The Simple Science of Flight

Going through the shelves recently I saw entitled, 'The simple science of flight'. The author seems to be confused. Flight isn't at all simple. Flight doesn't suddenly become (after millenia) 'simple' because you understand how it works. This is a major fallacy of scientism. I see this kind of thing all over the place. The fallacy is obvious. The fact I can understand how a computer works doesn't make it simple. If 'flight' (an annoying abstraction) were so 'simple' why did it apparently take millenia for people to figure it out? But this too confuses the issue. Nothing that is the result of intelligent design is simple, for the reason that intelligence isn't simple. Rocks are (relatively) simple; intelligence are not. (Rocks are far from simple we're discovering; an example I came across recently is involves how sand can be turned to rock by a chemical released by a micro-organism.) [1.] Intelligence is the least 'simple' thing we know about, this being the case it seems inappropriate to call the creations of Intelligence simple.

- Whether we're looking at a bird that flies or an airplane, the flying behavior isn't simple. If you wanted a word for it, it would be intelligent. I think the reason so many people in our day see things as 'simple' is that they're materialists, and this worldview requires them to see things in terms of physical law acting upon matter. This is a failure to understand how complexity comes into being. The laws of physics (which are not simple) can never create a flying creature. (Not even something as relatively simple as an airplane; which is orders of magnitude more simple than a bird.) The laws of physics acting upon inert matter (and the elements are far from simple, but display a vast intelligence) could never produce what this author calls the 'simple' science of flight. That birds fly has nothing to do with science, but is a result of intelligent creation. (That airplanes fly has to do with science and intelligent design.)

- Implicit in this 'campaign' (it seems to be such at least) to portray everything as really (if you only knew it) simple is the attempt to deny intelligent design. i.e. if things are simple (even such amazing processes as bird flight) then we hardly need to think in terms of a Creator do we kids?

- The author speaks of the 'science' of flight; well, I'd like to know how we can have science without intelligence. i.e. if something took human beings millenia to understand, even on the banal level of description, how can one in good conscience call it simple? [Perhaps the person doesn't know what the word simple means. The word has roots in the word single. e.g. a single thread, or we might say a single cause, or a single means. What we see in 'flight' is a complex of causes or means. i.e. many things are involved, all working together for a purpose.]

- In summary, flight is only simple if you don't fully understand it. To describe how something works, is not the same as understanding how it came into being. With this lack of understanding comes a lack of praise, a lack of gratitude, and a lack of worship.

Notes;
1. From sand to rock - quickly! - David Catchpoole