another answer for Don

Glenn Morton (grmorton@waymark.net)
Thu, 30 Oct 1997 23:15:53 -0600

At 10:14 AM 10/30/97 -0700, Don N Page wrote:

> On a slightly different aspect, I'm not quite sure that I fully
>understand the argument Glenn Morton has with ID supporters on this issue,

This quote captures the problem better, Bradley and Thaxton write,

"To summarise this section, biological function requires very specific
three-dimensional structures that can be realized only with highly specific
molecular architecture, which requires information-intensive molecules."
~Walter Bradley and Charles Thaxton, "Information and the Origin of Life,"
in J. P. Moreland Ed. The Creation Hypothesis, (Downer's Grove: Intervarsity
Press, 1994), p. 181

The brain has biological function. While it does have specific 3d
structures and requires some information intensive molecules, There is not
enough information in those molecules to explain all the wiring. If a
biological object like the brain (which has been called the most complex
object on earth and in which that which makes me, me resides) can be
manufactured with less than the total information necessary to completely
specify it, then why can't my body be manufactured in a similar fashion? And
if that can happen, then how much of the specified complexity or specified
information or functional information (whatever you want to call it) is
absolutely required to create a human? Obviously it is much less than what
one would think from an analysis of the neural connections. Or to put it
otherwise there is a much broader range of wiring diagrams which produce
humans than we might think. This broader range of "human" wiring diagrams
means that the information necessary to specify a human is not very specific
i.e. doesn't depend on the details. And if the information required to
construct us is much less than what we would think, why must one think that
an exorbitant amount of information is required at the creation of Behe's
bacterial flagellum? And then, one must wonder, maybe not as much
specificity is required for the origin of life. It is through this "domino"
effect that the existence of an underspecified biological system threatens
the research program of the ID group. Surely, since Behe can completely
describe bloodclotting and can't completely describe the brain, it follows
that the brain is more complex than blood clotting. If the most complex
object on earth, does not need to be completely specified in the DNA, then
why must I believe Behe's assertion that the blood clotting mechanism could
only come about via specific information placed into the cell?

glenn

Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm