Irreducible Complexity

Continuing with the discussion of Natural Selection, I came across this article:

http://www.evolutiondebate.info/ICReduced.pdf

In particular, I liked these two paragraphs, found on page 18 of the PDF:

Darwinism is beset by gaping chasms of logical inconsistency. Noteworthy among them is that tiny little changes, what Darwin called the "slightest differences of structure or constitution," are the building blocks of evolution. Yet at the same time, natural selection, by definition, is only capable of selecting those attributes or changes that provide an actual survivability advantage, or in Neo-Darwinian terms, a reproductive advantage. Furthermore, these advantages must be significant enough not only to benoticed and selected by the invisible hand of natural selection, but significant enough to overcome the myriad vagaries and hazards of nature.

Natural selection is therefore in the unenviable position of having to select those changes that provide a competitive advantage, when in fact most of the changes, as evident in the real world and as acknowledged by Darwin, are insignificant. Darwin’s faith, however, was unwavering, and he proposed a solution to this conundrum by painting natural selection as a near-benevolent force, much wiser and more omnipotent than our limited faculties and "immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts." Natural selection, Darwin proposed, was "daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and adding up all that are good . . ."

I like those paragraphs because they seem to put into words the very thing I've tried to articulate about Natural Selection, properly understood -- that is, that it is entirely reliant on random mutations and, more important, the survivability of those random mutations. It is blind; not subject to guidance by some force of nature, selecting what is "good" based on some standard of nature, but rather selecting what survives.

Again, I'm perfectly happy to provide this model with a sentient guidance, provided that guidance is from God. When God is shoved out of the picture and some other unnamed deity is brought into the picture, then I feel compelled to either make the Darwinist admit the presence of the deity, or live by the strict standards of the proper understanding of the theory.

The PDF has lots of footnotes.

I didn't understand most of it.

I suspect the argument made in the PDF doesn't end the debate. Nothing will.

It's bedtime. :-)