"irreducible complexity" meaning in English

See irreducible complexity in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: Coined by Michael Behe in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box. Head templates: {{en-noun|-}} irreducible complexity (uncountable)
  1. (biology, pseudoscience) The proposition that complex organs such as eyes and flagella must have started existing in their current form; i.e., that they cannot have evolved from previous, less complex stages. Wikipedia link: Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe, irreducible complexity Tags: uncountable Categories (topical): Biology, Evolutionary theory, Pseudoscience Related terms: irreducibly complex, evolution, creationism, natural selection

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for irreducible complexity meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by Michael Behe in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "irreducible complexity (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Biology",
          "orig": "en:Biology",
          "parents": [
            "Sciences",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Evolutionary theory",
          "orig": "en:Evolutionary theory",
          "parents": [
            "Biology",
            "Sciences",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Pseudoscience",
          "orig": "en:Pseudoscience",
          "parents": [
            "Sciences",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The proposition that complex organs such as eyes and flagella must have started existing in their current form; i.e., that they cannot have evolved from previous, less complex stages."
      ],
      "id": "en-irreducible_complexity-en-noun-jHwOIxdd",
      "links": [
        [
          "biology",
          "biology"
        ],
        [
          "pseudoscience",
          "pseudoscience"
        ],
        [
          "eye",
          "eye"
        ],
        [
          "flagella",
          "flagellum"
        ],
        [
          "evolve",
          "evolve"
        ],
        [
          "stage",
          "stage"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(biology, pseudoscience) The proposition that complex organs such as eyes and flagella must have started existing in their current form; i.e., that they cannot have evolved from previous, less complex stages."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "irreducibly complex"
        },
        {
          "word": "evolution"
        },
        {
          "word": "creationism"
        },
        {
          "word": "natural selection"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences",
        "pseudoscience"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Darwin's Black Box",
        "Michael Behe",
        "irreducible complexity"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "irreducible complexity"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Coined by Michael Behe in his 1996 book Darwin's Black Box.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "irreducible complexity (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "irreducibly complex"
    },
    {
      "word": "evolution"
    },
    {
      "word": "creationism"
    },
    {
      "word": "natural selection"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English uncountable nouns",
        "en:Biology",
        "en:Evolutionary theory",
        "en:Pseudoscience"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The proposition that complex organs such as eyes and flagella must have started existing in their current form; i.e., that they cannot have evolved from previous, less complex stages."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "biology",
          "biology"
        ],
        [
          "pseudoscience",
          "pseudoscience"
        ],
        [
          "eye",
          "eye"
        ],
        [
          "flagella",
          "flagellum"
        ],
        [
          "evolve",
          "evolve"
        ],
        [
          "stage",
          "stage"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(biology, pseudoscience) The proposition that complex organs such as eyes and flagella must have started existing in their current form; i.e., that they cannot have evolved from previous, less complex stages."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences",
        "pseudoscience"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Darwin's Black Box",
        "Michael Behe",
        "irreducible complexity"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "irreducible complexity"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.