Unintelligent design

[Roboramma]

From that link:

Except on Dutch TV. In the Netherlands, the evangelical broadcaster EO bought the TV rights and they excised all references to evolution. Here's a list of changes in the first 6 minutes of episode 2, as compiled by Dutch biology professor Gerdien de Jong. Sir David was not amused when he heard of this; I hope the BBC has changed the licensing contracts since then. The EO regularly broadcasts nature documentaries; I stopped looking at them when I was 12 or so and was disappointed that after beautiful nature scenery, in the last five minutes they trotted out their imaginary friend.

Wow. That's pretty disgusting.

 

[Peregrinus]

From that link:

Except on Dutch TV. In the Netherlands, the evangelical broadcaster EO bought the TV rights and they excised all references to evolution. Here's a list of changes in the first 6 minutes of episode 2, as compiled by Dutch biology professor Gerdien de Jong. Sir David was not amused when he heard of this; I hope the BBC has changed the licensing contracts since then. The EO regularly broadcasts nature documentaries; I stopped looking at them when I was 12 or so and was disappointed that after beautiful nature scenery, in the last five minutes they trotted out their imaginary friend.

In the US, fundamentalist tub thumpers (many of them are not really that current with decent biblical scholarship & therefore know little of their favorite book) don't have to bother with expensive purchasing of rights. They simply take smaller bits quite out of context & twist them to fundie ends. This saves money for the upkeep of their mega-chuches which must be seen to be believed; in a wry sort of way they beggar the great cathedrals of Europe. And, while being filthy rich on the susceptible groundlings in the pit, they're every bit as dishonest as what Luther railed against (hey! exactly 500 years ago). Or they build "authentic replica arks" with modern supporting materials and charge $40/per to parade their sugar-coated fallacies.

 

[Maestro]

I encountered a design flaw several days ago. The right-side temporal mandibular joint has begun to hurt when I chew. That joint is just forward of the ear canal.

If the condition continues, surgery might be necessary. While it is not clear to me how an orthopedic surgeon would get into the joint, one way would be through the canal. I know enough about the whole auditory system to think that this is Not A Good Idea.



(And just to add insult to real injury, the dentist charged me $95 to feel the joint as I moved my jaw, and say, "yep, that's a click in there." And wants me to get a night guard for a mere $600.)

Same here. My jaw locked up on me when I was 18. Had a temporary splint to let it relax.

The night guard is hands down the best money I ever spent. I wear it at night and to the gym. You won't regret it and it will likely keep the problem from getting worse.

 

[Trebuchet]

In the US, fundamentalist tub thumpers (many of them are not really that current with decent biblical scholarship & therefore know little of their favorite book) don't have to bother with expensive purchasing of rights. They simply take smaller bits quite out of context & twist them to fundie ends. This saves money for the upkeep of their mega-chuches which must be seen to be believed; in a wry sort of way they beggar the great cathedrals of Europe. And, while being filthy rich on the susceptible groundlings in the pit, they're every bit as dishonest as what Luther railed against (hey! exactly 500 years ago). Or they build "authentic replica arks" with modern supporting materials and charge $40/per to parade their sugar-coated fallacies.

Or simply lie about the films they are making.

 

[Ozzie]

Here's what I'd change:

=> Make teeth impervious to rot / decay / etc.
=> Create a robust uterine lining which is only replaced after childbirth - no more menstrual periods.
=> Replace our wimpy-ass fingernails and toenails with some serious talons. Retractable, of course.
=> Lastly, the ability to breathe underwater.

 

[Delvo]

That last one isn't just another missed opportunity of evolution. It has some basic physics against it. Your gills would need to be the size of a truck.

 

[Oystein]

Here's what I'd change:

=> Make teeth impervious to rot / decay / etc.
=> Create a robust uterine lining which is only replaced after childbirth - no more menstrual periods.
=> Replace our wimpy-ass fingernails and toenails with some serious talons. Retractable, of course.
=> Lastly, the ability to breathe underwater.

I actually think that teeth already kick ass the way they are. We just treat them miserably by eating too much carbonhydrates.

As a guitar player, I like my fingernails the way they are (although being able to retract or extend them would be really nice). They are stable enough for most purposes, and can be formed and shortened easily.

Breathing under water would be a gimmick if we don't also get better under-water vision, ways to maintain body temperature (i.e. thick layers of fat?) etc. Good design is never all-purpose.

 

[Ozzie]

That last one isn't just another missed opportunity of evolution. It has some basic physics against it. Your gills would need to be the size of a truck.

What's to stop God from bending the laws of physics to make such gills possible? Or to make our lungs so that they could extract oxygen from water? Remember, we are quite literally playing God. Why limit ourselves?

 

[Belz...]

Yeah, this too. There are plenty of ways that God could give the earth a magnetic field without also introducing volcanoes, earthquakes, etc.

Yeah. The point is that this whole complex, largely stochastic, deadly set of processes sure unfold as if there's no guiding intelligence behind them.

 

[jimbob]

Here's what I'd change:

=> Make teeth impervious to rot / decay / etc.
=> Create a robust uterine lining which is only replaced after childbirth - no more menstrual periods.
=> Replace our wimpy-ass fingernails and toenails with some serious talons. Retractable, of course.
=> Lastly, the ability to breathe underwater.

There are far more basic ones to change.

The laryngeal nerve.
Our ability to choke on food - why not have completely separate breathing and eating openings?
The mamallian retina
The human back and its weaknesses
The human birth canal
The appendix
Hernias due to descending testes
Autoimmune diseases


lots of really rubbish design

 

[Beerina]

Intelligent Design shifted the goalposts by declaring there just had to be some steps unlikely to be doable by evolution, rather than that the design be literally a good one.

It still fails miserably at this because the number of cases they have listed (eyes, wings, rotating flagella, etc.) subsequently shot down, vastly outnumbers any remaining ones (if any), so one would have no statistical evidence that any will stand up to long-term scrutiny.

 

[Peregrinus]

That last one isn't just another missed opportunity of evolution. It has some basic physics against it. Your gills would need to be the size of a truck.

There are plenty of fish much larger than humans whose gills are not "the size of a truck."

 

[RussDill]

There are plenty of fish much larger than humans whose gills are not "the size of a truck."

Yes, they have a much slower metabolism than mammals.

 

[jimbob]

Intelligent Design shifted the goalposts by declaring there just had to be some steps unlikely to be doable by evolution, rather than that the design be literally a good one.

It still fails miserably at this because the number of cases they have listed (eyes, wings, rotating flagella, etc.) subsequently shot down, vastly outnumbers any remaining ones (if any), so one would have no statistical evidence that any will stand up to long-term scrutiny.

We can reject a designer who is both competent and benign. Which is the sort of designer they are trying to posit.

 

[Thor 2]

There are far more basic ones to change.

The laryngeal nerve.
Our ability to choke on food - why not have completely separate breathing and eating openings?
The mamallian retina
The human back and its weaknesses
The human birth canal
The appendix
Hernias due to descending testes
Autoimmune diseases


lots of really rubbish design

Given that God was limited to making us in his own image he must also have these shortcomings.

We must target the real culprit ...... the one who made God!

 

[Loss Leader]

For the record, I think this is a stupid argument on both sides. Arguing about what God would or would not have done is like arguing what would have happened if Soap had lasted another season. It requires us to know not just God's capabilities, but also his plans. And one can always argue that he planned for us to be shambling wrecks who die of sorts of things because, well, because he has his reasons.

That being said, the male prostate is pretty poorly designed. It forms a donut around the urethra. If anything goes wrong with it (when something goes wrong with it), it impacts the whole urinary system. It really only makes sense so long as we're built to die before it has a chance to malfunction.

 

[jimbob]

For the record, I think this is a stupid argument on both sides. Arguing about what God would or would not have done is like arguing what would have happened if Soap had lasted another season. It requires us to know not just God's capabilities, but also his plans. And one can always argue that he planned for us to be shambling wrecks who die of sorts of things because, well, because he has his reasons.

That being said, the male prostate is pretty poorly designed. It forms a donut around the urethra. If anything goes wrong with it (when something goes wrong with it), it impacts the whole urinary system. It really only makes sense so long as we're built to die before it has a chance to malfunction.

I disagree. One can argue that there are signatures of competent design, and signatures of evolved systems (including ones developed through evolutionary algorithms directed by humans).

If one has designed a component that works, one doesn't redesign an inferior component elsewhere.

That is what happens with the various different versions of the eye, where sometimes, there are two completely different eye structures in the same animal, let alone throughout "creation". Why did a designer get the octopus retina right, and then design the human eye later (according to Genesis) and get it the wrong way round?

If one is benign, competent, and omniscient, then adding the appendix is a bit silly - or indeed any vestigial organs.

One doesn't need to know the capability of a hypothetical Intelligent Designer, if one can say that in certain respects, they would have to be less capable of spotting a bad design than a human.

That isn't a very high bar for an omniscient being.

 

[RussDill]

As someone who works in software, I'll play a little bit of devils advocate here. Large software projects designed completely from the top down almost always fail. Projects that start with smaller working pieces and then expand their features during development are much more successful. A side effect of this is that most software systems end up with certain architecture features that no longer make sense, but are too time consuming to change. Many parts of large software projects have attributes of evolved systems even though they were "designed intelligently".

 

[Loss Leader]

If one is benign, competent, and omniscient, then adding the appendix is a bit silly - or indeed any vestigial organs.

You have unknowingly helped make my point. There are theories now that say that the appendix is not vestigial. It serves an important purpose as a safe haven for symbiotic bacteria that aid in digestion.

Anyone from twenty years ago that argued the appendix was unequivocally vestigial would have seemed right back then. But now that we have more information, we see they may have been wrong.

It's the same with a creator. Whatever seems to us to be some sign of benevolence or malevolence may, to a being with better understanding, be completely incorrect. That's why I don't think arguing what God "would" do makes any sense. God has ostensibly superior information. He may be aware of good, logical reasons to do something or other that we simply don't understand.

As soon as you admit even the existence of God, you lose every argument.

 

[Peregrinus]

You have unknowingly helped make my point. There are theories now that say that the appendix is not vestigial. It serves an important purpose as a safe haven for symbiotic bacteria that aid in digestion.

I haven't had an appendix for 66 years and can digest just fine.

Whatever seems to us to be some sign of benevolence or malevolence may, to a being with better understanding, be completely incorrect. That's why I don't think arguing what God "would" do makes any sense. God has ostensibly superior information. He may be aware of good, logical reasons to do something or other that we simply don't understand.

Argument from ignorance.

As soon as you admit even claim the existence of God, you lose every argument.

FIFY