Back to irreducible complexity (PART TWO) (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, January 31, 2010, 11:54 (5206 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Just naked RNA or DNA can do nothing. There must be the whole suite of complex protein molecules to do the translations and productions of proteins that create living cells. This is the chicken-and-egg puzzle that faces those folks who love an automatic 'biogenesis'. Shapiro offers his opinion that evolution is capable of doing this, of being able to create all this complex mechanism bit by bit, or in one big jump, driven by what? "Survival of the fittest" does not apply to molecules. It is his own opinion. There are no facts to follow here. He is an evolutionist at heart, and won't make the jump to accepting my proposal.-This post comes as a surprise to me. I may have misunderstood Shapiro. The longer article is entitled "Mobile DNA and evolution in the 21st century", and certainly the impression I had from the two articles I read was that he was not starting from scratch, as you are. I thought he was examining existing mechanisms which might explain complex organs, the origin of so-called "novelties", and the relationship between evolutionary change and the environment. NOT that he was explaining how the mechanisms themselves were originally formed. I will, of course, take your word for it, as these two articles are all I've read, but as I like speculating, let me at least offer you a little theory, since you are struggling to reconcile Shapiro's science with his religion.-What had impressed me so much was the absolute neutrality of the two articles. He seems to be presenting the scientific arguments for the different methods by which evolution works (e.g. whole genetic doubling, which may result in multiple changes within a single generation), and from his approach I had actually deduced that he was an agnostic. He certainly criticizes both Creationists and Darwinists for ignoring the latest developments. There is no question that he is, as you say, "an evolutionist at heart", but so are you, aren't you? You reject gradualism and believe in punctuated equilibrium, as he appears to do. The various extremely complex mechanisms that he proposes may well be used to support your point of view ... that it's asking too much to attribute them to chance ... but he doesn't say so. Now, though, since you tell us he is a practising Jew, I can't help wondering if in fact he DOES take your point of view, i.e. that there is a designer responsible for the original mechanisms. Is it possible that he's acting as the model scientist should, and simply separating his scientific research from his faith? As we know of old, evolution is perfectly compatible with theism, and you don't need to taint your scientific research with your subjective beliefs, as Dawkins and Hunter do in their different fundamentalist ways. Just a thought ... and of course you know far more about him than I do.