Why is the Intelligent Designer so inept?

Yes, of course Taq didn't state that it was an evolutionary dead end, and I didn't say he did. It was you who who made that statement, I stated that that's what you said, and I quoted you saying it. Here it is again: You're referring to the vertebrate eye as an evolutionary dead end and asking how many more dead ends there are. There's no ambiguity. You called the vertebrate eye an evolutionary dead end.Concerning a God who produces flawed designs, the usual argument for design in nature is its perfection. I don't care if you want to claim a God who produces flawed designs, but you're not going to find many evangelical Christians willing to go along with you, and Coyote's question is relevant: how would you determine whether life is the product of this God or of natural processes.--Percy

Like perfection, competence is a subjective term. Going back to the vertebrate eye, a trade off was necessary.

Perhaps God doesn't mind having some of his design appearing as inept in the eyes of some people. I think it is ironic that you refer to the creator as tiny. Perhaps you will tell the creator that when you meet him one day.

Some parts of my posts are based on speculation. So far my knowledge on I.D. doesn't give me anymore of an idea that the creator was a deity. There is a lot of confusion out there and it is hard to be discerning enough to be able to weed through it. I think it confounds some of the best out there.

Again, this doesn't necessarily have to be connected with I.D. but it has an inescapable connection to the God of the Bible. If you want to read Hosea 4:6 and the rest of Hosea 4, it may give you some insights into why this is the case but then again...

Live long and prosper lyx2no. May your science serve you well.

Edited by traderdrew, : minor editingEdited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

I realize that the issue I bring up should actually be in the Does intelligent design have creationist roots?, but your comments say volumes.

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Perhaps God doesn't mind having some of his design appearing as inept in the eyes of some people. I think it is ironic that you refer to the creator as tiny. Perhaps you will tell the creator that when you meet him one day.

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ID proponents continue to say that they are not advocating creationism, but in all conversations IDers go back to their god and their mythical creator. Then there are people like traderdrew, who from his comments seems to be a creationist. I have to say I have much more respect for creationists than ID'ers. Both are willfully ignorant, but at least creationists have the strength of conviction to some extent.

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If you want to read Hosea 4:6 and the rest of Hosea 4, it may give you some insights into why this is the case but then again...

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Again not even pretending that ID is not religious and christian.The thread is Why is the Intelligent Designer so inept?, but we have no pretending that there is an Intelligent Designer, just affirmation that there is a supernatural creator, a God.So does anyone were actually believe in ID? Or is everyone that advocates ID really a creationist ins sheeps clothing? Because if that is true there is no reason to continue this thread. Treaderdrew is obviously not an IDer. Is anyone?

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I will ignore your little shots at me and correct you on something. Creationists believe in a earth that was created thousands of years ago. Creationists also don't believe in evolution or they believe in a very limited amount of evolution such as adaptive radiation. I do not cling to this belief system.

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I will ignore your little shots at me

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Little shots?? I wasn't making shots. I was just stating what you have been saying in the thread.So you are an IDer? You obviously don't believe in evolution. Or do you?Also, you are wrong in this.

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Creationists believe in a earth that was created thousands of years ago.

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This is what young earth creationists believe. There are also old world creationists.Here are some good descriptions from Wikipedia(not definitive but it does give a good overall feel for the subject matter).
Old Earth Creationism
Young Earth Creationism
So are you old world? The reason for my interest is that as I stated earlier the name of the thread is "Why is the Intelligent Designer so inept?", but you keep on bringing up your god and this mythical creator, so it seems you are a creationist. Therefore, you are not arguing the OP at all you are arguing for a creator not a designer.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

There doesn't have to be a trade off. The cephalopod eye works just fine with a forward facing retina. Go here for more information.

Your question was simply misguided.It was either in this thread or in another where I talked about stages of development being built on top of one another. This is another case of just that. The inverted retina is one of the earliest stages of development. Since it's evolution this stage has been built upon by other stages. Because of this it is very, very difficult to change the earliest stages of development without disturbing the entire system.This is by no means an "evolutionary dead end". It is a foundation upon which further evolutionary adaptations have been built. Once these changes become the foundation they are really, really hard to change through evolutionary mechanisms.And I also notice that you completely avoided my Bill Gates analogy. I think it is obvious to everyone that putting the wires in front of the light path is just wrong. It is a clear case of ineptitude. This is made even plainer when cameras (or eyes) have been designed with the wires exiting out the back of the photoreceptors. So the designer was purposefully inept? I coach little league baseball. I can cheer for a kid who tries his hardest but doesn't make a play. However, I absolutely hate it when kids don't try and make bad plays. What you are describing is a designer who just isn't trying.

Hi, Taq. No, he's not saying that the Designer is purposefully inept: he's saying that the Designer still has to deal with tradeoffs.Can you think of the reason why a Designer would make a perfect creation?
Maybe if it was a work of art or hot rod designed to be displayed, I could see why perfection would be the goal.
Or, if the Designer was trying to make Its creation into an efficient machine that helped It accomplish some task, some semblance of perfection would be desirable.But, would you make something perfect if imperfection could work well enough to accomplish whatever it is that you intended it to accomplish? Economically, it doesn't make sense.That's what Drew is saying. It's a stalling tactic, really: since we don't know what the purpose is, we can't pass judgment, so this discussion is pretty meaningless.Kind of boring, isn't it?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

I think he is saying the neo-Darwinism (whatever that is) has evovled and run into dead ends, not that the human eye is one. If I'm right, he could have made that clearer, but even so, I'm not sure what he means by dead ends in the evolution of neo-Darwinism since it's still here...

That would imply that the designer is limited in both time and resources. For an all knowing, all powerful supernatural deity who lives in a realm outside of time and space this wouldn't seem to be the case. Making something perfect or imperfect would take the same amount of non-effort. Also, you wouldn't think that such a being would need to make "trade-offs", especially given the fact that this same designer was able to make the cephalopod eye without these trad-offs.

That's just the cephalopod designer that knew that trick!

Neither perfection nor competence are subjective terms. Now, where the standard for perfection is an absolute and the standard for competence is arbitrary, both are demonstrable. That’s no small difference. Do I have a perfect grasp of the english language? It appears not: I failed to capitalize the e in English. Am I competent in the English language? In presenting these sentences I demonstrate that I am . This would be an argument for the standard of competence being arbitrary. Or were you demonstrating to me with your trade off of exactitude in meaning for economy with words that the standard of competence is arbitrary. After all, I should have been, and was, able to grasp your good enough response. I’ll agree that that is fine for you and me, but if either of us were a philosopher the lack of such pedantry would be incompetent.So the question is Is the intelligent designer of our Universe perfect in his own right but a Sunday hobbyist when it comes poofing up universes? Nevertheless, you might well have a point there. There is no way to tell if god said That’s good enough for the bony boys. I’ve got to get to work on the cephalopods: cephalopods won’t cut ya’ the slack you’ll get from traderdrew et al.Why would god the intelligent designer have to make a trade off? Is it not the arbiter of all rules? To what rules is he it subject? Ironic would imply an unexpected result. If your god is subject to compromise and the God my mum and the real Christians tell me about isn’t, why would you not expect me to think your god tiny? I think the truth of the matter is that you don’t believe your god to be subject to any rules but fail to recognize the necessary consequences of your own arguments. A god subject to compromise is a tiny, inept god in comparison to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Mum. Or so I’ve been lead to believe.However, we’re not talking about a god, only an intelligent designer. I’m sure He already recognizes the necessary consequences of your arguments. With eyes as flawed as ours I’m surprised we saw it. You’d thing it would have been the cephalopods who would have brought it up. I noticed a slight typo so I took the liberty of correcting it for you. I hope you don’t mind.

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Some parts of my posts are based on wild, baseless speculation that in no way, shape or form comport with a demonsterable reality and often contradicts know facts.

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Some of the best what? Surely you don’t mean thinkers. I know it confuses the apologists. They have to confabulate a wheels within wheels makeshift that will pass the smell test for lacksidasical skeptics and won’t make god look the complete fool to the faithful. The apologists can’t get a mote of it past a half alert skeptic so don’t have to contend with that lot. I expected to read something along the lines of Repeat after me. Sayest the Lord. ’The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.’ or I’ll starve you to death., But I was disapointed. All it says is This is going to suck, but I’ll catch you up later. It doesn’t explain the value of it sucking now. Thank you, I’m sure it will because the ignorance is bliss thing wasn’t working for me.

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It is far easier for you, as civilized men, to behave like barbarians than it was for them, as barbarians, to behave like civilized men.

Hi, Taq. So far, Drew hasn't made it clear what his views about the Intelligent Designer's power is: judging by his comments, I think it's safe to say he believes his god does not have the power to wave away tradeoffs.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Good point.So if we are to judge the designer by the design (assuming a single designer) we can come to two strong conclusions.1. The designer is not all knowing nor all powerful. Using eyes as an example, the designer learned from it's mistakes with the backwards retina of vertebrates and perfected the design in cephalopods.2. The designer chose to insert inept designs on purpose, and arbitrarily. Going back to the eyes, the designer knew that the backwards facing retina would cut down on light capturing and resolution but decided to do it anyway.

As I stated in Message 319, we have no one arguing at all from the ID position. Drew has not specifically said his beliefs, but all his comments are peppered with the term creator. He denies being a creationist, but I tend to think he is an OEC. I guess it is best this thread is almost over since we can not seem to get a true IDer to debate the topic.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts