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Tale of the Transmission

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It finally happened.

I’ve been nursing along my car’s transmission for several months (careful driving, changing the fluids, etc.), but last week it finally failed completely, with an accompanying whump! and a jerk, and the car had to be towed to the auto repair shop.

The initial hope was that a regular tear-down and cleanout, along with replacement of the wearable parts, would take care of it.  That was going to set me back about $1,500, which I wasn’t happy about but could live with.  Unfortunately, it turned out that some of what the transmission guys call “hard parts” – in this case the planetary gear assembly – were broken, so they were going to have to order a whole new planetary assembly and do additional work.  Ouch!  Suddenly the repair quote more than doubled.

I immediately jumped into serious backup mode, doing research on both new and used car options – local dealers, local adds, Craigslist, eBay, you name it.  Maybe I should just turn in my keys and get a new set of wheels?  However, other than the transmission my car is still in excellent shape, and my personal experience as well as that of others I talked to suggested I should still get another 100,000 miles from the vehicle.  The exterior and interior are likewise still in good shape.  Yes, with a used car there is always a risk that something else major will go wrong, but where else was I going to be able to find a used car in great condition for less than $4K?  From that perspective and after much handwringing I finally broke out the plastic and with much trepidation went with the full transmission rebuild.

As I write this, I have just returned from the shop about an hour ago with a smoothly-purring ride.  Not only is the car able to drive again, but it is noticeably smoother than it has been the past several months.  While driving home I reflected on the whole experience, what I’ll call the “Tale of the Transmission.”

Some of the old parts from the transmission are pictured here:

Old Transmission Parts
Old Transmission Parts

Unfortunately, the planetary assembly went to the scrap recyclers so I don’t have a picture of it.  They vary from design to design, but in case you haven’t seen such a thing, this is a very basic version of what I’m talking about (courtesy Google Images):

Planetary Gears
Simple Planetary Gear Assembly

Modern automatic transmissions are built to very precise tolerances.  It doesn’t take much of deviation for things to get out of whack.  What would it take to create a transmission in the first place or to improve upon its design?

The Darwinian doctrine teaches that complex functional integrated systems are built up over time by what are essentially random tweaks to the parts.  Actually, not even to the parts themselves, but to an underlying digital code that is part of inventory catalog interacting with an operating system.  That, we are told, tweaks the parts, which tweaks the ultimate function.

Let us keep in mind that in much of biology we are not talking about slight differences in the color of moths’ wings or minor deviations in the length of finches’ beaks.  We are talking about fundamental functional systems that go beyond the mere incremental benefit of being slightly more “fit” in a particular environment and instead to the sheer ability of the organism to function at all or to exist in the first place.  True, there are many things about an organism that can support minor adjustments and tweaks without significant harm to the organism, just as with my car: a scratch in the paint, a bent antenna, a cracked windshield, even a missing muffler – all of those still allow the car to perform its essential function.  However, there are other systems in an organism, like the transmission in my car, that are critical to the organism’s very existence.  We cannot simply tweak such systems indiscriminately and expect to avoid a catastrophic failure.

Each one of us has experienced dozens of similar situations and technology has become so ubiquitous in our life that we tend to take it for granted.  This numbness to the marvel of functional specified complexity, this everyday over-familiarity, this tendency to take such systems for granted is perhaps part of what allows the seductive Darwinian paradigm to take hold.  But if we pause for a moment and think about what is involved in producing a complex functional machine in three-dimensional space the entire idea that such a state of affairs could arise as the result of a long series of purposeless mutations seems utterly bizarre.

Yet, contrary to what we see in the world around us, contrary to our own experience, contrary to everything we know and understand about how such systems arise, this is precisely what the Darwinian doctrine asserts.  It is as though the magician on stage – obscuring the background with smoke and mirrors and wielding the magic wand of natural selection – is challenging us, taunting us, with the age-old refrain: “Who are you going to believe?  Me, or your lying eyes?”  The Darwinian story is, at once, a simplistic, naïve childlike tale and at the same time an unparalleled assertion of unmitigated intellectual gall.

Our experience with a mission-critical functional system like a car’s transmission is of course not an isolated incident.  As the examples multiply by orders of magnitude, the disconnect between what we know to be the case in the real world and what we are told is the case in the hypothetical Darwinian world stretches to the intellectual point of breaking.  I use the word deliberately.  Let us be intellectually honest – supporter and skeptic alike – the Darwinian evolutionary world is precisely that: a hypothetical.  Never in more than a century and a half of dedicated toil and searching has a single example been found of a complex functional system arising via a purely natural series of Darwin’s “slight, successive changes.”  Much less the whole of the biosphere.  Might such a complex functional system, built up slowly by slight successive changes, be possible in theory?  Perhaps.  But residing as it does in the obscure recesses of deep time, the existence of such a system always has been, and remains to this day, a hypothetical.

Thus, having as it does no real-world examples and no hard evidence that such systems could actually come about through such a process, the Darwinian creation story relies instead on the listener’s credulity, vague references to unspecified forces, and appeals to deep time to lull the unsuspecting into believing that virtually anything is possible, no matter how contrary to real-world experience, no matter how speculative, no matter how outlandish.

As the mathematically-inclined would point out, this does not yet constitute a formal proof.  But the intellectual unease that should accompany this gaping disconnect between the real world we live in and the hypothetical Darwinian world is itself very real.  The faithful Darwinian might, as many do, repose hope in some future discovery, some as-yet-unidentified principle of nature to bridge the gap.  But those who flatly deny the disconnect or repress the accompanying intellectual unease in a Herculean display of cognitive dissonance find themselves departing ever further from the real world and residing ever more in the hypothetical one.

Comments
Eric Anderson Was your post #39 in reference to my post #38?Dionisio
October 17, 2014
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Yikes! Really, Mapou? For a while, a_b was flooding us with posts. I wonder why the obsession, though. Maybe there's some sort of fatal attraction. Or maybe, with a little coaxing, this tintinnid might be willing leave its lorica for a completely unscientific experience . . . the joy and peace of a reconciliation with God of the universe. It's not hard, but it's real! :-) -QQuerius
October 17, 2014
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Eric, I apologize for the language.tintinnid
October 17, 2014
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Louis, I certainly hope that you know more about biology than you know about me. I am not a movie star crustacean, I am not anti Christian, I am not an evolutionary biologist and I don't live in England. But you are correct that I have been banned under different names and I can be a pain in the ass.tintinnid
October 17, 2014
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Eric #39, tintinnid is none other than acatia_bogart. He's been banned several times by Barry but keeps coming back under new user names. He seems obsessed with only one thing: bashing fundamentalist Christians. I know he lives in the UK and he fancies himself as some kind of evolutionary biologist. He's a distraction and a pain in the rear end. Just keep banning him.Mapou
October 17, 2014
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All: I am not acquainted with tintinnid. Some of you apparently are and have had past dealings, which obviously contributes to the sentiments expressed above. However, let's please try to limit the inflammatory language. If tintinnid is unable to support his position as to the specific topic of this thread, I trust that such failure will be apparent to everyone, without the need to revisit whatever unpleasant behavior he may have engaged in in the past. Thanks to everyone, of course, for the substantive comments. Just a gentle reminder . . .Eric Anderson
October 17, 2014
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tintinnid @ 36
I just don’t see any point explaining to you what you claim to already understand.
Thank you for showing once more to everyone here, specially the lurkers, that -exactly as KF has warned us several times- you have no interest in discussing anything seriously. That's why your comments are so vague, ambiguous, incoherent, imprecise, senseless and irrelevant. A few folks here seem to use your posts in this site in order to show everybody -specially the lurkers- that you and your comrades are experts on avoiding direct confrontation with real issues, because you lack solid arguments. That's the reason you did not answer so many questions that several folks asked you in different discussion threads. Again, thank you for proving that KF and other friends in this site were right on what they wrote about the tricky slimy tactics you and your fellow comrades use in this site. Some of our friends in this site have been gifted with an amazing reservoir of patience, but I definitely wasn't endowed with such virtue. I can't go on and on like the Energizer bunny, because I have no time to squander on senseless arguments. I run out of patience very quickly. However, I know where to find unlimited amount of patience to discuss any issue with people who want to joint me, so that we both can benefit from our discussion and hence can learn together. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case. Have a good weekend.Dionisio
October 17, 2014
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Dionisio- tintinnid is a cowardly bloviator who couldn't support what it posts if it's life depended on it.Joe
October 17, 2014
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D: "Why did you react to Querius’ post #30 but didn’t answer the questions in posts 10, 14-17, 20-23, 26? Just curious. " I just don't see any point explaining to you what you claim to already understand.tintinnid
October 17, 2014
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Over 250 lurkers in this thread by now... Some of them might be wondering why tintinnid is not answering the questions in posts 10, 14-17, 20-23, 26, but reacted to post #30. Hmmm... :)Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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tintinnid Why did you react to Querius' post #30 but didn't answer the questions in posts 10, 14-17, 20-23, 26? Just curious. :)Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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32 Querius
Now for those questions people have been asking . . .
Please, let's be patient and wait... it takes time to answer some of those questions, doesn't it? :)Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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Yay, he's back! Now for those questions people have been asking . . . ;-) -QQuerius
October 16, 2014
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Ah, Querius. I have missed you. It's nice to see that Wikipedia is still working for you. But is it an agglutinated or a hyaline loricate?tintinnid
October 16, 2014
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Hmmm. Seems like our tintinnid had a contractile episode into his lorica. Let's wait and see what happens . . . ;-) -QQuerius
October 16, 2014
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#25 error correction
... ID IQ score...
Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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BA77: Thanks for the reference! That looks a lot more like a planetary gear assembly than the "simple" flagellum. Remarkable.Eric Anderson
October 16, 2014
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as to the picture of the "Simple Planetary Gear Assembly" of a automobile transmission,,, Souped-Up Hyper-Drive Flagellum Discovered - December 3, 2012 Excerpt: Get a load of this -- a bacterium that packs a gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle that gets 0 to 300 micrometers in one second, ten times faster than E. coli. If you thought the standard bacterial flagellum made the case for intelligent design, wait till you hear the specs on MO-1,,, Harvard's mastermind of flagellum reverse engineering, this paper describes the Ferrari of flagella. "Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath.... the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle." To feel the Wow! factor, jump ahead to Figure 6 in the paper. It shows seven engines in one, arranged in a hexagonal array, stylized by the authors in a cross-sectional model that shows them all as gears interacting with 24 smaller gears between them. The flagella rotate one way, and the smaller gears rotate the opposite way to maximize torque while minimizing friction. Download the movie from the Supplemental Information page to see the gears in action. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/souped-up_flage066921.html Bacterial Flagellum: Visualizing the Complete Machine In Situ Excerpt: Electron tomography of frozen-hydrated bacteria, combined with single particle averaging, has produced stunning images of the intact bacterial flagellum, revealing features of the rotor, stator and export apparatus. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220602286X The Flagellar Filament Cap: Up close micro-photograph and animations of cap - Jonathan M. - August 2013 Excerpt: We are so used to thinking about biological machines at a macroscopic level that it is all too easy to overlook the molecular structure of their individual components. The closer we inspect biochemical systems, such as flagella, the more the elegant design -- as well as the magnitude of the challenge to Darwinism -- becomes apparent. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/08/the_flagellar_f075101.html Electron Microscope Photograph of Flagellum Hook-Basal Body http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-08-20images/figure03.jpg The Bacterial Flagellum: A Paradigm for Design - Jonathan M. - Sept. 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, so striking is the appearance of intelligent design that researchers have modelled the assembly process (of the bacterial flagellum) in view of finding inspiration for enhancing industrial operations (McAuley et al.). Not only does the flagellum manifestly exhibit engineering principles, but the engineering involved is far superior to humanity’s best achievements. The flagellum exhibits irreducible complexity in spades. In all of our experience of cause-and-effect, we know that phenomena of this kind are uniformly associated with only one type of cause – one category of explanation – and that is intelligent mind. Intelligent design succeeds at precisely the point at which evolutionary explanations break down. http://www.scribd.com/doc/106728402/The-Bacterial-Flagellumbornagain77
October 16, 2014
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Tintinnid, "I simply think that modern evolutionary theory is the best explanation". After you have attempted to reply to everyone else could you please tell me the modern evolutionary theory that explains fingerprints and why you think it is the best explanation. Thanks in advance.logically_speaking
October 16, 2014
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12 Eric Anderson
ID is not a religious argument and does not depend on a religious background.
Good point. Theologically speaking I'm not on the same page as many friendly folks here. I don't consider myself an ID proponent, nor a YEC, nor an OEC. I don't care much about knowing how old this universe or this planet are. I don't care much about knowing if there are other universes besides this one. I'm not too concerned about FUCA or LUCA or other evolutionary concepts, at least not at this point. Those could be interesting topics sometimes, but just for entertaining curiosity. My identity is not in my education, or my profession, or my worldview, or my family, or my ethnicity, or my social status, or my financial situation, or my cultural background, or my titles, or my friends. My identity is simply in Christ. That's what gives me the freedom to say, while smiling, that my ID score is about the same as my age, my reading comprehension level is rather poor, my communication skills are almost nonexistent. The jokes I hear on the weekend finally get to me the following week, only after my wife graciously explains them to me. Basically, I don't care much about how others look at me. I want to be an ambassador of the King of kings, therefore I want others to look at Him, not at me. But going back to your statement quoted above, this site looks like a melting pot of different folks, which basically coincide on one thing: all known evidences point to the presence of functional complex specified purpose-oriented prescriptive information in the biological systems. Now, that's what attracts me these days. :)Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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tintinnid You don't have to answer any posted questions. Remember we also write for the lurkers. :)Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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tintinnid Regarding ‘modern evolutionary theory’: Does it explain the functional specificity of transcriptional repressor checkpoints controlling NSC differentiation programs? Does it explain the role of the Dynamic Microtubule Cytoskeleton? Does it explain the emerging relationship between 3D genome organization and lineage-specific transcriptional regulation? Does it explain how NSC* in vitro models correspond to in vivo brain? (*) NSC here stands for Neural Stem Cells Does it explain how to use in vitro organotypic models in order to elucidate the complicated cascades of signaling mechanisms that occur in vivo? Does it explain the underlying mechanisms of the global programmed switch in neural daughter cell proliferation mode during CNS* development? (*) CNS here stands for Central Nervous System Want more questions? In the 'third way' thread there are over 500 references to issues like the above questions. Can ‘modern evolutionary theory’ help to resolve at least a few of them?Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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tintinnid Please, note that the thread about the ‘third way’ is flooded with many references to real research problems serious scientists are working on very hard these days. And that’s only a very small fraction of the growing number of biology-related questions that are published out there in the specialized media. Does ‘modern evolutionary theory’ help to resolve those issues and answer the outstanding questions? How? Can you elaborate on this? Thank you. :)Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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tintinnid @ 11 Ok, if 'modern evolutionary theory' is not the same as ‘the third way’, then is it 'the fourth way'? :)Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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tintinnid, Joe asked in post #16 about the same I asked in post #10, but in different formats. However, it might be easier for you to provide a link, as per Joe's request, than to write a brief explanation, as per my request. Perhaps in that sense, by answering Joe's post #16, you would be answering my post #10. Kind of like "two birds one stone" deal? :) Thank you.Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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tintinnid Please, before you answer Joe @ 16, can you comment on my post #10? Thank you.Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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tintinnid:
IDism: n. an ancient story to which the religiously deluded cling with tenacious ferocity lest they be forced to question and undermine their false beliefs.
1- ID is not a story 2- ID doesn't have anything to do with religion nor beliefs 3- ID is based on science OTOH Darwinism and evolutionism are not science and are based solely on faith.Joe
October 16, 2014
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11 tintinnid Is modern evolutionary theory "the fourth way"?Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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tintinnid:
I simply think that modern evolutionary theory is the best explanation.
Please link to this "modern evolutionary theory" so we can see if it is the best explanation. I bet that you can't...Joe
October 16, 2014
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11 tintinnid What's the difference between modern evolutionary theory and ‘the third way’?Dionisio
October 16, 2014
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