On the very idea of irreducible complexity
Although I don't buy into the whole intelligent design movement, I find the concept of irreducible complexity interesting. Irreducible complexity is the idea that certain complex things couldn't evolve in the step by step fashion in line with the theory of evolution. The bacteria flagellum is often used as the prime example of an irreducible complex system. There are so many parts to the bacteria flagellum with many protein components. It is said that if any of those proteins were missing or malfunctioning, the whole organelle would be useless.
What would it take to show that something is irreducibly complex? I think there are two things:
1) First you have to assume that evolution builds complexity by having all its primitive forms advantageous.
2) And you have to show that there can't be a build up of primitive forms to its present complex form, where each primitive form is advantageous.
I don't see how a scientist can demonstrate irreducible complexity. Naturally evolutionary scientists reject the idea of irreducible complexity. But just because an idea is not useful to scientists, it doesn't mean we can't talk about it philosophically.
My question is - can the idea of irreducible complexity be interesting philosophically?
And also, philosophically speaking, can there be anything that is truly irreducibly complex?
What would it take to show that something is irreducibly complex? I think there are two things:
1) First you have to assume that evolution builds complexity by having all its primitive forms advantageous.
2) And you have to show that there can't be a build up of primitive forms to its present complex form, where each primitive form is advantageous.
I don't see how a scientist can demonstrate irreducible complexity. Naturally evolutionary scientists reject the idea of irreducible complexity. But just because an idea is not useful to scientists, it doesn't mean we can't talk about it philosophically.
My question is - can the idea of irreducible complexity be interesting philosophically?
And also, philosophically speaking, can there be anything that is truly irreducibly complex?
Comments (64)
Which is not to say that the argument from design doesn’t have merits. But the problem with it is, it tries to create an empirical argument for something which is by definition beyond the scope of empiricism. So, I feel that ID arguments mirror the materialist arguments they’re wanting to disprove. Lean one way, then you’re tending towards religious fundamentalism which is the literal interpretation of mythological truths. Lean the other way, you’re tending towards materialism which is the metaphysical interpretation of methodological naturalism. A ‘middle path’ is able to accomodate a religious sensibility and a thoroughly empirical attitude, by recognising something like Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria (which is accepted by neither Dawkins nor his ID antagonists .)
I agree that ID uses materialistic arguments to counter materialism. From empirical evidence, they reach the same conclusion as materialists : "it's turtles all the way down". Or as they prefer : "irreducible complexity" can only be resolved with a leap of faith. Therefore, faced with a brain boggler, they add a hypothetical black box to absorb the infinite regression : "God is the big turtle to end all turtles".
From the neutrality of that elliptical thought stopper . . . they assert that their own religious tradition has provided authoritative insights to the mind of the Big Turtle. To that, I reply ipse dixit. On the other hand, physicalist scientists have rewound the "tape" of empirical Evolution until the evidence ran-out at the "Big Bang" beginning. So, apart from divine revelation, nobody on this side of the creation event has any verifiable knowledge of the other side : Infinity & Eternity. Hence, both Big Turtle and Multiverse notions are intrinsically imaginative speculative opinions, with inherent biases.
Therefore, having followed both lines of reasoning to their point of divergence, I have concluded that neither side knows what it is talking about, when they make ultimate claims about what's inside the Black Box. Scriptural revelations are obviously based on pre-scientific human speculations rather than supernatural Gnostic knowledge. And scientific cosmologies are inherently limited to the post-Big Bang era for empirical evidence. Hence, neither side has any claim on ultimate Truth. So, for those of us motivated to go beyond the frustrating limits to human perception, we have no choice but to resort to fallible human reasoning, for constructing our own personal imaginative speculative opinions. And we must deal with our inherent subjective biases and areas of ignorance as best we can.
Since the beliefs & opinions of religious & scientific authorities can't be trusted to provide the final word on the mysteries of Reality, my belief system must remain flexible & open-minded --- following the pragmatic policy of Jesus : "be wise as serpents and innocent as doves". Therefore, I have resolved to follow the "middle path" between "religious sensibilities" and scientific dispassion, guided by my own principle of BothAnd. It accepts information from both sides of Gould's pragmatic compromise. But it remains "woke" to the reality that both Magisteria will occasionally violate the DMZ truce, and cross the line between the authority of Faith and that of Reason.
The result of that attempt at Consilience is my own personal Myth of the creative process : Intelligent Evolution. :nerd:
BothAnd Principle : My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
Intelligent Evolution : This open-ended essay is not intended to present a scientific theory, but merely the kernel of a modern myth based on a 21st Century worldview.
http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent%20Evolution%20Essay_Prego_120106.pdf
It appears this concept overlaps with weak and strong emergence.
I wonder about how evolution could lead to comedy or music - neither seems to have an obvious evolutionary driver - so I think remaining open minded maybe the correct policy. For example, there are theories, as promoted in Ridley Scott's movies, that the human race may have been genetically altered by visiting aliens at sometime in the past. Hard to disprove.
Yes. That's the point of the BothAnd philosophy. Materialist Science and Spiritualist Religion serve well in their own Magisteria : physical vs emotional welfare, But when they stray into the opposition's domain, the inherent limitations of their methods run into roadblocks. For example, as you noted, the materialist approach of Science cannot explain the emergence of "comedy or music", which have little to do with survival of the fittest. And Religion's resort to divine revelation to resolve philosophical mysteries leaves it open to various interpretations, and no way to weed-out false prophets, except politically-motivated inquisitions.
So, my solution to the dilemma is to accept the best of both methods, and to apply them judiciously : Science to Quantitative (physical) questions and Religion to Qualitative (metaphysical) mysteries. Ironically, the result of that marriage of estranged bedfellows is essentially a return to the basic methods of Philosophy : Research and Reason; Facts and Theories; with a soupçon of skepticism.
Have a look at https://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/
Of course this is fudged by ID idiots when the absence of evidence is taken - by magical leap - as evidence for design. As usual it's shitty god of gaps bullshit, as all theology is and can only ever be.
For the most common usage of the word "theology", the phrase "theology without God" doesn't make sense. So, I would say:
1) Materialism is just theology with self as God, or
2) Materialism and Theology both require belief.
Your question is unclear. There are any number of hypothetical features about which we could say with a high degree of confidence that they could not have evolved in an Earth organism - tempered steel claws, for example. Or, in a more abstract sense, given some processes operating in some environment, there are any number of outcomes that are outside the range of possible outcomes of those processes. For example, gravitational accretion will not result in an object shaped like Taj Mahal.
There seems to be more to the idea of irreducible complexity than just being outside the range of possible evolutionary outcomes - the word "complexity" provides a hint, but it is difficult to elucidate what it is exactly that creationist proponents of the idea are trying to get at (not for the lack of trying on their their part, but they aren't a terribly competent bunch, nor are they particularly concerned with intellectual rigor). That's one problem with the idea, and one reason why it is difficult to treat philosophically.
If you take a particular biological feature of unknown evolutionary origin and ask whether it perhaps could not have evolved, you will have a tough job in trying to prove the negative. What you see is just the end result, which often reveals little about its own origin. Take something as simple and paradigmatically irreducible as an arch: if you try to build it bit by bit without the use of auxiliary structures like centers, it would be unstable, not to mention non-functional during its intermediate stages.
But then an arch could also start as a solid formation, from which material was gradually removed.
With biological evolution the possible paths are so numerous and at times so circuitous that the challenge before an irreducible complexity proponent becomes insurmountable.
Quoting StreetlightX
This is a pretty bizarre statement on its face. Is this some kind of misguided Popperianism? I don't think that any evolutionary scientists ever start from the assumption that something is irreducibly complex - not as a formal methodological move, nor in any other sense that I can think of.
If one understands IC as simply a negative thesis ('X cannot be explained by means of Y') then it amounts to nothing but a base statement of fallibilism. It's the same principle as having control groups for tests: the base assumption is always that one's hypothesis makes not one jot of difference, and its only when measured against this standard does any science worthy of the name live up to it. Pretty basic stuff.
But no one takes seriously the possibility that some biological feature is not evolved, let alone the stronger proposition that it could not have evolved in principle. IR is useless as a null hypothesis (if null hypothesis testing is what you had in mind).
If one is committed to science being an empirical discipline, rather than an ideological one, one had better take it seriously. Alternatively, you're welcome to set up your altar in the corner and join the rest of the fanatics.
Oh brother :roll: I suppose the null hypothesis for an entomologist that discovers a new fly species is that these flies are spontaneously generated by rotten meat. Because science!
(Imaginary Interview)
[i]“Hello, Austino; it’s time for more perplexity,
For I am now the God of Irreducible Complexity.”[/i]
“That you are, being the unmade All,
And so it shall become your downfall.”
“Eh? I’m never to be at all?”
“Your believers have given You some fine new clothes:
But Intelligent Design is falsely based, God knows,
On Irreducible Complexity—
So I still recognize You as the God of ID.”
“That I am is what I really am now.”
“Well, Darwin said long ago that his theory
Would break down if Irreducible Complexity
Were shown to be true, and yet
No proposal has ever stood up to the analysis.”
[i]“Still, here I am, Mr. A, alive merely by possibility,
Myself indeed quite complex, even irreducibly,
“For “I am the be all and end all—the Prime Maker,
And so I keep tabs on every form and splinter
Of the Universe, planning its every constituent
That I designed. So then, simple I am NOT.
“Yes, man, I am an extremely complicated System,
Yet I have no parts, for then My parts that stemmed
Would be even more fundamental than Me!”[/i]
“Yes, ‘God’, if You existed you would surely be
Very very very complex, irreducibly so…”
“…So…”
“…So, by the Creationist Theory, such as it must be,
You cannot be explained except by a larger ID.”
“I’m falling…”
“…Into the hole that they dug for you.”
I find the notion of irreducible complexity very similar to that of missing links - transitional fossils. Assuming evolution progressed from simplicity to complexity, there had to be intermediate stages that connected one life-form to another. I believe the bird-dinosaur intermediate stage was the Archaeopteryx.
Anyway, irreducible complexity makes the claim that there are no intermediary stages that lead up to, in this case, the bacterial flagellum which accordingly brings to question the soundness of the theory of evolution.
However, we must bear in mind the processes at work at the scale of a bacterial flagellum. In effect the flagellum is a proteinaceous structure probably composed of a handful of molecules. As far as I know, molecular interactions follow strict rules, especially at the levels at which the component molecules of a flagellum interact. A close approximation in my "opinion" is that it's all or none in nature i.e. either the component molecules of the flagellum fit to become a functional locomotory organ or not. That the molecules involved will alter gradually, through intermediate stages is out of the question. Ergo, irreducible complexity comes as part and parcel of evolution at the molecular level.
What is interesting though is transitional/intermediate stages in life-forms, far removed from the molecular level of evolution, the macroscopic phenotype. Here we see intermediate/transitional stages. I mentioned archaeopteryx. There's the lobed-fin fishes if I recall correctly. At this level, the missing links are clearly represented in the fossil records. These stages however are a result of irreducible complexity at the molecular level of evolution and this comes out of the laws of chemistry and biochemistry.
Personally speaking I like the original implications of irreducible complexity - intelligent design - because it would be amazing to discover what are veritable easter eggs left by (a) super-intelligent designer(s) in the code of the life that are clues to our origins, purpose, and destiny.
A good example of how irreducible complexity is different to missing links is our immune system. Antibodies against germs and their toxins aren't produced in gradual steps. To the contrary, the body deploys a vast array of possible antibodies, each synthesized as it is from scratch and whichever variant matches the germ/toxin is then amplified. Irreducible complexity but probably very similar to evolution at the molecular level.
So should we also have a cancer-denying field of study to counter-balance mainstream cancer research?
Theology without a theos? I like that idea.
No, but if we're going to take seriously the hypothesis that advanced aliens exist, we're going to have to take seriously the idea that ID might have taken place here. Ditto if we're serious about simulation theory.
Do you mean that you were being ironic? No? OK then - well that simply doesn't work because the whole point of science is to break the reality into smaller and smaller bits in the attempt to better understand how the bits all work together to make the whole. Assuming that a system - at whatever level - is irreducibly complex, invalidates any further attempt to analyse that system. But its actually worse than that, because it really only depends on what level your looking at - the earth as an ecosystem, for example, is irreducibly complex in the sense that it could not have been any other way and still produce the exact variety of lifeforms and biological 'functionalities' as it currently has...but does that mean it must have been deliberately and intelligently created exactly as it is today?
Natural selection does not work teleologically - it merely filters out those that have a negative impact on survivability. Beyond that, more or less anything goes. So just because a particular arrangement of proteins etc. has a certain biological functionality in a particular organism now doesn't imply that the arrangement evolved for that purpose - it just means that the arrangement survived the evolutionary process to have that functionality now.
Well that's me off the hook then!
Not in the slightest. The 'point of science' is to follow the evidence, and not make a priori assumptions as to what reality ought to be like.
As to the rest, I think any whiff of creationism is utter shit, so you're preaching to the choir. My point is simply that any scientific theory (evolutionary or otherwise), in order to remain scientific and not blind dogma, must be prepared to counternance it's being wrong, or open to future revision by new evidence. That's what a null hypothesis, taken seriously, is designed to guarantee. It's the thin wedge that keeps science from joining the ranks of religious fanatics. We don't counter creationism by absolutizing (existing) science, we do it by insisting ever more on it's irreducible grounding in empiricism.
My point was simply to 'co-opt' IC for science, and to show that taking it seriously does not in the slightest put one on the side of creationists.
How can "irreducible complexity" be anything other than an a priori assumption? Scientists are not sleuths - its not a "crime scene" where evidence is "followed" - scientists are collectors of data and the "null hypothesis" should be the assumption that nothing extraordinary (i.e. 'supernatural') is going on because to assume otherwise is to pull the metaphysical rug from under the methodologically naturalistic feet upon which the scientific method stands. To admit irreducible complexity is to admit fundamental inexplicability - and if some things are fundamentally unexplainable, then the whole scientific enterprise is flawed because it is based on the assumption that the world is fundamentally explainable if only we could find the explanations.
I mean since I do not take simulation theory or the idea that earth-bound biology was somehow "engineered" by advanced aliens seriously, I have no requirement to take intelligent design seriously.
No. The null hypothesis is that nothing is going on at all. It has nothing to do with the supernatural, and nothing to do with the 'extraordinary'. That one's theory explains nothing at all is indeed an assumption, an assumption that all science must take seriously without which it gives up its right to call itself science at all. That science doesn't simply admit any theory with a semblence of correlation and is littered with the dead bodies of empty theories which have all attempted to claim explanatory relavence is among it's chief acheivements.
Supplementally, it is not within science's remit to decide beforehand whether or not the universe is amenable to it. Don't confuse science with a crude scientism. But that's another debate.
I think you're missing my point here. The assumption of ID and irreducible complexity is that there exists a teleological relationship between biological structure and functionality (i.e. it is 'made' like that to serve that 'purpose' - and assuming that we are not ascribing creative intentionality to prebiotic systems or microbiological lifeforms I can only assume that such teleological directedness is imagined to be supernatural) - such an assumption cannot be a null hypothesis. The correct null hypothesis is that no such relationship exists and that the evolution of form and functionality is a random walk - I don't see any compelling reason to reject the null hypothesis so far - do you?
IC <> ID. What you say applies to ID, not IC. ID Is a positive thesis, IC a wholly negative one. I'm not at all taking about ID, which is beneath serious debate.
Yep.
I don't think they answer anything - there is absolutely zero evidence for intelligent aliens interfering in biological evolution - and how does it help anyway? If it were true then the big question becomes not where did we come from but where did they come from? Ditto, simulation 'theory'...who or what is the simulator? And in any case, even if we are in a simulation, evolution would appear to be helping us to understand how the simulation unfolds - which, if that's what it is, is what we need to know. Whether it truly is a physical reality or a simulation, our goal is to find out how it unfolds and where we fit into the greater scheme. I don't find either of these ideas particularly useful in terms of elucidating how evolution unfolds, even if they were true.
I'm not following - because I talked about two ideas (ID and irreducible complexity) making the same assumptions (as they do) my comments are irrelevant? Kindly explain how that works.
The chain of logic is fairly straight-forward: given all the planets in the galaxy, it's pretty likely some alien life exists. From that, it follows that advanced alien life possibly exists. The possibility has to be taken seriously, at least. From that you need only posit that advanced alien life might interfere in evolutionary processes. We would, and in another thousand years, we'll probably be doing it.
It's an explanation for irreducible complexity. Aliens did it.
Yes, it does beg that question. That does not mean, however, that directed panspermia can't happen. Or didn't happen. Perhaps their evolutionary path was much different than ours.
Again, just because a hypothesis begs a question does not mean that that hypothesis isn't true. Physics and Cosmology posit theories that beg all sorts of interesting unanswered questions (possibly unanswerable).
It's an explanation for problems of irreducible complexity: the programmers did it.
What are you talking about...OK - here are Michael Behe's own definitions of IC:
Quoting Behe
Quoting Behe
And here's his conclusion from the same article:
Quoting Behe
How is any of that not a commitment to teleology?
If you think the failure of a thesis necessitates the commitment to another - rather than simply leaving explanation in abeyance, as it should do - then you've simply recapitualted the magical thinking of ID proponents.
True, but if it leads to infinite causal regress why not just admit that we have no clue what caused it and focus on attempting to understand what we know exists? As far as we can possibly tell, the universe has been doing what the universe does for about 14bn years or so - what is the basis for assuming that at some entirely arbitrary point something very extraordinary happened when as far as we can possibly tell, most things are reasonably adequately explained by nothing extraordinary happening (Copernican prinicple)?
Quoting Siti
This is not a particularly complex point to grasp.
I don't think directed/managed panspermia leads to an infinite regress. An alien race could have taken a much different evolutionary path that avoids these issues entirely. No causal regress needed.
Simulation theory certainly doesn't lead to an infinite regress. It ends at some physical universe where the simulation creators exist. Their evolutionary path could be inconceivable to us, and so again, these issues wouldn't even apply. You would have to wonder why they programmed it in, but that's just a mystery, not an infinite regress.
And infinite regress-like problems certainly hasn't stopped inflation theory from taking off. An infinite ensemble of causally disconnected universes that's impossible to prove? That makes intelligent design look positively pedestrian.
Key phrase: "as far as we can possibly tell". As far as we can possibly tell, simulation theory is possible, maybe even plausible (see Nick Bostrom's argument). As far as we can tell, advanced aliens exist and mess around with habitable planets. We're certainly going to do it if we don't destroy ourselves and I don't see why we would be special in that regard.
Dear God - what have I got myself into? No - IC is committed to teleology because (as Behe defines IC) it makes the assumption that all the parts of an "irreducibly complex" system 'arose' (either by design or by evolution) to fulfill a particular function as part of a particular system. That is teleology. His whole argument is that without one or other parts of the irreducibly complex system, evolution would never have given rise to the other parts because they would have had no function. But in reality, parts of systems evolve into parts of other systems sometimes when the original function (if there even was one) is no longer required. For example, whale hip bones no longer serve any perambulatory system function, but they do provide a convenient fixing point for the male whale's presumably prodigiously proportioned penis. And just because we can't identify the exact original 'purpose' of all the parts of a particular system, doesn't in any way imply that those parts could not have evolved independently or as parts of earlier co-evolving systems that had entirely unrelated functionalities.
Well "as far as we can possibly tell" there are giant silver teapots orbiting all planets beyond our own solar system and entirely invisible moncupators in the back right hand corners of all our fridges. Just because we can't rule something out doesn't mean we have to rule them in.
You're making a category error. The possibility of teapots orbiting planets isn't in the same category as the possibility of advanced alien life or simulation theory. Oribiting teapots aren't taken seriously by anyone. Simulation theory and advanced alien life are certainly taken seriously by many experts.
No I'm not, you were talking about things for which we have zero evidence...so was I.
Yes, you are. There are things we have zero evidence for that are possible, even plausible (alien life), and there are things we have zero evidence for which are not remotely possible (the flying spaghetti monster, orbiting tea pots, etc.).
In other words, you're equating the possibility of alien life existing with the possibility of a tea cup orbiting Jupiter. That's a ludicrous comparison. I certainly expect us to eventually find alien life. Don't you? I certainly don't expect us to find any orbiting tea cups. I assume you agree with this?
But this is just crude adaptationism; the sting in the tail of IC is the second part, in which evolution could not have given rise to something because there was no available evolutionary pathway. But that's just the null hypothesis: that there is no way to get from A to B. That's what's 'irreducible'.
Now you are misrepresenting what I said - of course alien life is possible - even intelligent alien life and even super-advanced intelligent alien life. But there is absolutely zero evidence that the interference of such alien life in the process of biological evolution on earth is in any way a plausible explanation for apparently irreducible and otherwise inexplicable complexity in biological systems.
But that second definition too is based on teleological assumptions - the argument is that evolution could not 'select' in favour of a pathway leading to or including "parts" with no advantageous functionality - but that's a just a complete misconception of how natural selection works (I thought I had already explained that somewhere). In any case, nature does not select "in favour" of this or that trait generally, but largely against disadvantageous traits - i.e. things that tend to lead to an early death - of a cell, or an organism...etc. tend to lead to an early death and are therefore less likely to be passed on.
And by the way, you are misinterpreting "null hypothesis" again. The null hypothesis in this case is that there is no teleological relationship between evolved structure and biological functionality. The function is an accidental (natural) consequence of the structure in its environment, not the purpose or direction of the evolutionary process. And so far, I see no reason to reject the null hypothesis.
I'm entirely with you on selective pressure being a loose net and the reality of exaptation and so on. None of this I dispute. None of this has been in dispute - so maybe save your sermons for class? But I think it's quite possible to decouple, or isolate, as it were, the negative thesis - you can't get from A to B - from the positive one - that each part must have a functional role. I'm perfectly happy to discard the argument for IC - which is irrelavent for a null hypothesis in any case - and simply hew to the conclusion it wants to derive.
The only proper null hypothesis is randomness and as yet, we have no compelling reason to reject it.
Ugh, "...via an evolutionary process" obviously, I'd have thought that obvious enough.
As for null hypothesis I simply mean the idea that heritable change is not explained by evolutionary mechanisms. The thesis against which evolutionary science pitches itself. I'm not referring to a null hypothesis for ID or whatever.
Obviously! So is there any reason - now that we have happily discarded the argument for irreducible complexity - to doubt that it is equally obvious that A has indeed led to B "...via an evolutionary process"? I can't think of one.
The necessity of keeping science empirical. I said this from the very beginning so I'm somewhat bemused that we had to detour through a bunch of unrelated dosh to get there. And besides, I said nothing about doubt - a loaded term which I nowhere used - so to be honest it's probably more fair to say that what you've written here has nothing to do with my previous posts. Fallibism is not a question of doubt.
You said
That sure sounds like you're lumping orbiting tea pots and alien life together, since both have zero evidence.
Anyway, it sounds like you admit the possibility of aliens and orbiting tea pots belong in different categories.
Quoting StreetlightXIts just the way the conversation naturally evolved.
Quoting StreetlightXAre you sure?
Great. All the more reason to ensure that we keep open the possibility that new evidence may prompt a revision of our theories, as a matter of principle.
Quoting Siti
Yes. But I could be wrong :)