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THEORY
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Listed below are two arguments that have been well developed from a Design perspective. A brief description is provided for each. To find out more check out some of the cool links or our meetings!
INFORMATION THEORY
Information theory is the separation of information and matter into independently functional components. Below is an example of how music, an organized form of sound, travels through physical space and is recieved by a listener:
(1) A musician reads and plays a song that has been composed onto sheet music.
(2) The sounds generated by striking strings or wind exiting the instrument travels to the listener as sound waves.
(3) These sound waves (40 to 20,000 Hz) stimulate a series of delicate bones within our ears that vibrate according to the frequency and intensity of the force.
(4) Action potentials generated by these vibrations are interpreted within the brain.
Now take a closer look at this process, each step can be separated into a physical and informational component:
Orange: Physical
Green: Informational
(1) Music printed onto paper is arranged into a pattern of notes that hopefully is pleasing to hear.
(2) The assortment of sounds travels to the listener as sound waves
(3) Vibration of the hammer, anvil and stirrup (Ossicle bones) and is coordinated process that instructs the appropriate nerve signals to the brain
(4) Nerve impulses travel through nerve cells that in a regulated pattern to the brain where it is decided whether the sound will be appreciated or not!
Hearing is both a physical and informational event. Information travels through physical media in different forms: sheet music, an instrument being played, sound waves, vibrations of the inner ear, nerve impulses. At all stages the information has not changed, just the packaging is different.
This sort of approach can be applied to informational molecules such as DNA. DNA consists of a long chain of subunits called nucleotides that are organized into characterizing patterns, which encode the individual chemistry of living organisms.
One branch of this discipline is called Specified Complexity pioneered by William Dembski. This approach is a common way used to detect design by looking for high-information states or organized systems that match preexisting patterns (inheritance).
IRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY
Multicomponent biological machines are intradependent – in other words, removing or compromising one piece cripples its function. Therefore it is difficult to conceptualize a Darwinian explanation (Step-by-step) for the evolution of biochemical pathways or complexes, which require multiple functioning parts.
Michael Behe in his Book Darwin’s Black Box used a mousetrap as a conceptually easy to understand example of this idea:
A mouse trap has five key components: (1) Hammer, (2) Catch, (3) Spring, (4) Platform, and (5) Holding bar. The function of the mouse trap requires that each component is present and operational. When one of these factors is disabled or removed, a mouse trap would not be able to function as a mouse trap. Such intradependence is analogous to complex and biological systems. For example, an enzyme consisting of multiple subunits, or a biochemical pathway that is required to synthesize essential metabolites require that each of its subunits or intermediate factors to be functioning properly. This concept is referred to as Minimal Function.
Darwinian explanations suggest that each component of a mousetrap (or any multisubunit intradependent complex) must have arisen from ancestral components altered in a step-by-step way into other more complex structures with similar functions. Imagine, trying to build stick/box, glue trap or poison as an alternative for exterminating mice, using only the available parts.
Another simple way to approach this problem is to establish an evolutionary model as both Physical and Conceptual:
skateboard > toy wagon > bicycle > motorcycle > automobile > propeller airplane > jet plane > space shuttle.
This series can be conceptually linked (evolutionary biology) but cannot by physically linked (biochemistry).
In other words, each transport device requires a new technology that cannot be made from the old one (a step-by-step Darwinian fashion).
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