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A Simple Arguement Against INTELLIGENT Design

CBVan

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CBVan
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Oct 26, 2006
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A good, simple argument to use against ITers is this:
If an intelligence designed humanity, why are our immune systems so darn bad?
Sharks, in comparison, have an AMAZING immune system - last I heard (through the discovery channel) we were looking into it to try and figure out why sharks don't get cancer hardly ever.
As far as I know, and I could very well be wrong on this one, compared to many animals humans have a very weak immune system.

For them to justify a bad immune system, they have to call in a moral authority punishing us for our innate sins, which just isn't scientific!

Anyone tried this one? It ever work? Is it even valid? Your thoughts are appriciated.
 
CBVan said:
A good, simple argument to use against ITers is this:
If an intelligence designed humanity, why are our immune systems so darn bad?
Sharks, in comparison, have an AMAZING immune system - last I heard (through the discovery channel) we were looking into it to try and figure out why sharks don't get cancer hardly ever.
As far as I know, and I could very well be wrong on this one, compared to many animals humans have a very weak immune system.

For them to justify a bad immune system, they have to call in a moral authority punishing us for our innate sins, which just isn't scientific!

Anyone tried this one? It ever work? Is it even valid? Your thoughts are appriciated.
Click to expand...

A couple of things:

1. Biblical literalist creationists explain medical problems as consequences of the Fall. They do not believe that this contemporary human population represents the perfection incorporated in Adam when he lived in Eden. The narrative is that after the expulsion from the garden, we have become progressively less perfect, weaker, mortal, &c. They describe this as consistent with the second law of thermodynamics: errors are being introduced into our genome through imperfect replication. Adam, it is asserted, lived eight centuries. We'd be lucky to live eight decades today. So, they do have a 'scientific' explanation for our current imperfection; although as you point out, it is based on being consequences of Original Sin.

2. Regardless, humans actually have a good immune system. Most species have none at all.
 
If so, then why... are not very clear arguments. Try this one:

Intelligent Design is based on the premise of Irreducible Complexity. Irreducible Complexity has been thoroughly disproved with genetic science.

IDers and anti-evolutioners argue with ideas that are 20 or more years old. Genetic science has passed that stuff up and then some.
 
We have a good immune system because when we lived in cities we were dirty and infectious diseases were common. Only those with the best immune system could survive. We took them over to the new world and killed the natives with these diseases.
 
I suppose it depends what we were designed for. If part of the great plan involves killing us off with plagues on all the firstborn males then maybe he didn't want us to have too good an immune system. A hefty dose of cynicism can answer many questions. Or at least annoy people enough that they stop asking them.
 
As regards how well or poorly we are designed, I have noticed some rather odd flaws in humans that shouldn't occur if you were building us from scratch.

1. The human foot. Most animals walk on their toes. This turns the entire foot into a spring-like mechanism - absorbing the impact from the toes, compressing, and then springing back to provide more energy for the next step. When our ancestors took to the trees, this toe-walking became less important and the toes evolved to be more finger-like. When they came out of the trees some time later, the foot did not re-evolve into the efficient spring that most mamals (and even birds) have. Instead, it flattened out into the gross, mis-shapen human foot. This foot returns far less energy than other mamal feet. It creates hip and back problems, makes us slower and leads to physical pain.

What the heck is intelligent about that?
 
My (maybe too) simple argument:
If we were designed by some "intelligence", why can't we drink salt water for all of our hydration needs? Why is it that the substance that covers most of our planet is off limits?
 
We can close our eyes to shut out bright light. We can stop breathing momentarily to avoid bad odors or poisons. We can close our mouths to keep from eating bad food. Why then can't we close our ears when exposed to loud noises?

Probably because the necessity has only been around for a few hundred years? In a few ((hundred)thousand) years perhaps, our little ear flaps may develop into something that we can close on necessity. It's unfortunate that need wasn't foreseen oh, "6,000" years ago.
 
Didn't Michael Behe say (in the Dover trial I think) something along the line that the fact that the Designer is Intelligent doesn't automatically mean he is competent?
 
CBVan said:
A good, simple argument to use against ITers is this:
If an intelligence designed humanity, why are our immune systems so darn bad?
Click to expand...

a) You're welcome to design a better one.

b) If there is no ID, then you're basically saying that evolution is bad?
 
Cancer does not occur too often in shark cartilage because it contains an angiogenisis inhibitor. I don't think it has anything to do with its immune system.

T'ai said:
b) If there is no ID, then you're basically saying that evolution is bad?
Click to expand...
Evolution does whatever works, to whatever degree works well enough. In that sense it is bad.

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Evolution does whatever works, to whatever degree works well enough. In that sense it is bad.
Click to expand...

It seems a little odd to argue against ID by really saying that evolution is bad. OH well.

And the arguments "against" ID don't rule out a creator and then evolution taking place. So they're really not arguments against it.
 
T'ai said:
It seems a little odd to argue against ID by really saying that evolution is bad. OH well.
Click to expand...
It does? Seems to me an intelligent designer would have done a better job. What a hack my lower back is.

And the arguments "against" ID don't rule out a creator and then evolution taking place. So they're really not arguments against it.
Click to expand...
The important mathematical arguments rule out evolution doing the work, initial designer or not. They make (bogus) probabilistic arguments about the time required for evolution. I suspect this is because most creationists really want God to be poking things every now and again. They want him here, now. After all, what good is it if he set things up and then disappeared (see my first sig line)?

~~ Paul
 
rjh01 said:
We have a good immune system because when we lived in cities we were dirty and infectious diseases were common. Only those with the best immune system could survive. We took them over to the new world and killed the natives with these diseases.
Click to expand...

Not long enough a period for a signficant evolutionary change, I think.

Since we are descended from "pack animals", I think a more likely cause for our strong immune system is that groups pass diseases more readily than loners. This would provide enough time for evolution to select those with stronger immune systems.
 
T'ai Chi said:
a) You're welcome to design a better one.
Click to expand...

Sure. How about an immune system designed like adaptive retroviruses? Able to adapt and change quickly as needed to meet new threats?

T'ai Chi said:
b) If there is no ID, then you're basically saying that evolution is bad?
Click to expand...

Evolution is neither bad or good any more than gravity is bad or good. It simply is.
 
T'ai Chi said:
b) If there is no ID, then you're basically saying that evolution is bad?
Click to expand...

Evolution is necessarily only as good as it needs to be to keep the darn creature alive until it can reproduce. It may sometimes create creatures that do better than just barely stay alive but such is not required and cannot as a rule be expected.
 
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