Intelligent Design & the tapeworm?

[arthwollipot]

No, I have seen a case where a stallion who was brought to a mare who was not in oestrus, and he went completely nuts. She, however, was not at all interested and just stood there.<<<<

Possible, but horses aren't really a good example anyway since they are a human created species. They did not have a natural course of evolution.

Indeed. I brought it up as an "aside". The modern horse, like the modern dog, is a product of artificial evolution, consciously directed by us humans. For a natural progression you have to look at some of the wild horse species such as Przewalski's, though even they have been at least a little tampered with. The zebra hasn't though, to my knowledge.

 

[Vagabond]

Sorry, I misunderstood you. No, it wasn't obvious. I corrected myself in my last post.

And the rest of my post was not simply being argumentative. You asked a question, and I answered to the best of my ability. If you choose to dismiss it as "making no points", then that's your prerogative, but it does suggest that you asked the question with no intention of getting an answer.

That's the way things work, Vagabond. You ask a question, you get an answer. Forgive me if I didn't realise that you were being rhetorical.

Well, every question on this topic is rhetorical to a certain extent. Nobody is going to present a fact or arguement that suddenly proves their point of view. If you are going to dispute my argument or a point in my arguement you have to give a reason why. You can't just tell me I am wrong, well you can but that is making no points. It's just argueing to argue. You might have tried to do this in that post, you have in others. I don't think you succeeded. Perhaps you are just getting sleepy.

 

[Vagabond]

Of course it does. Complete proof never happens. There is only agreement of experimental results with theory. If, as Einstein said, the results of ten thousand experiments agreed with theory, then you can say that that theory is "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent".<<<<<

Nothing to say we are in agreement. That has been my point from the beginning.

 

[arthwollipot]

Well, every question on this topic is rhetorical to a certain extent. Nobody is going to present a fact or arguement that suddenly proves their point of view. If you are going to dispute my argument or a point in my arguement you have to give a reason why. You can't just tell me I am wrong, well you can but that is making no points. It's just argueing to argue. You might have tried to do this in that post, you have in others. I don't think you succeeded. Perhaps you are just getting sleepy.

Well, I actually thought I was answering your questions with examples, like the bit about the yaks. I was trying to demonstrate that it isn't all that hard to imagine a trait such as big breasts or long tail feathers evolving naturally.

Yes, I like to argue, but I like to think that there is a little more substance to my argumentation than simply "yes it is" "no it isn't" "yes it is". Perhaps I am getting sleepy. I've still got another 40mins until my shift ends though, so what the heck.

I know a book recommendation is probably the last thing you're looking for here, but I suggest Climbing Mount Improbable by Dawkins. He explains these things better than me, and from a background of many years of study. However, he is vehemently anti-religion, and I am aware that puts some people off.

 

[arthwollipot]

Of course it does. Complete proof never happens. There is only agreement of experimental results with theory. If, as Einstein said, the results of ten thousand experiments agreed with theory, then you can say that that theory is "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent".<<<<<

Nothing to say we are in agreement. That has been my point from the beginning.

Well of course we are in agreement! We always have been - about that point. But you did ask how it was possible for human breasts (and peacock tails) to evolve, and I have tried to answer you.

Oh my! I appear to have missed a contribution!

Just talking about breast I don't think they are a very good example (in this argument) since breast shapes and sizes are incredibly variable.

Certainly they are now. And male tastes in breasts are incredibly variable as well. I personally like the appearance of small breasts. But that's not important because the evolution of breasts all occurred during prehistorical times. As I said before, the human species has evolved (physically) very little since the invention of writing.

Anyway, since breasts are mainly fatty tissue, they don't fossilise very well, so probably all we will ever have is informed speculation and educated guesses.

Ooh. Excuse me, there's been another addition to the "three word story" thread. Back in half a tick.

 

[FireGarden]

How can mating with a pregnant female be of ANY benefit whatsoever?

Exactly. Another example of bad design. We don't demand optimisation in evolution. It's not survival of the fittest. It's survival of anything that is fit enough to survive.

Even assuming that non-reproductive sex is a waste of energy (doesn't help in bonding a parental unit that raises children, for instance) it doesn't waste so much energy that you risk dying without leaving behind offspring that are likely to mature to adulthood. It doesn't even waste so much energy that you're not going to be able to feed yourself. (Well, I don't know about you personally. Maybe you need to moderate your behaviour. )



(That's going back a few posts. This thread is going by too quickly for me!)

 

[arthwollipot]

(That's going back a few posts. This thread is going by too quickly for me!)

It sure is going by quickly isn't it? Don't worry, in another 20min my shift will have ended and I won't be back until tomorrow. It should go slower once I've gone, argumentative that I am.

 

[Vagabond]

Exactly. Another example of bad design. We don't demand optimisation in evolution. It's not survival of the fittest. It's survival of anything that is fit enough to survive.

Even assuming that non-reproductive sex is a waste of energy (doesn't help in bonding a parental unit that raises children, for instance) it doesn't waste so much energy that you risk dying without leaving behind offspring that are likely to mature to adulthood. It doesn't even waste so much energy that you're not going to be able to feed yourself. (Well, I don't know about you personally. Maybe you need to moderate your behaviour. )



(That's going back a few posts. This thread is going by too quickly for me!)

Your points are well taken. However, hunter gatherers were almost always on the border of starving all the time. Particularly in the winter. However, it might be because they were having sex several times a day. However, burning off 300 calories in a half hour when you are taking in 1200 a day certainly could have had an impact. If they were actually starving they would probably not have energy for sex, but being short on food can make you more susceptible to illness as well.

 

[Oregon_Skeptic]

300 calories in a half-hour? Do you have a source for this? Burning 300 calories in 30 minuets is actually aerobic. Very aerobic, depending on gender and body mass.

Also, how do you know hunter-gatherers were “almost always on the border of starving all the time”? Do you have a source for this?

Further, earlier you said only humans take pleasure in sex. I’m pretty sure that dolphins do as well.

Finally, while we are on the idea that it feels good (I like Woody Allen’s line on that: “Even my worst orgasm was still pretty good”) why would an intelligent designer make sex so pleasurable? If the purpose of sex is to reproduce, why make the human body and brain respond the way it does to sexual impulse and arousal? Wouldn’t an intelligent designer simply make sex functional? Seems to me that sexual pleasure points towards evolution rather than some intelligent designer.

 

[Ossai]

stamenflicker

Hmm. I bet if you let Behe spend an hour in the classroom, he’d use up more than five minutes talking about complexity. But then again, he’s an authority you’d not appeal to.

He’s also a liar.
The length of time they would talk rhetoric is meaningless. Unless evidence is presented all ID is and ever will be is a religious attack on evolution.

I believe creationist arguments are sometimes based on the wrong questions.

What would be the correct questin?

As to what are we to teach? Teach that it is an amazing complex theory based on hypotheses to which many of our observations bare out.

Many means, at least, more than one and since IDs hypothesis and observations have born exactly zero, you’re either willfully ignorant or a liar.

In other words, there’s too much data and too many questions out there to be certain beyond a reasonable doubt about much. Evolution occurred to a degree to which we are still uncertain, by a means through which we are still trying to understand. I see no problem with teaching that way.

Another argument from ignorance.

Again, its more about honesty to me and my intellectual displeasure has less to do with evolution and more to do with a failure to address and acknowledge the limitations of the theory.

Care to point out the ‘limitations of the theory’ or are you just rambling from ignorance again?

Why aren’t things like odds or probabilities appropriate things to ask in evolutionary theories?

Ah, you already answer my question. A ramble of ignorance.

Vagabond

Yeah, and at one time it was universally accepted the earth was the center of the universe too.

That was the Catholic church that expressed and promoted that view.

95 percent of what we call "fact" in science is theory and speculation which we have as yet found out is false. This is particularly true in astronomy which is nearly all speculation, except what we have actually experienced in our miniscule space travels.

Vile ignorance. Or are you living in your mud hut and praying to the magic box with pictures while sounds occasionally come forth as you delicately press small square shaped pieces of plastic with letters hand painted on them?

Same goes with the male peacock feathers. How can the feathers know they are a benefit? There is no means of transferring that information. Are they even truly a benefit or have they ever been? There are countless other things which exist which require intelligence to explain.

More ignorance spouted with authority.

What would be the evolutionary benefit of finding sex pleasureable? How could this evolve without outside influence? Only humans seem to find it so.

Dolphins and (I want to say orangutans but I don’t think that right) engage in sex for reasons other than procreation – ie pleasure.

Ossai

 

[Dr Adequate]

95 percent of what we call "fact" in science is theory and speculation ...

This is disturbing news, and as scientists are completely unaware of it, I think you should tell them. Make sure that you write your letter in green ink, and they'll treat it with the seriousness it deserves.

I wonder why you're the first person to notice this. It must have taken a lot of research into all branches of science. How long did it take you to reach this remarkable conclusion?

 

[Dr Adequate]

Your points are well taken. However, hunter gatherers were almost always on the border of starving all the time.

You made that up.

Scattered throughout the world, several dozen groups of so-called primitive people, like the Kalahari bushmen, continue to support themselves that way. It turns out that these people have plenty of leisure time, sleep a good deal, and work less hard than their farming neighbors. For instance, the average time devoted each week to obtaining food is only 12 to 19 hours for one group of Bushmen, 14 hours or less for the Hadza nomads of Tanzania. One Bushman, when asked why he hadn’t emulated neighboring tribes by adopting agriculture, replied, "Why should we, when there are so many mongongo nuts in the world?"

While farmers concentrate on high-carbohydrate crops like rice and potatoes, the mix of wild plants and animals in the diets of surviving hunter-gatherers provides more protein and a bettter balance of other nutrients. In one study, the Bushmen’s average daily food intake (during a month when food was plentiful) was 2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein, considerably greater than the recommended daily allowance for people of their size.

...

One straightforward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5’ 9" for men, 5’ 5" for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5’ 3" for men, 5’ for women. By classical times heights were very slowly on the rise again, but modern Greeks and Turks have still not regained the average height of their distant ancestors.

Another example of paleopathology at work is the study of Indian skeletons from burial mounds in the Illinois and Ohio river valleys. At Dickson Mounds, located near the confluence of the Spoon and Illinois rivers, archaeologists have excavated some 800 skeletons that paint a picture of the health changes that occurred when a hunter-gatherer culture gave way to intensive maize farming around A. D. 1150. Studies by George Armelagos and his colleagues then at the University of Massachusetts show these early farmers paid a price for their new-found livelihood. Compared to the hunter-gatherers who preceded them, the farmers had a nearly 50 per cent increase in enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, a fourfold increase in iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition called porotic hyperostosis), a theefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease in general, and an increase in degenerative conditions of the spine, probably reflecting a lot of hard physical labor.

--- Jared Diamond, a real scientist who doesn't just make stuff up as he goes along.

 

[arthwollipot]

Dolphins and (I want to say orangutans but I don’t think that right) engage in sex for reasons other than procreation – ie pleasure.

Ossai

Bonobos. As pointed out earlier in the thread.

A friend of mine once summed up the sex life of dolphins:

"Bob wants a bonk. Let's all bonk Bob!"