstream view as any such would shown by multiple other sources of a similar nature and/or multiple scholarly works referencing it as correct, and not be just something said inferred from just the one short advocacy pub. I can believe that others in history - including but not limited to CS folk - have said the word "Design" -- but I clearly see others put ID and IC into a non-CS branch of creationism and not saying that IC was previously within CS. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 21:15, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

That definition of "short advocacy pub" makes no sense. A one-page pamphlet might be called such, not a research article in PNAS. XOR'easter (talk) 14:21, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

User:XOR'easter Again, I characterised it short "as contrasted to typical book length publications with hundreds of pages" (e.g. Numbers The Creationists at 624 pages). And "advocacy pub", not "research paper" because it is a piece from Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the NCSE advocacy group and consists of rhetoric and history like the old "cdesign". This is contrasted with what I would characterise as a "research paper" being a lab study on a scientific topic with pages of technical detail and more importantly links to lab data (e.g. A functional logic for neurotransmitter corelease in the cholinergic forebrain pathway or A neural probe for concurrent real-time measurement of multiple neurochemicals with electrophysiology in multiple brain regions in vivo). PNAS does not seem strict about that 'Research paper' category label - for example, they list as 'Research Article' a 1915 descriptive three pages An Exhibit in Physical Anthropology. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:48, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Markbassett, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is accepted as a reliable source, and the "advocacy pub" argument has already failed. Your argument that it should be downgraded as shorter than Numbers The Creationists at 624 pages has no basis in policy, and is particularly silly as those pages include the notes, acknowledgements and index, which lists only two pages as relevant to irreducible complexity; XOR'easter has made a good point. . . dave souza, talk 11:12, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza - ??? I do not see why you focus on the nature of the Scott article and ignore WP is mangling a line from it or that it is the *only* cite out of many works that even vaguely comes close to a support, and is nowhere in the WP article body. This is hardly showing it to be the mainstream view or LEAD-worthy material.

As to my having characterised it as shorter than a book or being an advocacy pub, you seem denying the obvious facts I used to describe that work. This is a bit of distraction from the topic of looking at why the line should be removed from lead, but I will repeat the facts behind that characterisation. First, at circa 11 pages of content it simply is obviously far shorter than a book (e.g. less than 2% the length of The Creationists). Second, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is obviously an advocacy organisation by public declaration and legal status. Propose your own phrasing for length compared to books, or to the source type, or other factual characteristics of the work, but it is what it is.

I return to the point. The WP line seems not supported by the Scott text or to be notable by WEIGHT of sources - there only is one article which is being misrepresented by the WP line. But I would be happy enough to see if you find others on the topic or on the taxonomy sub-discussion. I also would suggest you revisit the content at WP:RS to note what it says at WP:SCHOLARSHIP and at WP:BIASED - and that each cite should be judged as to its worth and context matters, the source organisation is just one factor. An organisation having a decent reputation also simply does not change its nature from an advocacy source into a scholarly work. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:04, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Your argument about page numbers remains silly, not part of WP:RS, but reaffirming the central point that Behe's idea of irreducible complexity was anticipated in creation science, I've added a citation. To a book of 351 pages, as it happens. . . dave souza, talk 10:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza The point, as I repeatedly have said, is that the WP line seems not supported by the Scott text, is not a significant part of the body, and is not shown as notable by WEIGHT of sources - there only is one article which is being misrepresented. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:57, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza - I would be happy enough to see if you find others on the topic or on the taxonomy sub-discussion. But I think that Scott 2009 quoting Scott 2007 is not really "others". I'm going to leave it in and just edit that citation to finish the line, because the full line shows it is from their earlier work. Behe's idea of irreducible complexity was anticipated in creation science; much as in Paley's conception, creation science proponents hold that structures too complex to have occurred 'by chance' require special creation" missed the ending (Scott and Matzke, 2007). This was Scott showing it is quoting that earlier work. This book seems a more informative work than the original article or the NAS booklet you mentioned below, so is worth a pointer rather than just moving the quote over to the cite of the 2007 work it comes from and deleting the cite, but if all you've been able to find is a cite of a Scott 2009 book mentioning a line in their 2007 article that seems to just underscore this is not a mainstream view and/or does not have significant lead-worthy WP:WEIGHT in the topic Irreducible Complexity. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 16:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

2. The Creationists (Numbers, 2006) covers the development of CS into ID, particularly with Pandas. On p379 he says As early as 1989 the authors of Pandas and People insisted that intelligent design was not "merely fundamentalism with a new twist." It implied "absolutely nothing about beliefs normally associated with Christian fundamentalism, such as a young earth, a global flood, or even the existence of the Christian God." Hoping to distance themselves from the intellectually marginal creation scientists and to avoid endless niggling over the meaning of the Mosaic story of creation, design theorists carefully avoided any mention of Genesis or God", although admitting as much in private. The "obvious differences" between ID and creation science mentioned on p.380 are in this context. Mark has found some other sources discussing these differences between ID and CS, but as noted above, "a subset doesn't mean they're identical", and none of this affects the point that IC gives arguments and examples which had already appeared in CS. . .dave souza, talk 09:51, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Numbers as cited above: “Despite the obvious differences between it and creation science (which required a recent special creation and a geologically significant flood), many publications, including the New York Times, used the terms interchangeably, as did one federal judge.” Which is describing conflation of all creationism as the same, a conflation also mentioned by Carlisle. The article line "Creation science presented the theological argument from design with assertions that evolution could not explain complex molecular mechanisms" is interesting, but other than both saying something about design -- and even Darwin has quotes about Design -- a vague line about Intelligent Design is not a match to this article concept of "Irreducible". Again, the Scott pamphlet is not worthy of lead focus nor really saying what the article line says. At this point I have no idea what more in contrary authoritative works I can provide you, or if you are at all open to any other authority at all -- you simply repeat Scott over & over, and have shown nothing more meet WP:BURDEN or to say what might move your opinion. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 21:27, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

When listing proposed sources above, you described the Science, Evolution, and Creationism booklet from the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine as "limited from NAS", but on p. 40 it gives a more detailed explanation of IC than Numbers, who doesn't explain Behe's claim. Your comment "only RS for their positions and not an academic study" along with your touting of advocacy and spin by Access Research Network, an unreliable primary source for ID arguments, suggests fringe pov pushing. You know it's against policy to give "equal validity" to fringe views. Don't know why you looked at books on "Bible and Theology" as sources. You've apparently given up the search for sources on the central point that both IC and CS before it have used same arguments and examples to claim that certain biological structures are so complex that they could not have evolved through processes of undirected mutation and natural selection, so are evidence of design. Looks like this discussion is done. . .dave souza, talk 11:12, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza] ??? How is that "more detailed" ??? And to be taken as better than Numbers ?!?!? That page gives only one line to claim what Irreducible Complexity is and seems to mangle too complex (to evolve) with "irreducible" ? Seriously, "irreducible" is right in the name, and while the page does later show some awareness of the mousetrap analogy, it just seems to conflate Irreducible Complexity with with the probability and 'too complex' approach of Specified complexity. Ah well, a bit ranty with strawman declarations but that's an advocacy pub for you. Again, the booklet seems usable for what they said as their positions but really not an academic study. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Mark, don't know how you got "one line", it's a full paragraph giving a carefully considered explanation of the IC argument. NAS is fully academic, a good source of mainstream views on the topic. Calling a considered NAS statement an "advocacy pub" is merely an unjustifiable insult.
Since you're suggesting Numbers is better, please quote what he says in The Creationists about what IC is. Shouldn't take you long, he doesn't say much about it. . . dave souza, talk 18:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza From looking at that booklet ....

*Just one line* Page 40 is about Intelligent Design in general, as titled, not about Irreducible Complexity. There is only one line on that p. 40 that specifically says “Irreducible Complexity”, the one that I noted mangled it to mean ‘certain biological structures are so complex that they could not have evolved’ instead of anything about “irreducible”. The website is searchable, and shows that one line is the only use of the word “irreducible”. Just seems generally conflating everything together as ID. (Including bits not seeming ID.)

*Booklet for advocacy* The booklet preface describes itself as a publication for advocacy, intended for school boards, education leaders, policy makers, etcetera. And that Chapter 3 “discusses the scientific and legal reasons against teaching creationist ideas in public school science classes”. This is differentiated from academic work which is one other academic works cite, and differentiated from a mainstream view which is one where most other authors in the topic are saying similar things. (Scott 2009 quoting Scott 2007 does not help.) Cheers Markbassett (talk) 12:03, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

You seem to be going for a very narrow misreading, so for clarification I await your quotation of what Numbers says IC is. As for your second paragraph, "This booklet has been formally reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the Council of the National Academy of Sciences." Undoubtedly an academic publisher, and you used the same phrase about a research article. Your whims lack credence. . . dave souza, talk 15:12, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza Maybe it needs a reminder that for the main thread the WP:BURDEN is on *you*. Please skip side discussions and provide cites to support your edit, since per WP:V the WP:BURDEN is on the person inserting a line. Since that edit is into lead it also should show per WP:WEIGHT that it’s big enough for a lead prominence (despite here there’s nothing about that in the body). I have shown me looking, but it’s not *my* burden to find it nor requires showing the edit wrong. If you cannot readily find anything other than Scott 2007 and Scott 2009 quoting Scott 2007, I think that should tell you the line just is not on. Please revert your edit. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:53, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Work in progress, with clarifications. There's already quite a lot about CS examples in the body, maybe obscured by WP:STRUCTURE issues and a lot of examples lacking secondary sources for relevance, so am progressing that. . .dave souza, talk 18:08, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Historical examples lacking secondary source re IC

Paragraphs trimmed as lacking secondary sources for relevance, if anyone thinks they should be restored, please add them back with a relevant secondary source. . . dave souza, talk 18:17, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Your #3 is a secondary source

Your #6 #7 are secondary sources to #5

Your #8 is a secondary source to #9

Your #10 #13 are secondary sources

I'd also note that citations to Behe are primary sources TomS TDotO (talk) 02:44, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, that's very helpful. I've restored #3, #5, #6 and #7. Don't think at first look that #8, #9, #10 and #13 relate these predecessors to modern IC. . .dave souza, talk 09:00, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Your #8 points out that this relates to evolution, and the quotes in #8 and #9 about parts dependent on one another is exactly the "mousetrap" example.

May I say that you made a big change, in text which has been around for quite some time, and can't expect to have immediate response for all of these. (And that you change the rationale for #8, #9 and others makes for a moving target.) TomS TDotO (talk) 12:38, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough, I was struggling with what seemed a lot of clutter lacking a clear connection to IC in the modern sense, would you prefer me to restore all the points I'd removed, keeping them in the #Context (or equivalent) section?
I've a bit more to do in the #Creationism section. Good point about showing secondary sources when citing Behe as a primary source, that will need some cross-checking for accuracy. In the longer term, don't know why #The mousetrap example isn't under #Claimed examples, and #Consequences looks like it needs review. . .dave souza, talk 15:44, 17 July 2023 (UTC)o

Update: To clarify the change and meet these concerns, I've restored the "Forerunners" section, except for the items now in the "Creationism" section. In the longer term, will comment out items lacking a secondary source showing that they're relevant, and move items into historical sequence where appropriate. . . dave souza, talk 10:11, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

• On a quick glance, snipping can cause some continuity/flow concerns. e.g. It dropped the background mention of famous Galen, making the later Wilkins mentioning of “citing Galen” (from low WEIGHT 3quarksdaily.com) not understandable.

I am also thinking that for the new subtitle “History” maybe should be “Historical similarities” as some are just not shown by cites as relevant to the article topic or as IC history — because other than Paley there is no cite at all to something saying they relate to Behe’s Irreducible Complexity, or that the cite given is to a post-IC note which just mentions it as a similarity in some corner of texts — not “History” of IC, and given by time of item instead of history when the mention was made. It looks the prior dates subtitles were just a collection of things editors (either WP or external) wanted to mention and could show existed but not really something to retitle “History” as not a part of IC history of development and rejection. The Morris mention might be somewhat notable, but the quantitative and probability text sounds like “The Mathematical Impossibility of Evolution” (crediting work from the 1920s) - which seems more a match for Specified complexity. The Scott mention still seems ID as a whole, not IC specifically, and still just not that notable. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:56, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

As above, I've restored the previous "Forerunners" section (less Creationism) and we can review the titles. Like the other sources, Scott & Matzkve show IC in the context of ID. . . dave souza, talk 10:11, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

That section is presented as if folks were posting things they WP:OR thought similar, as it is cites to those things rather than cites to someone directly saying it was similar to IC. The Scott mention on the other had “Historically, ID”, and talks generically ID as a whole, so it looks like WP:OR to cite it as meaning anything about IC in particular. Ultimately, having that section remain a collection of the similar items and by the century subtitles might be better since the 'history of IC' seems a smaller subset and the historical events of IC seem few (developed by Behe and at the Dover trial) which are already mentioned in other sections of the article . Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:42, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Paragraphs trimmed
This argument has a long history, and one can trace it back at least as far as Cicero's De Natura Deorum ii.34, written in 45 BC. In the late 17th-century, Thomas Burnet referred to "a multitude of pieces aptly joyn'd" to argue against the eternity of life. In the early 18th century, Nicolas Malebranche wrote "An organized body contains an infinity of parts that mutually depend upon one another in relation to particular ends, all of which must be actually formed in order to work as a whole", arguing in favor of preformation, rather than epigenesis, of the individual; and a similar argument about the origins of the individual was made by other 18th-century students of natural history. In his 1790 book, The Critique of Judgment, Kant is said by Guyer to argue that "we cannot conceive how a whole that comes into being only gradually from its parts can nevertheless be the cause of the properties of those parts". Galen (1st and 2nd centuries AD) wrote about the large number of parts of the body and their relationships, which observation was cited as evidence for creation. The idea that the interdependence between parts would have implications for the origins of living things was raised by writers starting with Pierre Gassendi in the mid-17th century and by John Wilkins (1614–1672), who wrote (citing Galen), "Now to imagine, that all these things, according to their several kinds, could be brought into this regular frame and order, to which such an infinite number of Intentions are required, without the contrivance of some wise Agent, must needs be irrational in the highest degree." Georges Cuvier applied his principle of the correlation of parts to describe an animal from fragmentary remains. For Cuvier, this related to another principle of his, the conditions of existence, which excluded the possibility of transmutation of species. In the late 19th century, in a dispute between supporters of the adequacy of natural selection and those who held for inheritance of acquired characteristics, one of the arguments made repeatedly by Herbert Spencer, and followed by others, depended on what Spencer referred to as co-adaptation of co-operative parts, as in: "We come now to Professor Weismann's endeavour to disprove my second thesis — that it is impossible to explain by natural selection alone the co-adaptation of co-operative parts. It is thirty years since this was set forth in 'The Principles of Biology.' In § 166, I instanced the enormous horns of the extinct Irish elk, and contended that in this and in kindred cases, where for the efficient use of some one enlarged part many other parts have to be simultaneously enlarged, it is out of the question to suppose that they can have all spontaneously varied in the required proportions." Darwin responded to Spencer's objections in chapter XXV of The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868). The history of this concept in the dispute has been characterized: "An older and more religious tradition of idealist thinkers were committed to the explanation of complex adaptive contrivances by intelligent design. ... Another line of thinkers, unified by the recurrent publications of Herbert Spencer, also saw co-adaptation as a composed, irreducible whole, but sought to explain it by the inheritance of acquired characteristics." In 1975 Thomas H. Frazzetta published a book-length study of a concept similar to irreducible complexity, explained by gradual, step-wise, non-teleological evolution. Frazzetta wrote: "A complex adaptation is one constructed of several components that must blend together operationally to make the adaptation 'work'. It is analogous to a machine whose performance depends upon careful cooperation among its parts. In the case of the machine, no single part can greatly be altered without changing the performance of the entire machine." The machine that he chose as an analog is the Peaucellier–Lipkin linkage, and one biological system given extended description was the jaw apparatus of a python. The conclusion of this investigation, rather than that evolution of a complex adaptation was impossible, "awed by the adaptations of living things, to be stunned by their complexity and suitability", was "to accept the inescapable but not humiliating fact that much of mankind can be seen in a tree or a lizard." An early concept of irreducibly complex systems comes from Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972), an Austrian biologist. He believed that complex systems must be examined as complete, irreducible systems in order to fully understand how they work. He extended his work on biological complexity into a general theory of systems in a book titled General Systems Theory. After James Watson and Francis Crick published the structure of DNA in the early 1950s, General Systems Theory lost many of its adherents in the physical and biological sciences. However, systems theory remained popular in the social sciences long after its demise in the physical and biological sciences.
References

Biased wording in the section "Argument from ignorance"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

It says in the page that "the false assumption that a lack of knowledge of a natural explanation allows intelligent design proponents to assume an intelligent cause, when the proper response of scientists would be to say that we don't know, and further investigation is needed." That response is a little too vague because it seems to suppose that the default position is to believe evolution, assuming that with a lack of information, only evolutionary theory is true. However the reverse is also true; a lack of knowledge about an intelligent cause does not mean evolutionary theories are definitely true. If there is an lack of sufficient knowledge on both sides, then neither side can be assumed. The article gives the impression that the proper response of scientists is to only look into the evolutionary solution to the problem, and that further investigation doesn't include trying to gain more knowledge on theories of an intelligent cause. There are still unexamined theories of intelligent design that have never been scientifically studied. For example, what if a deity is waiting for some specific event to take place before they contact humans. Or what if they had contacted humans previously many times but those humans ignored them so they are waiting until some event in human affairs changes our perception of them. In the 6,000 years of human history, many religions have claimed contact with a deity that eventually stopped. What proof do we actually have that they didn't have contact with an intelligent designer? 2600:1700:8830:8DF0:696B:1248:EE79:5794 (talk) 15:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Your logic is different from how reliable sources see it. It does agree with unreliable sources. Wikipedia prefers the reliable ones; see WP:RS. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:20, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

It is still a biased statement to imply that without enough information, only evolution could be true. 2600:1700:8830:8DF0:696B:1248:EE79:5794 (talk) 16:30, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Nobody uses that logic. Evolution is accepted by science because there is heaps of evidence for it. Creationists, including ID proponents, only have the bad reasoning "I do not understand this, therefore God must have done it" - which only works based on the unspoken assumption "I am so smart that only God can prevent me from understanding something".

Regarding bias: Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia and biased towards science and against bullshit. See WP:FRINGE and WP:YWAB. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:04, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Quite a lot of Evolutionary theory is rewritten every decade because there are so many flaws, and they keep finding more. Evolution bias is far stronger than Creation bias, for example, Agnostic people believe that it could go either way, but Evolutionists are firm believers even when theories of Evolution are proven wrong. How is that any different from Creationists believing when you think they are proved wrong, even though the only evidence you have for a lack of God is that you don't have his phone number?

Just because someone isn't talking to you doesn't mean they don't exist. Like how if I stopped talking to you, and other people don't believe I exist because the only proof you have of my existence is this comment, but they claim that because this comment is old and could have been written by you on an alternate account of yours, so this comment could be fake. Therefore I don't exist. I am just you arguing with yourself.

I thought Wikipedia was supposed to be unbiased. I guess I was wrong. 2600:1700:8830:8DF0:40A3:A562:1056:2364 (talk) 10:53, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia is biased against bullshit. See WP:YWAB. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:47, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Definition of Bullshit: "stupid or untrue talk or writing; nonsense."

Evolution is untrue. Whatever version of Evolution you currently believe in was probably already disproven by some scientist somewhere, but you continue to believe it? That is a serious bias. I don't think you should edit Wikipedia. 2600:1700:8830:8DF0:40A3:A562:1056:2364 (talk) 14:00, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

"some scientist somewhere" is not a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes.

Evolutionists are firm believers... -- You are making up positions to argue against, a familiar tactic, but unpersuasive and ineffective. Just plain Bill (talk) 15:07, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Cilia vz. flagella?

@Markbassett: I'm going to downgrade the subsection on cilia, which you introduced six years ago. I think that this rather is (and already then was) part of the discussion in Irreducible complexity#Flagella, which immediately precedes (and preceded) your addition. I therefore shall insert 'your' subsection as a part of that, and hope that you agree.

If you disagree, please feel free to revert my edit (but, if so, please, also consider a clarification of the difference of the two subjects)! Regards, JoergenB (talk) 21:11, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

User:JoergenB Thank you for notifying me. It's more about what have been named as separate examples with separate content be shown separately than whether Cilia otherwise seem similar to Flagella.

I will revert back to having it separate as it was created for the structural issue of cilium is shown earlier in article as a separate example. The History section Intelligent Design lists examples from Behe at "... "Molecular Machines" going into detail about cilia before saying "Other examples of irreducible complexity abound, including aspects of protein transport, blood clotting, closed circular DNA, electron transport, the bacterial flagellum, telomeres, photosynthesis, transcription regulation, and much more." (Note "Other", where Behe phrases as non-cilia examples things including bacterial flagellum.) Then later the History section Consequences says "Behe's original examples of irreducibly complex mechanisms included the bacterial flagellum of E. coli, the blood clotting cascade, cilia, and the adaptive immune system." (It is unclear in article on what is meant by "originally" or where that list comes from, but it is listing them as two different examples.)

I agree that clarity on details of what was said for claimed examples would be nice, but the section still seems to be at an earlier stage of not clear on what are the claimed examples to show. Cilia appears in both lists so I made it a subsection. I'm viewing it that first the Claimed Examples section should have subsections for the more prominent examples claimed to be IC, and exactly what the content is said for each would be a sub-concern as one cannot have such without a section for it. (Also, the flagellum example section would read oddly if it a first flagellum paragraph has a paragraph talking cilium stuck in before a paragraph resuming flagellum phrasing.) I'm not too concerned on how much of the Behe text one wants to include in each example. The difference between the Cilium example and Flagellum seems ultimately the same narrative one as the difference of flagellum from clotting -- that Behe is detailing different mechanisms and calling them out as different examples.

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:12, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

@Markbassett: Thanks for the explanation! As far as I understand, your main point is that this article is about the theory named "irreducible complexity", and that its structure therefore (at least in the Claimed example section) naturally should exhibit the main points put forward by its main theoretical proponent (i. e., Behe). Thus, and since Behe treated bacterial flagella and eucaryote cilia as different examples, they also should have separate subsections. Is this an approximately correct understanding of your argument?

If so, I appreciate your point. However, neither the main article Evolution of flagella, nor the present version of the subsection Irreducible complexity#Flagella, adheres to this structure. The main article treats eucaryotic, bacterial, and archaeal "flagella" in separate sections. (Since these three structures presently are considered as non-analogous, this is rather reasonable.) The section about the eucaryotic flagellum starts

There are two competing groups of models for the evolutionary origin of the eukaryotic flagellum (referred to as cilium below to distinguish it from its bacterial counterpart). Recent studies on the microtubule organizing center suggest that the most recent ancestor of all eukaryotes already had a complex flagellar apparatus.[reference omitted]

(As you can see, this treats "cilia" as a synonym for "eucaryotic flagella".) The section continues with explanations of the probable common origin and evolution of the cilia, according to the presently favoured theories. (Whether or not these theories hold, their existence refutes Behe's opinion that the cilium were "irreducibly complex", since they exhibit one way the cilium may have developed from simpler systems.)

The subsection Irreducible complexity#Flagella of the article under discussion now has approximately the same structure, except for glossing over the "eucaryotic flagella" rather quickly. Its 'lead' begins

The flagella of certain bacteria constitute a molecular motor requiring the interaction of about 40 different protein parts. The flagellum (or cilium) developed from the pre-existing components of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton. In bacterial flagella, ...

Mitchell, David R. (2007), "The Evolution of Eukaryotic Cilia and Flagella as Motile and Sensory Organelles", Eukaryotic Membranes and Cytoskeleton: Origins and Evolution, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol. 607, New York, NY: Springer, pp. 130–140, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-74021-8_11, ISBN 978-0-387-74021-8, PMC 3322410, PMID 17977465, retrieved 2023-06-25

Wickstead, Bill; Gull, Keith (2011-08-22). "The evolution of the cytoskeleton". Journal of Cell Biology. 194 (4): 513–525. doi:10.1083/jcb.201102065. ISSN 1540-8140. PMC 3160578. PMID 21859859.

and then continues with treating (mainly) bacterial flagella in more detail.

Thus, both the main article (since a long time) and the Flagella section here (at least the last few months) treat both of Behe's examples under the same heading "flagellum". They also do not distinguish between the (ubiquitus) "cilia" and the (rarer) "flagellum" (found in e. g. human sperm cells) among the eucaryotes, but consider them all as "cilia" = "eucaryotic flagella". Now, this is at most one terminological choice (see Flagellum#Terminology; and I suspect that it is not to be the most common one. I guess that the rationale for this choice was that cilia in our lungs and the flagella at our sperms are homologous, and hence do not need to be well distinguished, when we discuss their evolutionary origin. However, I suspect that a clarification could be of use for our readers.

Markbassett, you pointed out that Behe offered the bacterial flagellum and the eucaryotic cilium as two separate examples, and argue that they therefore should appear in two different sections. However, if 'your' present somewhat rudimentary section Irreducible complexity#Cilia indeed would be expanded to a full one, including the general answers by geneticists to Behe's claim, then it probably also should have either Evolution of flagella as its main article, or at least its subsection Evolution of flagella#Eucaryotic flagellum in the same rôle. I don't think that it is common to refer to the same "main article" for two different sections; but it should not be impossible, if this is what you prefer.

The alternative, which I prefer, would be to merge the two subsections Flagella and Cilia into one. It should then be necessary to change its title, e. g., to Flagella and cilia, and to start it by very explicitly stressing that this covers two different examples of Behe's. After giving Behe's bacteriological and eucaryotic exalmples, we could note that there in fact also are archaeal flagella; and that there are evolutionary explanations for all three complexes, but that they are different. (I don't know if introducing the term "nonhomologous" here would be of any help.) As for the eucaryotic variant, there could be an idea to note that the extant ones actually split into somewhat different variants, with clearly different physiologic functions and some difference in composition, but very clearly the same evolutionary source. Thus, just considering the eucaryotic cilia/flagella (including the immobile but sensitive cilia) should provide some good examples of exaptation (which IMHO is a rather relevant issue when discussing ID).

Which alternative (of these two, or some other) would you prefer? JoergenB (talk) 21:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

@JoergenB: - Um, more that here it was trying to do a tiny tiny tiny bit towards internal consistency. In the large sense yes, this article is titularly for the concept "Irreducible Complexity', although there is some confusion with "too complex" (which is Specified complexity), and both content and structure seems largely not about IC. For this particular tidbit of having a subsection, I was trying to have what the claimed examples section has match a bit more clearly to where the article earlier listed claimed examples. That Behe treated bacterial flagella and eucaryote cilia as different examples was relevant mostly as just a check that the article listing was not a typo. I'm not saying these are by WP:WEIGHT the main examples of claims or of discussions, just that these two are given in more than one listing as separate entries and that those listings did check out. The content of the examples subsections -- all of the subsections -- could use considerably more work on informative content. Jutst did a tiny tiny bit more on the Beetle part, though I'm again not even sure it should be here. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:20, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Bombardier Beetle

Anyone have more sources stating the beetle features are IC ???

Viewing the Cilia vs Flagellum area led me to seeing what else are listed as examples and for the Bombardier Beetle it was unclear about who said it was IC and where, as the cite only said Behe discussed it. So I removed the cite as insufficient for the line listing the components as IC.

I did find a replacement cite which does say components are IC, but the line phrasing of creationists (plural) state it needs either a summary cite saying so or multiple creationist works saying the components were IC. (Looking I did find Darwin's Black Box (p31) he referred to the older arguments (Gish vs Dawkins) about Bombardier Beetles, but the section I saw seemed him saying these were *not* IC since individual components had a benefit.)

I will reword the line to just 'said' as a summary of the one cited work as I do not have multiple works and not a source saying plural works say that, but if anyone comes up with more they can return it to a plural phrasing.

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 13:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

• p.s. If no further cites can be found, perhaps it should just be removed as UNDUE prominence and as something which predated the term IC rather than something directly in IC discussions. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

"Although Behe leaves open the questions of whether bombardier beetles are irreducibly complex", he devotes five pages of his Black Box to the detailed arguments before saying "All we can conclude at this point is that Darwinian evolution might have occured. If we could analyze the structural details of the beetle down to the last protein and enzyme, and if we could account for all these details with a Darwinian explanation, then we could agree with Dawkins. For now, though, we cannot tell whether the step-by-step accretions of our hypothetical evolutionary stream are single-mutation"hops" or helicopter rides between distant buttes." Implying IC remains an option. He's put online a review which says "To illustrate that life is irreducibly complex, and therefore designed, Behe takes the reader on a microscopic expedition through the following mechanisms: .... (2) bombardier beetle ballistics, ...". He's not the only IC proponent, the cite you've added (but not formatted properly) is a paper by Andrew McIntosh (physicist) which "is primarily concerning the physics of the beetle valve system and shows that it is irreducibly complex and marvelously designed." These points should be shown . . dave souza, talk 10:44, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

User:Dave souza Um, I think that where Behe is quoted as saying something might have evolved is pretty clearly him saying that part is not IC. "All we can conclude at this point is that Darwinian evolution might have occured." It then has him asserting it cannot be determined whether the steps were single-mutation hops or helicopter rides -- but either way is saying the mechanism is an endpoint of steps, which is to say reducible. Anyway, it all simply lacks him saying the word "irreducible" so that doesn't serve as a support for "irreducible complexity" being said about it.

The further quote from a review about the Behe book "Darwin's Black Box" is from Thane Hutcherson Ury saying "Behe takes the reader on a microscopic expedition through the following mechanisms: (1) the marvels of vision, (2) bombardier beetle ballistics, (3) bacterial flagella, (4) the blood clotting process, (5) intracellular transport, and (6) disease immunity. These each display different aspects of irreducible complexity, molecular cascading, and symbiosis of biochemical systems, and veto Darwinian gradualism in that natural selection is emasculated; that is, the incipient stages cannot even be conceptualised, much less in a way that would confer selective advantage." But where within vision, beetle, etcetera that Ury thinks Behe said some aspect of irreducible complexity is not stated. Ury is asserting that each displays different aspects of those Intelligent Design concepts, and not stating that each in entirety is IC. It's hard to see that short remark review of places Behe found ID aspects as much of a declaration for the beetle as a whole, particularly when the other items are not listed as such. (For example, the article already mentions Behe acknowledged that the evolution of the larger anatomical features of the eye have been well-explained, and that Behe was pointing to light sensitivity - then the article detours to a note re Safarti and about a page re the larger anatomical features.) The Ury review later identifies the Box section about the beetle beetle defence as requiring at least six steps and "Behe does not even have to elaborate on the (at least) four metabolic processes simultaneously taking place, nor mention other anatomical support, or the crucial aspect of synchronisation, etc.". This section of the review still lacks any declaration of "irreducible". Anyway, the Ury list quote is just a brief line in a remote book review rather than prolonged and prominent mentions by ID proponents, so I am still not seeing beetles as having enough WP:WEIGHT to give as an IC posterchild here, and not seeing any specifics that could be used for article content to detail what is being asserted as IC. It all just seems more a bit of Creation Science legacy that somehow got misplaced here. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:43, 14 December 2023 (UTC)