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Index to Creationist Claims,  edited by Mark Isaak,    Copyright © 2004
Previous Claim: CI100.1   |   List of Claims   |   Next Claim: CI102

Claim CI101:

Complexity indicates intelligent design.

Response:

  1. This is a quintessential argument from incredulity. Complexity usually means something is hard to understand. But the fact that one cannot understand how something came to be does not indicate that one may conclude it was designed. On the contrary, lack of understanding indicates that we must not conclude design or anything else.

    Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are special cases of the "complexity indicates design" claim; they are also arguments from incredulity.

  2. In the sort of design that we know about, simplicity is a design goal. Complexity arises to some extent through carelessness or necessity, but engineers work to make things as simple as possible. This is very different from what we see in life.

  3. Complexity arises from natural causes: for example, in weather patterns and cave formations.

  4. Complexity is poorly defined.

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created 2003-7-9