(The making of) The Irreducible Mousetrap

[@Ervo]

This is the best step-by-step example of explaining how survivor bias works

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

I didn’t realize that.

[@jessehouse3187]

I love this video, very tongue n cheek love the sarcasm, and the step by step of the mousetrap evolution was some tidy brilliance, Brilliant, 10/10

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks a lot! Much appreciated. 😎

[@holeshapedgod]

Great video and very good debunking of the idea of irreducable complexity. They always mention the eye as i.c. But you can actually see differnt levels in complexity in different animals living today.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Yes. I assume it became too easy to show someone who might be persuaded by the ID argument how we currently have creatures with all different kinds of eyes, from simple to complex, alive today. So they latched on to microbiology and the bogus mousetrap example to fool them. It appears to have worked for some. I hope this video helps.

[@holeshapedgod]

@TheOriginalAnswerman I must admit the i.c. argument could be compelling and convincing for a lot of people who are not that well educated. I think it is one of the more stronger arguments. Not that I think it's good.

[@KingbidenMyprez]

You're a natural. Clever and witty humor. 10/10 no notes

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks so much! 😎

[@foolkiller65z56]

Yep! Even slapstick, I love it! Wish I could give you a million Subs. Great job Brother 😎

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks so much! I’ll keep going…

[@edwardmoulaison1359]

criminally underrated content

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks. I guess I should promote it, somehow…

[@glenhughes8013]

Keep it up. Your channel will undoubtedly continue to grow. Production quality, humour and presentation is top notch.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks! I’ll keep plugging away…

[@enigma1863]

The interesting thing is even his mousetrap isn’t irreducible. You could build a mousetrap with no base and use the floor as the base. It’s no longer mobile but it is still functional.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Yes. He is, as we say, full of caca 💩

[@lokilawson]

Oh my gosh, this is an amazing example of how evolution works in a stepwise manner with each step having functionality even though the final product may not work if it doesn’t have all its parts. It reminds me of vehicle design. No one would argue that all vehicles that have ever existed are identical to 2025 models. They can imagine the step by step nature of how we got here because you can actually go back and look at each model year since the designs are saved. This is of course greatly accelerated because there has been intention in the changes from one model year to the next. But when you have millions of years, and a lot of failed mutations alongside an occasional beneficial mutation, it becomes clear how evolution actually works. And then there are the fossils. Every new fossil was a “missing link” before it was found, because there was something before it, and something after it and the middle was unknown. Then we find it, it fits in the middle, sharing some features with the older fossil and sharing other features with the younger fossil (as one would expect from something that comes in the middle of an evolving lineage), and you create two new missing link gaps. One between the new fossil and the one that came before it, and one between the new fossil and the one that came after it. Over and over and over, the evolutionary model makes predictions that are then verified by the fossil record. It has never been falsified by any result. That is pretty darned solid evidence. How many times has a creationist model made any predictions that fit what the fossil record tells us? Never.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Creationists only have the “God did it” hypothesis and they apply it to everything.

[@sthed6832]

Your point applies to microprocessor design also. Some bad design decisions in early Intel processors were part of later ones like vestigial organs are in many species. Various branches of the processor tree went extinct due to the market. Sure people were involved in their designs, but they are fallible and it isn't that different from random mutations. Trust me, I worked in the processor business.

[@hmascuba]

Interesting. All examples shown here to prove points of evolution have been man made structures. Could the atheist here elaborate? Why don't we see, vehicles and quantum computers in the wild, after all, all man made machines are far simpler in comparison to life. I just want to learn from reasonable people. Any chance any of you could show me some reason? Also how could there be order from chaos when the literal laws of physics states that everything just wants to reach a stable equilibrium where nothing moves because everything is in balance? Which it kinda contradics that neither energy or mater can be created or deleted. Please elaborate. Because now I just have more questions.

[@sthed6832]

@@hmascuba The only reason we bring up manmade structures is because theists do. The watchmaker argument. Behe's mousetrap as an example (debunked) of irreducible complexity. If manmade machines are simpler (I'm not sure the internet is simpler than a worm) it is because life has been evolving for a billion years. We've been building machines for only a few thousand. As for physics, things in motion stay in motion. They don't want to do anything. Gravity causes a certain degree of order, but the universe is still pretty chaotic. Now, for the universe as a while increasing entropy will cause everything to stop - a long time from now - but locally adding energy allows more interesting interactions.

[@hmascuba]

@@sthed6832 Who adds the energy?, who has the rat problem?, who is the rat?, who is the one who thinks that debunked the irreversible theory? How does gravity have order? How is it possible to stop something that can not be destroyed or created? Why do scientists believe in a beginning of a universe when neither matter or energy could be destroyed or created? Who makes the changes and alterations in the lab to attempt to prove evolution? Who made the box for the paper clips in this video? How is it possible that the box doesn't catch the mouses and someone needs to intervene and modify? I'm sorry your response seems Christian. Please tell me a reasonable response without the need for an intelligent entity. You just simply opened way more questions with your answer. These are only the beginning. Hope you could respond easily to all of these and more as it is a simple observation of reality. Unless you are not a reasonable person and do not wish to accept reality. Please elaborate further? Also I would recommend checking out the other video. Is the only reasonable thing to do, as you would want to see all points of view and therefore make and educated choice based upon reality and all factors have been taken into consideration. Leaving anything behind means that you are limited to your own perception of reality which could be a wrong assumption and may not be real.👀

[@theGuideMarkII]

This video was absolutely hilarious and spot-on! I almost felt the snap myself. Bravo! 👏 I’ve come up with two arguments against ID (Intelligent Design) that might be handy for your future videos. They’re total game-changers and dismantle ID completely. Feel free to use them and spread the chaos! Argument 1: ID Is Inconsistent with Genesis The creation myths in Genesis (yes, myths, and yes, there are two) don’t describe God as a designer-they describe Him as a wizard or a voodoo doctor. God “speaks” and poof, it happens. Or He sculpts a figurine from clay and blows life into it. That’s not intelligent design; that’s literal magic. And seriously-clay? We’re almost entirely made of carbon, not silicon. So the clay bit? Probably the dumbest building material choice ever. Using ID as proof of Genesis is like trying to prove someone’s guilt in a crime because, well, “they have hands!” It’s a logical leap off a very tall cliff. Argument 2: The Ultimate Irreducibility Backfire ID proponents love talking about irreducibility: “If something is irreducibly complex, it must be designed.” But here’s where it spectacularly backfires. There is one entity that is truly irreducible: God Himself! Think about it: If God were slightly less perfect, He wouldn’t be perfect. If He were slightly less eternal, He wouldn’t be eternal. If He were slightly less almighty, He wouldn’t be almighty. God is the ultimate irreducibly complex being, by ID’s own definition. And if irreducibility requires design, then… drum roll… God must have been designed! ID just self-destructed. 🎤 mic drop

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Ha! Thanks 😎

[@jonnymiskatonic]

All right I enjoyed the other video but this one definitely got me to click subscribe.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks! I thought it was better too. I’m still new at this, so I’ll keep trying to improve…

[@johnosullivan675]

Just 1k subscribers! Great channel, I'm sure it'll grow quickly.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

I hope so! I’m trying to post more videos. I don’t have very many right now. That’s probably why it hasn’t grown as much as it potentially can.

[@kiernanwalker3852]

The query, "Is this a bunch of bullshit?" says it all. Very funny.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks!

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

I never saw that. I’ll check it out if I ever come across it…

[@ziploc2000]

Nicely done!

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thank you 🙏

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks! Please sub if you haven’t. It really helps…

[@jamgill9054]

Super well done!

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thank you 🙏

[@Xaphedo]

Mark my words, this channel is making it to the big leagues

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

🤞maybe one of these days. Thanks!

[@ErroneousTheory]

Got be both times with the rat trap gag. And well done!

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Ha! Thanks!

[@warehousedave7937]

Watching this at only 700 views and 1.06k subscribers, betting the views and subs go up 100-fold in the next year or two.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

From your lips to the imaginary god’s ears! Thanks 🙏 😎

[@baskeptic1161]

Hysterical!

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thank you😎

[@csrrmrvll]

Natural selection is the intelligent design 😄

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

In a way, but no actual intelligence is required. It’s the blind mousetrap maker. 😎

[@RainerWinner]

Yes lol

[@AbadaleRavnic]

And there we have it, who said nature isn't intelligent?

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Well, it certainly isn’t as dumb as some of us are…

[@DanielCartaina]

Ben fatto!!

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Hey! Look who’s here! Thanks man!

[@gloeiende1]

But... but.. but.. but.. but.. but.. I want to believe!!!.........

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Exactly. Religion can turn smart people into morons.

[@billbadson7598]

No worries, you still believe. It's just a matter of what you believe, and at what point you personally stop asking questions.

[@PorkRoll_F3]

Please tell me where the initial structures came from in the first place…

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Natural selection can only work on pre existing structures. The origin of life is a separate theory called abiogenesis. I don’t really know that much about it.

[@lokilawson]

Do you mean, before the Big Bang? We can't. We could say we think they just always existed, just maybe not in their present form. It isn't a testable hypothesis, but that's what creationists do. They'll say, "physics says you can't make something out of nothing" and for our current knowledge, they are right. So they say, there must be something that transcends physics therefore, which would mean God. God created the Universe. Okay, so who created God? You may say God doesn't need a creator because he was just always there. A non creationist would then say, "it's the same argument." Either the stuff was always there, or God was always there. You don't have evidence for either. Sure, a God could have done it, but there is zero evidence to suggest that a god did do it. So we are quite comfortable saying, "I don't know." But if you say that a god exists, that he created you and everything in the universe, he is all powerful, all knowing, exists everywhere, and is capable of only good things, and he wants a personal relationship with you, and wants you to follow a bunch of rules, because if you don't you are going to be tortured forever (or annihilated depending on who you believe) because you have a thing called a soul that lives on after you die... then you better be able to support that belief with some evidence. That evidence doesn't exist. You only believe because you want it to be true because you want to go on living after you die, or you are afraid of the hot place. Or you want to believe that it's all gonna be alright even if things here on Earth go egg-shaped. One would think such a god would make it very obvious if he cared about us. That way, we could truly choose eternity with him or away from him. If he's asking us to choose without any evidence, he's telling us not to use our noggins. Just believe. That isn't gonna get you very far when someone is trying to take advantage of you. Not saying that religions advocate for taking advantage of you, but they leave open the possibility. Therefore, very many humans do use religion to take advantage of other people.

[@silvie5237]

Yes, the argument here is better made. I think that arguing a mouse trap is not a good analogy for biological organisms like bacteria with a complex motor is much better.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thank you. I made this video first, but the clip from the ending is getting more attention. It’s a bit frustrating.

[@silvie5237]

@@TheOriginalAnswerman It's never the videos you want people to pay attention to ;)

[@xvjustvxfps3716]

Subscribed 👏

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks! Welcome…

[@steveb0503]

Really good explanation and example scenario. But unfortunately, it precludes the possibility that earlier, less complex configurations might have had nothing at all to do with the capturing of mice - I used to carry around with me a mousetrap that had only HALF of the base, the hammer, and the spring (missing half of the base, the catch, and the trigger). This device served PERFECTLY well for it's intended purpose: a money clip - AND as an in-the-face counter-example (a parallel to the real-world precursor of the flagellal motor known as a type 2 secretory vesicle) to this dumb-ass argument!

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

I did say it started out as a simple box to store paper clips…

[@chimyshark]

the mousetrap evolution examples and scenarios you made up are really good! Good work on this. However, I think you missed a key component that makes this look incomplete. Why would any of the prior versions that are not as effective as the final one ever exist? The answer to that has to do with the simple ecological concept of competition. Since it's nearly impossible to evolve complex structures immediately, it's likely that all individuals had simple structures, and so basically it was a time when everyone's mousetrap was pretty bad. All you need to do is be a tiny bit better than "pretty bad" (which is easy to do, and fathomable that evolution could produce such a result) and all of a sudden, you have the most successful structure of that time. Nowadays, such structures could not compete with the modern complex structures that are efficient, but back when everyone was bad, the simple structures were just fine.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

That’s a very good point. But I think it would have been much too complicated to illustrate that in a way that is easy to understand. I would have had to invent all sorts of examples of primitive mice and ways that they might have evolved too. All I wanted to do was demonstrate that a mousetrap could convincingly be built over time in a way that starts simple, adds one new feature at a time, becomes more efficient and seemingly irreducibly complex.

[@chimyshark]

@@TheOriginalAnswerman sounds good. If you get all the creationists hollering about why evolution would create such bad mousetraps, then you know what topic your next followup video will address! When I approach this issue of irreducible complexity, the first issue is that it's assumed you cannot remove any of the components. When you try to convince them you can in fact have less or simpler components, then they will challenge you with "why would they have that when there is clearly a better way? how would that even be successful?" And the answer to that is that you don't have to be good if everyone you're competing against are all bad, just have to be a little better (a little less bad).

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Oh, I know. I don’t expect to change the minds of ideologues. But there are people who are not ideological that have been confused by the argument, who can and will change their minds when they see the alternative. Logic still works on those people.

[@holeshapedgod]

Maybe you could add competing businesses to the equation. There are different company's who build and sell mousetraps. They all want to sell and build the most efficient ones because these are the ones people buy. Just a thought.

[@chimyshark]

@@holeshapedgod no that wouldn’t help the argument because while the concept of selection is the same in biology and business, the mechanisms for change are too different because in business, the mechanism is design and that would take away from the value of this argument against design and creation. Selection is not the part creationists have a problem with, everyone agrees with selection actually. The part they need convincing is how could poorer models work when they are clearly not the best? And the answer to that is: if there are only poor models to compete with, then it doesn’t take much to be the best, even something as random as evolution could develop such a minute advantage.

[@JesusPrice]

It'll just have a different function.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Yep. Basically. 👍🏻

[@Hat3M0ng3r]

A mouse trap missing a part cannot catch mice but it can make a great tie clip or paperweight or hammer to open peanuts. Mother nature is smarter than humans.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Yes. Mine starts out as a box to store paper clips.

[@skinisdelicious3365]

Insisting upon an intelligent design in the context of natural occurrences and how they came to be is a common argument of unintelligent people. An argument so common in fact that has lost its humorous qualities having been replaced by those of worry and disappointment. Worry for the ever shortening of humanity’s longevity. Disappointment that a species could be brilliant enough to put itself on the moon but remain so idiotic to embrace ideas like creationism.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

There have always been and will always be ideologically motivated ideas that turn out to be wrong (and silly). It’s just up to the rest of us to point that out when they pop up…

[@skinisdelicious3365]

@ apologies for trig posting sir. Excellent video

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Thanks 🙏😎

[@apokalypthoapokalypsys9573]

I'm as much an atheist as anyone, but your explanation how a mousetrap could rightfully "evolve" is wrong. In your example, you purposefully add the door to better catch mice, which is, well, incremental intelligent design. In reality, a bunch of boxes randomly grow all kinds of appendages, and those that can't catch mice get thrown in the garbage.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

You didn’t pay attention to the point that Behe’s model is intentionally dishonest. A mousetrap is not an organic structure. It cannot be subject to genetic mutation that can be modified over time by natural selection. So, all I’m doing is debunking his claim that it’s irreducibly complex. It’s now up to you to see how that can easily be applied to actual organic structures that are subject to mutation and natural selection.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

If I created an example as you suggest, the argument that I intentionally designed it would ultimately still apply… because an actual mousetrap can’t evolve by natural selection.

[@SWIIIMS]

I have never met an intelligent religious person. Neither have the people in charge, and that's why they want to teach religion in schools, lol.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

I know quite a few intelligent religious people. But they don’t take it literally. Some even admit that there may not even be a God. You might know people like this, but just not realize it, because they don’t wear their religion on their sleeve. It’s the people that become dogmatic, true believers that are difficult to be around. (And not very bright). Motivated, largely by fear of the Devil…

[@koropatwa]

Each step of your mouse box "evolution" required an intelligent person to modify (improve) the design. So you are arguing for the wrong team!

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

No. I’m just demonstrating that a mousetrap isn’t irreducibly complex. Obviously it had to be built, because it’s not an organic structure that can be modified naturally through reproduction. That’s why Behe uses it as an example. It’s a dishonest example used to fool the layperson.

[@sthed6832]

Ah, you didn't see all the dead ends where he modified the mousetrap in ways that didn't work and which got discarded. That's selection also. Of course mousetraps don't evolve without help since they don't reproduces. Unlike coat hangers.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

What are you using as a coat hanger?!

[@sthed6832]

@@TheOriginalAnswerman They reproduce. They have to. That's the only explanation for why we have so many while never buying them. I figure, give them enough time and some selection pressure and they'll select the clothes I should wear each day.

[@TheOriginalAnswerman]

Ha! 😎