Thread: Darwin's miniatures

Just because something is small, does that mean it's less complicated or less difficult for Darwinism to explain? Is it any easier to explain the existence of a flea by Darwinism than an elephant, because the flea is much smaller and a "simpler" form of life?

To take this beyond biology, Is it any easier to explain one atom, or more fundamental particle coming out of nothing, or a whole Universe?

This is a case of Darwinian wishful thinking and a rather simplistic fallacy, which people like Michael Behe and others are challenging.

Here are some pictures from the Nikon Small World Competition, some of which are of biological entitites:-

Nikon Small World competition: photographs through the microscope - Telegraph

Does Darwinism attempt to explain the existence of atoms?

I live about a mile from Downe House in England, where Darwin lived and worked. The local reformed baptist church use the large visitor presence to capitalise on witnessing opportunities, handing out tracts outside the gate debunking evolution! Great opportunity.

Sorry.. go back to topic now

Some of those things that are small in size are not so in complexity!

Originally Posted by NateLanning

Does Darwinism attempt to explain the existence of atoms?

No. But broader atheistic evolutionism does. Everything "evolved" from the "simpler" to the more "complex", presumably because the "simpler" is assumed to be easy or relatively easy to explain without God. The universe emerged from a quantum fluctuation or a speck. Biological life evolved from a primordial soup that assembled itself into tiny "simple" life.

What do atheistic Darwinists mean by "simple" or "simpler" life? Is a slug or a fly "simpler" life than a human being? Or are they "simpler" in some features and more complicated in other features?

There's a world of false presuppositions and misconceptions behind how evolutionists use words, even "simple" ones.

Originally Posted by Richard Tallach

What do atheistic Darwinists mean by "simple" or "simpler" life? Is a slug or a fly "simpler" life than a human being? Or are they "simpler" in some features and more complicated in other features?

The atheistic Darwinists that have instructed me over the past 10 years do mean "less complex" when they use the term "simple".

For, example, I study how cytokines bind their cognate receptors, resulting in the activation of intracellular enzymes (kinases), which further results in the activation of nuclear transcription factors, which finally results in transcriptional activation of a set of genes. The fruit fly is often used as model for what happens in "more complex" animals and humans because the fruit fly has a "simpler" set of the above starting material: fruit flies only have three cytokines, one receptor, one kinase and one transcription factor, whereas "higher order" animals and humans have a couple dozen or so cytokines and receptors, 4 kinases and 6 transcription factors. Most of these components can be mixed and matched in this type of cellular signaling, too. You can see that while there are only a few outcomes of this type of signaling in fruit flies, "higher order" organisms can have literally hundreds of outcomes from this type of signaling.

I'm convinced that "simple" is properly descriptive of fruit flies compared the "complexity" of humans in this particular example. However, I think I understand what you are trying to say in a broader context, and I tend to agree with you.

There are a series of movies called Incredible Creatures That Defy Evolution. They're really great, very interesting. You might check them out if you have never seen them.

Originally Posted by NateLanning

Originally Posted by Richard Tallach

What do atheistic Darwinists mean by "simple" or "simpler" life? Is a slug or a fly "simpler" life than a human being? Or are they "simpler" in some features and more complicated in other features?

The atheistic Darwinists that have instructed me over the past 10 years do mean "less complex" when they use the term "simple".

For, example, I study how cytokines bind their cognate receptors, resulting in the activation of intracellular enzymes (kinases), which further results in the activation of nuclear transcription factors, which finally results in transcriptional activation of a set of genes. The fruit fly is often used as model for what happens in "more complex" animals and humans because the fruit fly has a "simpler" set of the above starting material: fruit flies only have three cytokines, one receptor, one kinase and one transcription factor, whereas "higher order" animals and humans have a couple dozen or so cytokines and receptors, 4 kinases and 6 transcription factors. Most of these components can be mixed and matched in this type of cellular signaling, too. You can see that while there are only a few outcomes of this type of signaling in fruit flies, "higher order" organisms can have literally hundreds of outcomes from this type of signaling.

I'm convinced that "simple" is properly descriptive of fruit flies compared the "complexity" of humans in this particular example. However, I think I understand what you are trying to say in a broader context, and I tend to agree with you.

Wouldn't you consider a single-cell organism(pre-cambrian) simple or "less complex" and the multi-celled(Cambrian and post-cambrian) "complex"?

Wouldn't you consider a single-cell organism(pre-cambrian) simple or "less complex" and the multi-celled(Cambrian and post-cambrian) "complex"?

Sure, I would. If I could actually see one. Which I can't. Since there aren't any.

Sorry, I hate it when enthusiastic types go all out against evolution, since 90% of the time they cause more harm than good, not understanding the subject matter. Like in 90% of creation institutes...and their works.....which often make Christians look dumb...

But on this subject, I felt I needed to call you on it ;-) There just aren't any examples of pre-Cambrian single celled organisms preserved. How could there be?

Originally Posted by TimV

Wouldn't you consider a single-cell organism(pre-cambrian) simple or "less complex" and the multi-celled(Cambrian and post-cambrian) "complex"?

Sure, I would. If I could actually see one. Which I can't. Since there aren't any.

Sorry, I hate it when enthusiastic types go all out against evolution, since 90% of the time they cause more harm than good, not understanding the subject matter. Like in 90% of creation institutes...and their works.....which often make Christians look dumb...

But on this subject, I felt I needed to call you on it ;-) There just aren't any examples of pre-Cambrian single celled organisms preserved. How could there be?

I'm not saying that there is such thing a the Cambrian period in the first place, I'm merely using scientific definitions to ask a particular question. Evolutionists use the Cambrian period as a way of explaining the burst of complex organisms in the so called fossil record.

I'm not saying that there is such thing a the Cambrian period in the first place, I'm merely using scientific definitions to ask a particular question. Evolutionists use the Cambrian period as a way of explaining the burst of complex organisms in the so called fossil record.

Of course I'm not accusing you. But surely you see that there simply aren't any "pre-Cambrian" examples of single cells preserved. Believe me, I have more contempt for irresponsible creation science than the average atheistic scientist, but we're not going to see mitochondrial DNA extracted from "pre-Cambrian" cells, either from Tyrannosaurus or diatoms. It just ain't there.

Originally Posted by TimV

I'm not saying that there is such thing a the Cambrian period in the first place, I'm merely using scientific definitions to ask a particular question. Evolutionists use the Cambrian period as a way of explaining the burst of complex organisms in the so called fossil record.

Of course I'm not accusing you. But surely you see that there simply aren't any "pre-Cambrian" examples of single cells preserved. Believe me, I have more contempt for irresponsible creation science than the average atheistic scientist, but we're not going to see mitochondrial DNA extracted from "pre-Cambrian" cells, either from Tyrannosaurus or diatoms. It just ain't there.

Well, maybe if you could explain yourself a bit more. I know that creationism and ID are two different things but organizations such as the Discovery Institute have broken alot of ground with their work.

By the way, the "T-Rex" wouldn't be considered pre-cambrian because of the complexity of it's body plan.

OK, then I'll just ask you a straight question. Could you please point me to a place I can see a pre-Cambrian cell?

Originally Posted by TimV

OK, then I'll just ask you a straight question. Could you please point me to a place I can see a pre-Cambrian cell?

The cell itself? I would have no idea. But according to the evolutionist point of view the pre-cambrian organisms are single-celled... according to the fossil record. Yet, the fossil record shows that there are muti-celled organisms in the pre-cambrian period... which is why i would agree with the point that i think you are tying to make but im not sure thats why i've asked you to explain.

Originally Posted by Andrew P.C.

Originally Posted by NateLanning

Originally Posted by Richard Tallach

What do atheistic Darwinists mean by "simple" or "simpler" life? Is a slug or a fly "simpler" life than a human being? Or are they "simpler" in some features and more complicated in other features?

The atheistic Darwinists that have instructed me over the past 10 years do mean "less complex" when they use the term "simple".

For, example, I study how cytokines bind their cognate receptors, resulting in the activation of intracellular enzymes (kinases), which further results in the activation of nuclear transcription factors, which finally results in transcriptional activation of a set of genes. The fruit fly is often used as model for what happens in "more complex" animals and humans because the fruit fly has a "simpler" set of the above starting material: fruit flies only have three cytokines, one receptor, one kinase and one transcription factor, whereas "higher order" animals and humans have a couple dozen or so cytokines and receptors, 4 kinases and 6 transcription factors. Most of these components can be mixed and matched in this type of cellular signaling, too. You can see that while there are only a few outcomes of this type of signaling in fruit flies, "higher order" organisms can have literally hundreds of outcomes from this type of signaling.

I'm convinced that "simple" is properly descriptive of fruit flies compared the "complexity" of humans in this particular example. However, I think I understand what you are trying to say in a broader context, and I tend to agree with you.

Wouldn't you consider a single-cell organism(pre-cambrian) simple or "less complex" and the multi-celled(Cambrian and post-cambrian) "complex"?

I won't get into the pre/post-Cambrian issue, but yes, I consider single-cell organisms less complex than multi-cell organisms.

Also, I'm not sure which institutes TimV is referring to, but I completely agree with him in that most of the good that creation-type institutes try to do just ends up making them/us look ignorant. Specifically, I haven't been particularly impressed with the material on the Discovery Institute's website. Maybe their books/DVDs are better, but the handful of pages that I've gone to really didn't help me answer the questions that I had.

Originally Posted by Richard Tallach

Just because something is small, does that mean it's less complicated or less difficult for Darwinism to explain? Is it any easier to explain the existence of a flea by Darwinism than an elephant, because the flea is much smaller and a "simpler" form of life?

To take this beyond biology, Is it any easier to explain one atom, or more fundamental particle coming out of nothing, or a whole Universe?

This is a case of Darwinian wishful thinking and a rather simplistic fallacy, which people like Michael Behe and others are challenging.

Here are some pictures from the Nikon Small World Competition, some of which are of biological entitites:-

Nikon Small World competition: photographs through the microscope - Telegraph

No, evolutionary biologists would not say that "small" equals less complex. They might point towards their theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs, for example, and claim that just because most birds are smaller than most dinosaurs, that this doesn't mean that they're less complex. By small, however, are you meaning single-cellular? As other posters have mentioned there is a lot of complexity even at the cellular level.

As to your question about whether it's easier to explain a cell arising out of nothing than a universe arising out of nothing, I would assume that the difficult part is the "out of nothing" not the size of the thing being created.