Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 09/25/06 11:20pm
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "Some things...never change" on 09/25/06 6:31pm
>>My personal experience leads me to distrust Wikipedia
>>to some extent. I've had some problems with Wikipedia
>>in getting some factual stuff corrected, because
>>overzealous editors policing the article have an
>>agenda for the inaccurate status quo (see here for instance), but I suspect what they say is
>>accurate here at least in the sense that most white
>>supremacists call themselves Christian (see above). I
>>tend to be somewhat cynical of human nature, and that
>>includes those humans who call themselves Christian.
>
>
>I checked out this link, and I have to say that I
>wouldn't accept your suggested change either based on
>the evidence you have provided.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy says merely summing up the components won't allow you to understand the system; the interaction of the components allows you to derive how a system works at the higher levels. Behe puts forth the concept of a mechanism (as blood clotting) ceasing to function if any of the various components are removed. They're similar in that they both deal with systems and their components, but they're just not the same concept. One man focuses on a system requiring all its parts or else it stops working, another talks about something akin to the concept of synergy (the ensemble of components etc.). After all, one can easily envision an ensemble of components producing an effect without the system being irreducibly complex.
>The situation with wikipedia is
>such that you haven't provided a compelling reason to
>include the other fellow other than you don't think
>the "first guy" actually came up with irreducible
>complexity in the form that it takes now.
Perhaps you should read more carefully, since I have one compelling reason that you apparently missed:
For this reason, and for no other, viz. that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, of a different size from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any other order, than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it.
Paley says the watch stops working if you mess around with the components. Ludwig von Bertalanffy says nothing of the sort--he is only talking about synergy (or something like it). The Paley quote is far more similar to the concept of irreducible complexity than what Ludwig von Bertalanffy says. I'm not saying either one come up with the concept of irreducible complexity, but if someone did it surely goes back to fellow ID adherent Paley (whom Behe quotes and who predates von Bertalanffy by roughly a century), not von Bertalanffy.
Also, the rather novel interpretation of the quote that von Bertalanffy came up with an early concept of irreducible complexity is original research, which is not allowable in Wikipedia policy (see the whole thing to learn more). About the only place you find the claim is in Wikipedia or websites that copy it. If we had some reputable scholarship crediting the concept to Ludwig von Bertalanffy, that would be different. But here we only have an extremely small minority; namely, a handful of Wikipedia editors. And when the citation is actually examined, the concept of irreducible complexity just isn’t there.
>The reality is that "irreducible complexity" is
>actually just an extension of an age-old philosophical
>problem that relates to understanding things by their
>pieces or by the "whole".
Perhaps, but there's a difference between a conceptual predecessor and the concept itself.
>I get the impression that
>you seem to think that the origins of something MUST
>be definitionally exactly the same otherwise the
>two concepts are not related. This, in my opinion,
>is unnecessary hair splitting for some motive that
>I can only speculate aims at a particular end.
I get the feeling you have once again misconstrued my actual position. You might want to read that mediation cabal entry more carefully.
>I do find it interesting that on the Wikipedia, five
>years later, people are saying roughly the same thing
>about you there that many of us have said here.
Such as?
>What
>explanation do you have for that?
I'll give you an explanation when you give me something to go on: what specific "things" are you talking about?
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
|
Feedback: 