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Topic: Irreducible

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	Irreducible complexity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Irreducible complexity is a controversial concept which considers that the generally accepted scientific theory that life evolved through biological evolution by natural selection alone is incomplete and flawed, that it contradicts the second law of thermodynamics, and that some additional mechanism is required to explain the origins of life.
		As such irreducible complexity is seen by the supporters of evolutionary theory as an example of creationist pseudoscience, though Behe does not explicitly affirm creationism in his book and specifically notes that he accepts the age of the earth and evolution by natural selection in other respects.
		Irreducible complexity asserts that, in order for any of the components of the system to function, all components of the system must have been present, but Intelligent Design proponents presentation of the facts has been criticized and there are, in fact, a number of ways in which this mechanism could have evolved [1].
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Irreducible_complexity (2752 words)

	Irreducible
		In Abstract algebra, irreducible is an abbreviation of irreducible element.
		The notions of irreducibility in algebra and manifold theory are related.
		An irreducible manifold is thus prime, although the converse does not hold.
	www.ebroadcast.com.au /lookup/encyclopedia/ir/Irreducible.html (217 words)

	CB200: Irreducible complexity
		Irreducible complexity rules out the possibility of a system having evolved, so it must be designed.
		Irreducible complexity is an example of a failed argument from incredulity.
		It is defined in terms of parts, but it is far from obvious what a "part" is. Logically, the parts should be individual atoms, because they are the level of organization that does not get subdivided further in biochemistry, and they are the smallest level that biochemists consider in their analysis.
	www.talkorigins.org /indexcc/CB/CB200.html (616 words)

	Irreducible complexity - EvoWiki
		Irreducible complexity and the scientific literature -- IC Argument Flowchart -- Definitional Complexity -- Specified Complexity -- Behe -- Dembski -- Cooption
		Another problem with irreducible complexity, as it is used by IDists, is that the implied intelligent designer would also probably be irreducibly complex.
		Irreducible Complexity purports to be a scientific method for consistently identifying biological systems which could not have evolved.
	wiki.cotch.net /index.php/Irreducible_complexity (644 words)

	Irreducible polynomial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		A polynomial p(x) in F[x] is called irreducible over F, if it is non-constant and cannot be represented as the product of two or more non-constant polynomials from F[x].
		Hence, all irreducible polynomials are of degree 1.
		One can show that every prime element is irreducible; the converse is not true in general but holds in unique factorization domains.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Irreducible_polynomial (579 words)

	Irreducible Complexity
		A system performing a given basic function is irreducibly complex if it includes a set of well-matched, mutually interacting, nonarbitrarily individuated parts such that each part in the set is indispensable to maintaining the system's basic, and therefore original, function.
		The set of these indispensable parts is known as the irreducible core of the system.
		The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.
	www.iscid.org /encyclopedia/Irreducible_Complexity (138 words)

	Irreducible Complexity (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Often times, the proponent of irreducible complexity is jeered and jabbed with insults and rhetoric, but, rarely is the evidence itself addressed directly by evolutionists.
		Therefore, if we prove the existence of irreducible complexity in the man-made world, it won't be long before biologists begin to find similar examples of irreducible complexity in the biological world.
		Both the man-made world and the biological world are full of examples of "Irreducible Complexity." That is, systems or machines which were designed with a number of specific parts "wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." Behe's example from the man-made world was a mousetrap.
	www.intelligentdesign.org /menu/irreducible/irreduce.htm (2434 words)

	Irreducible Complexity (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Irreducible complexity is not a very wellknown subject, but ever so important.
		Recall that by "irreducible complexity" we mean an apparatus that requires several distinct components for the whole to work.
		Clearly, the irreducible complexity inherent in many biochemical systems not only precludes the possibility that they evolved by Darwinian natural selection, but actually suggests the strong conclusion that intelligent design is necessary.
	www.creationevolution.net /irreducible_complexity.htm (3480 words)

	A response to Michael Behe -- Darwin's Black Box -- Irreducible Complexity
		Mike Behe has given us a nice introduction to his notion of "irreducible complexity" and the inference of intelligent design of these complex systems that can be made from it.
		The irreducible complexity argument questions how such a complex molecular machine functioning in such a complex physiology involving the circulatory and respiratory systems could possibly have evolved step by step.
		I can say very little about the evolution of the circulatory and respiratory systems, however, as a result of protein sequence comparisons and the analysis of the structure of the globin coding regions of the genome, it is possible to construct a very plausible picture of the origin of a complex machine.
	www.asa3.org /evolution/irred_compl.html (4622 words)

	PlanetMath: irreducible component (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		irreducible analytic variety, irreducible locally analytic set, irreducible analytic variety, reducible locally analytic set, reducible analytic variety
		Cross-references: connected components, closures, complex analytic manifold, connected, regular, maximal, irreducible, analytic variety, locally analytic, open set
		This is version 2 of irreducible component, born on 2005-02-22, modified 2005-02-23.
	planetmath.org /encyclopedia/IrreducibleComponent2.html (126 words)

	Info on primitive and irreducible polynomials
		The index of a polynomial is the sum of the exponents of the non-zero terms.
		Table of the number of irreducible polynomials of given degree and density.
		A table of the number of irreducible polynomials of given index.
	www.theory.csc.uvic.ca /~cos/inf/neck/PolyInfo.html (588 words)

	Redundant Complexity (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		This reaction satisfies Behe's criteria for irreducible chemical complexity since in this reaction sequence there are many key components and pathways, and the characteristic behavior of the system is disrupted if key components (for example bromide ions or cerous ions) are absent at critical phases of the reaction (or somehow removed as they are produced).
		Irreducible complexity in a self-organizing system is something generated and sustained by natural mechanisms which can be elucidated without the aid of a designing deus ex machina.
		In the end, Behe overestimates the significance of irreducible complexity because his simple, linear view of biochemical reactions results in his taking snapshots of selective features of biological systems, structures and processes, while ignoring the redundant complexity of the context in which those features are naturally embedded.
	www.etsu.edu /philos/faculty/niall/complexi.htm (5559 words)

	Irreducible Complexity: The Challenge to the Darwinian Evolutionary Explanations of many Biochemical Structures...by ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Michale Behe claims to have shown exactly what Darwin claimed would destroy the theory of evolution, through a concept he calls "irreducible complexity." In simple terms, this idea applies to any system of interacting parts in which the removal of any one part destroys the function of the entire system.
		In fact, Michael Behe asserts that the complicated biological structures in a cell exhibit the exact same irreducible complexity that we saw in the mousetrap example.
		Other examples of irreducible complexity include the light-sensing system in animal eyes, the transport system within the cell, the bacterial flagellum, and the blood clotting system.
	www-acs.ucsd.edu /~idea/irredcomplex.htm (1620 words)

	Critical characteristics and the irreducible knee joint
		The irreducible mechanism of the knee joint is shown to contain at least 16 critical characteristics, each requiring thousands of precise units of information to exist simultaneously in the genetic code.
		In this paper, the concept of irreducibility is developed further to the level of an irreducible set of characteristics that must exist simultaneously for a mechanism to have any useful function.
		The irreducibility of the knee joint is most clearly demonstrated by identifying the critical geometrical characteristics that must be defined in the genetic code.
	www.answersingenesis.org /tj/v13/i2/knee.asp?vPrint=1 (4166 words)

	Science and Design (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Michael Behe’s criterion of irreducible complexity for establishing the design of biochemical systems is a special case of the complexity-specification criterion for detecting design (cf.
		The irreducible complexity of such biochemical systems cannot be explained by the Darwinian mechanism, nor indeed by any naturalistic evolutionary mechanism proposed to date.
		Moreover, because irreducible complexity occurs at the biochemical level, there is no more fundamental level of biological analysis to which the irreducible complexity of biochemical systems can be referred, and at which a Darwinian analysis in terms of selection and mutation can still hope for success.
	www.firstthings.com /ftissues/ft9810/dembski.html (4879 words)

	Argument: ‘Irreducible complexity’
		It’s interesting to note that the eye, which evolutionists claim is an example of ‘bad design’ leftover from evolution (previous chapter), presents their greatest challenge as an example of superb ‘irreducible complexity’ in God’s creation.
		‘Irreducible complexity’ is the battle cry of Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University, author of Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.
		As a household example of irreducible complexity, Behe chooses the mousetrap—a machine that could not function if any of its pieces were missing and whose pieces have no value except as parts of the whole.
	www.answersingenesis.org /home/area/re2/chapter10.asp (2873 words)

	Rejection of Pascal's Wager: Irreducible Complexity
		Behe's argument starts by noting that advances in biochemistry in the twentieth century, with the aid of sophisticated tools and techniques such as X-Ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance and electron microscopy, have enabled the structure of the cell and its biochemical inner workings to be understood in detail for the first time.
		Irreducible complexity is a concept that sounds clear enough, yet upon closer examination, it is hard to be certain if it can be applied in any meaningful way.
		Irreducible complexity may not be a meaningless term, certainly some structure (both macro and micro structures) are irreducibly complex in the sense that there may be no simpler way to fulfil the current function.
	www.geocities.com /paulntobin/behe.html (6880 words)

	PlanetMath: irreducible (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		A subset of a topological space is irreducible if it is not reducible.
		So this space is reducible, and thus not irreducible.
		This is version 8 of irreducible, born on 2001-12-20, modified 2005-02-06.
	planetmath.org /encyclopedia/IrreducibleClosedSet.html (97 words)

	The Flagellum Unspun (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		In the case of the flagellum, the assertion of irreducible complexity means that a minimum number of protein components, perhaps 30, are required to produce a working biological function.
		By the logic of irreducible complexity, these individual components should have no function until all 30 are put into place, at which point the function of motility appears.
		It also demonstrates, more generally, that the claim of "irreducible complexity" is scientifically meaningless, constructed as it is upon the flimsiest of foundations – the assertion that because science has not yet found selectable functions for the components of a certain structure, it never will.
	www.millerandlevine.com /km/evol/design2/article.html (6610 words)

	CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts Presents "Irreducible: Contemporary Short Form Video," January 19 - March ...
		"Irreducible" brings together recent works that are structured around a single situation, action or individual and often reinterpret the process-oriented concerns of performance and conceptual art from the 1970s, while exploring an expanded social and psychological landscape.
		The exhibition is on view January 19–March 19, 2005, in the CCA Wattis Institute's Logan Galleries located on the San Francisco campus of California College of the Arts.
		Lying on her side on a street in Cairo while surrounded by staring men and boys who respond to her presence in various ways, the artist becomes a female "other" par excellence, her unobtrusive yet bewildering behavior confounding the onlookers.
	www.cca.edu /about/press/2005/irreducible.php (482 words)

	Darwin's Black Box. (Michael Behe).
		This means that irreducible complexity is not a general falsificator of natural selection or neo-Darwinism, but a specific falsificator for specific cases.
		An potential example of irreducible complexity not given by Behe is the interdependence of DNA and proteins, which results in the notorious difficulty of explaining the origin of life.
		Above we saw that irreducible complexity is not a general falsificator, but a falsificator for specific cases.
	home.wxs.nl /~gkorthof/korthof8.htm (4808 words)

	Irreducible Complexity - Formal Definition
		Irreducible complexity is a term coined by Michael Behe in "Darwin's Black Box" as a proof for the necessity of a designer in earthly organisms.
		Irreducibility becomes much more difficult to find (in practice) since a predecessor to a system may be either more or less fit than the system and fitness no longer plays a role in irreducibility.
		In my opinion, this is a viable hypothesis by the simple fact that it is possible for a massive random mutation to occur which spontaneously converts a single-celled organism's genotype into the genotype of a human.
	www.berteig.org /mishkin/IrreducibleComplexity.html (1540 words)

	Irreducible Complexity Demystified
		Irreducible complexity (also denoted IC) has gained prominence as the evidence for the intelligent design (ID) movement, which argues that life is so complicated that it must be the work of an intelligent designer (aka God) rather than the result of evolution.
		He simply asserts that evolution of irreducible complexity by an indirect route is so improbable as to be virtually out of the question, except in simple cases.
		Irreducible complexity, intelligent design's closest brush with biology, is marked by three ironies.
	www.talkdesign.org /faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html (9143 words)

	Irreducible Sofic Systems and SDR's
		In this part of section 3, we will deduce the theorem 1.1.5 from Chapter 1 and will show that the minimal irreducible deterministic representation is synchronizing.
		Corollary 2.3.7 (Theorem 1.1.5 ([1], [3])) Every irreducible sofic system has a unique homomorphicly minimal irreducible deterministic representation and that representation is also unique minimal synchronizing.
		is the representation that is homomorphicly minimal, irreducible, deterministic and synchronizing.
	www.math.usf.edu /~jonoska/symbolic/node21.html (213 words)

	Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe on Intelligent Design (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Although the argument from irreducible complexity is essentially a rehash of the famously flawed
		FAQ shows that molecular evolution is much too flexible for IC to be an obstacle, shows that Behe's argument is fallacious, and using Venus' flytrap shows that the mousetrap analogy is misleading.
		, and irreducible complexity are the subject of two winning posts and one runner-up post of the Post of the Month contest of the talk.origins newsgroup which are archived in this web site.
	www.talkorigins.org /faqs/behe.html (855 words)

	ARN Board: The Death of Irreducible Complexity (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Looking again at it tonight, I see that Dembski has made a significant change in Behe's original conception of irreducible complexity, a change that eviscerates the utility of "irreducible complexity." Rather than being alive and well, in the light of Dembski's new paper irreducible complexity is dead on arrival.
		So an operational definition of irreducible complexity is a description of the steps carried out to determine whether a given system is or is not IC.
		The confusion results from the use of the term "irreducible complexity" to identify not only (i) the thing that requires all parts to perform its current function, but also (ii) the conclusion that no cumulative pathway exists.
	www.arn.org /ubb/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/13/t/001884/p/1.html (6756 words)

	Irreducible Complexity
		The only way to turn a fish into a land-dwelling animal is to transform it all at once, with a host of interrelated changes happening at the same time---not only lungs but also coadapted changes in the skeleton, the circulatory system, and so on.
		Behe's homey example of irreducible complexity is the mousetrap.
		So, too, the fact of irreducible complexity is raising the question of design in living things.
	www.softcom.net /users/wordydave/behe.htm (1212 words)

	IRREDUCIBLE CONTRADICTION (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		In order to build a bridge from irreducible complexity to intelligent design, Behe must assume that the probability of his system being the result of a random unguided process is exceedingly small.
		This example shows why the small probabilities calculated by Behe are crucial to his main idea of irreducible complexity and that is why I had to analyze the deficiencies of Behe’s treatment of probabilities.
		irreducible complexity, but which actually is a tight interdependence of elements and an accompanying lack of compensatory mechanisms (see next sections).
	www.nctimes.net /%7Emark/bibl_science/behe2.htm (14074 words)

	Rebuttals to Common Criticisms of the Book Darwin's Black Box
		The central idea is that such systems could not evolve gradually because they need all their parts to function (a principle termed “irreducible complexity”).
		Author Michael Behe says that many of these systems show "irreducible complexity." That means that if any one of the many components is removed, then the system breaks down.
		In contrast, irreducible complexity says that the system is useless until it reaches, or comes close to its final form.
	www.leaderu.com /science/disilvestro-dbb.html (2524 words)

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