Can you support this claim?
So there is no “Baylor article”? I was particularly interested due to the interesting history of Baylor University and ID. Ashwin, it would probably be a good idea to be familiar enough with your own evidence to use it appropriately.
It’s a typo… happens once in a while…
I have challenged you to answer any of the many test questions that would be possible to answer if your fixation on “complexity” made any sense at all:
- If evolution with God’s help can increase complexity, and evolution without God’s help cannot,
is the formation of a land mammal into a whale an INCREASE in complexity or not?
It’s at this point you deflect the question by asking “Can I demonstrate that whales did evolve?”
That isn’t the point at all. The question is answerable whether whales evolved or not, because you claim to know the limitations of complexity. So: did God help with the evolution of whales, because they are indeed more complex than land mammals?
OR: did God ignore the evolution of whales, and so the resulting whale-creature is a corrupted mish-mash of degenerated land mammals?
THIRD AND FINAL POSSIBLE ANSWER - < The Actual Situation!
OR: is it in fact true, that there is no way of knowing which genotype or phenotype is more complex than any other genotype or phenotype, once we have moved past obvious distinctions like “one-celled” vs. “multi-celled”, and so forth?
Which is it, @colewd? If you deflect this question one more time, and thus do not answer it, I am telling my entire family to take you out of their last will-in-testaments… you will get NOTHING from us.
George
You realize that the simple to complex model is sciences current paradigm. I am simply saying I don’t agree with mainstream science here.
I really don’t have a fixation on complexity I am simply think science has a paradigm here that is leading to faulty conclusions.
No, not really. Sure, some science writers get sloppy, and make flippant references to increasing complexity. It’s easy to get caught up in that:
one cell, more simple than multi-cell.
multi-cellular with identical cells (a colony), more simple than specialized cells, making an integrated whole.
one creature with specialized tissues, but no backbone, more simple than creatures with a backbone…
etc. etc.
But once you get to four finned fish … you have a real problem. There is no scientific way to measure complexity. And any Evolutionist worth his salt says this.
You are repeating the words of (dare I say it?) the mentally challenged evolutionists or less imaginative evolutionists … not the truth of Evolutionism.
Actually, no. That is not the paradigm. Evolution does not have a specific direction.
So maybe this whole fixation of yours … or your response to what you thought was THEIR fixation, is just an honest mistake, yes?
It is my impression that the YECs are the ones who cultivate this “complex”/Evolution vs. “corruption”/Devolution model.
The ID proponents also do that.
So is it my imagination that the OOL guys say life started from the first self replicating molecule and the evolutionists say that the eukaryotic evolved from simpler precursor.
Oh absolutely. Don’t let my laziness create the misinterpretation that I don’t agree. I just ran out of energy that sapped my will to write a list of all the misguided souls who use the word “complexity” like it was an important criterion!
This is a complete change in topic. We are discussing Evolution of one population of life forms into multiple descendant populations of life forms.
Almost all of us here recognize that “life from non-life” is a much more challenging issue.
But in any case, “complexity” is not the best way of describing either process - - because there is no good way to measure complexity between “peer groups”!
I have pointed out that besides the obvious differences between “no cell” vs. “one cell” … or between “one cell” and “many cells”… there is no consistent way to measure complexity within each category.
So… let’s stick to the better approach: there is no strict definition of complexity … and evolution can look like it is becoming simpler (like when snakes lose their limbs)… or it can look like it is getting more complex (like when whales lose their limbs, and gain fins).
Here is a space you might find interesting;
The first use of “specified complexity” as an attribute of life was in 1973. Leslie Orgel was contrasting the specified structure of a crystal which is not alive, and the complexity of a bowl of crud oil which is not alive, with the “specified complexity of things that are alive. Orgel, Leslie 1973 “The Origins of life: Molecules and Natural Selection" New York: John Wiley and Sons.
But, natural selection is a force not much different from other fundamental forces. See for example;
Mulkidjanian, Armen Y., Dmitry A Cherepanov, Michael Y Galperin
2003 Survival of the fittest before the beginning of life: Selection of the first oligonucleotide-like polymers by UV light BMC Evolutionary Biology 2003 13:12.
Welcome back @Gary_Hurd.
So, start simple;
Reader, J. S. and G. F. Joyce 2002 “A ribozyme composed of only two different nucleotides.” Nature vol 420, pp 841-844.
Turk, Rebecca M., Natayliya V. Chumachenko, Michael Yarus 2010 “Multiple translational products from a five-nucleotide ribozyme” PNAS vol. 107 no. 10 4585-4589
Ura, Yasuyuki, John M. Beierle, Luke J. Leman, Leslie E. Orgel, M. Reza Ghadiri 2009 “Self-Assembling Sequence-Adaptive Peptide Nucleic Acids”
Science Vol. 325 no. 5936 pp. 73-77
Then build on simple;
Ekland, EH, JW Szostak, and DP Bartel 1995 “Structurally complex and highly active RNA ligases derived from random RNA sequences” Science 21 July 1995: Vol. 269. no. 5222, pp. 364 - 370
BERGMAN, AVIV AND MARK L. SIEGAL 2003 Evolutionary capacitance as a general feature of complex gene networks" Nature 424: 549 - 552
And if you really like abstract meta-theory;
Jeffrey S. Wicken, 1979 “The Generation of Complexity in Evolution: A Thermodynamic and Information-Theoretical Discussion,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 77 (April ), p. 349
I’m more a test tube, rocks and hammers guy.
Howdy,
I had a lot of traffic to my blog from here so I took a look.
Life didn’t happen very fast at all. The oldest evidence for clement conditions (eg. liquid water) was over 4.3 billion years ago;
Wilde, Simon A., John W. Valley, William H. Peck, Collin M. Graham 2001 “Evidence from detrital zircons for the existence of continental crust and oceans on Earth 4.4 Gyr ago” Nature (letters) Vol 409:175-181
MOJZSIS, STEPHEN J., T. MARK HARRISON, ROBERT T. PIDGEON 2001 ”Oxygen-isotope evidence from ancient zircons for liquid water at the Earth’s surface 4,300 Myr ago” Nature 409, 178-181 (11 January )
E. B. Watson and T. M. Harrison. 2005 “Zircon Thermometer Reveals Minimum Melting Conditions on Earliest Earth” Science 6 May 2005; 308: 841-844 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1110873] (in Reports) {4.2 Ga zircon suggests probable liquid water as early as 4.3 Ga}
The oldest known evidence for life was about 3.7 to 3.8 billion years ago;
Manfred Schidlowski, Peter W. U. Appel, Rudolf Eichmann and Christian E. Junge 1979 “Carbon isotope geochemistry of the 3.7 × 10^9-yr-old Isua sediments, West Greenland: implications for the Archaean carbon and oxygen cycles” Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 43 , 189-199
Rosing, Minik T. and Robert Frei
2004 U-rich Archaean sea-floor sediments from Greenland – indications of >3700 Ma oxygenic photosynthesis" Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 217 237-244 (online 6 December 03)
Abigail C. Allwood, Minik T. Rosing, David T. Flannery, Joel A. Hurowitz & Christopher M. Heirwegh 2018 “Reassessing evidence of life in 3,700-million-year-old rocks of Greenland” Nature 17 Oct.
These sediments were re-dated to >3.8 Ga.
Then, there was very little new “complexity” until the “Great Oxidation Event” about 2.5 billion years ago.
Colin Goldblatt, Timothy M. Lenton, and Andrew J. Watson 2006 “Bistability of atmospheric oxygen and the Great Oxidation” Nature 443, 683-686 (12 October 2006)
Anbar, Ariel D., Yun Duan, Timothy W. Lyons, Gail L. Arnold, Brian Kendall, Robert A. Creaser, Alan J. Kaufman, Gwyneth W. Gordon, Clinton Scott, Jessica Garvin, Roger Buick 2007 “A Whiff of Oxygen Before the Great Oxidation Event?” Science 28, Vol. 317: 5846, pp. 1903 – 1906 (Trace oxygen possible ~2.5 Ga, or one billion years after the onset of oxygenic photosynthesis)
Barley, M.E., Bekker, A. and Krapež, B., 2005. Late Archean to Early Paleoproterozoic global tectonics, environmental change and the rise of atmospheric oxygen. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 238(1-2), pp.156-171. (Good review as of 2005. Bottom line; geological and biological factors were about equally important to the global oxidation state 2.7 to 2.4 Ga).
While it is valuable to archive resources in the list … if you actually want commentary, you need to say something about one or all of the sources that you post.
Most of us do not have a big enough library for anyone to assume that these volumes are within arm’s reach. And so if we look them up, it has to be with the specific idea of what you saw in them that pleased you or irked you!
Great to have you on board! 
This post is about OOL. Simple to complex is how this is explained by almost all researchers.