Animals with bad design.

In the first place, no-one would expect that unless what was present "in the beginning" was nothingness in stable equilibrium. If you can prove that, there are people in Stockholm who'd like to give you some sort of medal.In the second place, the ToE would say nothing at all about what we should expect under those circumstances. Because it's the theory of evolution.You might as well complain that you couldn't derive the existence of spaghetti from Maxwell's First Law. Why?OK, under your hypothesis if we could read the mind of God just before he poofed things into existence, then one could predict everything down to the number of spots on the first ladybug. But otherwise, no. Given merely the standard basic claims about God, for example that he is perfectly wise and good and so forth, we couldn't predict anything --- as this thread has pretty much demonstrated. Faced with any detail of reality, you just have to suppose retrospectively that that's what a good and intelligent God would have come up with.Consider what you would think if there was less biological diversity. Suppose, for example, that there weren't any whales. Would you honestly then be going around saying: "There is, I admit, less biological diversity than a theistic view based on a Designer would predict; hence, there is no God"? So good that you have apparently chosen to answer a completely different question. Or, to put it another way, it's a retreat from a position that appeared to make actual predictions.One of the (many) problems with creationism as it stood was that if it was true we would have expected the universe to look less like the work of a bungling sadist. The solution? Remove predictive power from your hypothesis until we haven't a clue what sort of thing the designer would design.Of course, this makes it somewhat inconsistent for you to claim that a "view based on a Designer would predict a vast array of biological diversity". If the degree of intelligence of the designer is not given a priori then the dumb klutz might have made a couple of half-assed attempts at bacteria and then given up because it was too hard for him. Yeah. For example, we know that tigers fall into the latter category.The central tenet of ID must surely be that "we", or at least 99.9% of biologists, do not know how to recognize designed objects. What we verify empirically is that when we study the history of any particular organism we see its genotype and phenotype being formed by natural and unintelligent processes. I've got Stockholm on the phone for you again. Well, no. Because creationism is all holes. How did such-and-such a thing happen? A miracle. Why did it happen? God wanted it that way. What can we predict from creationist premises? Nothing; we can just say retrospectively that God must have wanted the world to look like it does. Why does the world look exactly like the theory of evolution is true? Well, for some reason every particular detail is how God chose it to be for subtle reasons of his own. Or gravity. Or that there are zillions of stars and zillions of planets, and the chances against none of them being suitable are literally astronomical.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Hi, Aaron. So do I. But, I feel like ToE does both.----- Yeah, this is kind of a tangent, but I disagree on two accounts:

1. The Theory of Evolution has nothing to do with cosmology. The Theory of Evolution is specifically a theory about life, so, until there is life, the Theory of Evolution is powerless to explain, expect or predict anything.
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2. Given that most scientists and atheists do not expect what you say they would expect, I think you've overstepped your bounds in stating what they would expect. As for me, I am not an atheist, but I don't really see much support for the assertion that the atheist view of cosmology and abiogenesis are wrong.

If you'd like to keep discussing abiogenesis (I have done so on many occasions, although I'm not an expert in that field), please start a thread and I'll join you there.----- Sure, I understand. But, if you can't establish a consistent pattern in the data, then you can't really make the argument stick.----- Sure, but I'm not arguing that whales haven't been successful: I'm only arguing that it's very strange to design a boat out of a car when you've already got a lot of tried and true boat designs available.----- Surely this is only because the designer designed them this way. Why couldn't they have been otherwise?----- I don't think this matches my argument very well at all. I wouldn't say that a less-diverse system is preferable: I would only argue that a whale seems to be a sea creature hastily (and somewhat sloppily) modified from land mammals, rather than a specifically-designed sea creature.----- I don't think that this is a particularly honest portrayal of the ID movement. "Bad design" is clearly anathema to the views put forward by every IDist I'm familiar with.Furthermore, I don't believe that the ID movement has demonstrated that people really are capable of recognizing design in any generalizable way. Sure, perhaps they are capable of recognizing the products of human manufacture, but it isn't clear what general principles there are that can be applied to things beyond human manufacture.This is another topic that should be shunted off into another thread if we want to keep discussing it.----- What a strange argument. You certainly wouldn't expect life to exist somewhere that wasn't suitable for its existence, would you?So, why is it particularly informative that life exists where life can exist?Again, we would need to start a new thread to continue this discussion.Edited by Bluejay, : "life" instead of "live"

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

That's what makes it good science. The inability of DNA to replicate perfectly, along with the natural selection of "improvements" over "mistakes", makes diversity inevitable.The design hypothesis, on the other hand, only allows for the possibility of diversity. It can't predict anything. Design advocates can never know why the designer gave bats, humans and whales the same hands for very different environments. The theory of evolution predicts that descendants of a common ancestor will branch out to fill environmental niches, which explains the hands nicely. Sure you would. You'd predict that, given the appropriate conditions, atoms would react to form anything that is made of atoms.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

You get that from reading what I've written?I wasn't trying to lay out a complete creationist theory with all the ins and outs.My whole purpose in starting the thread was to refute complaints of bad design. We talked about the tail bud in another thread:EvC Forum: How creationism explains babies with tails

Dr. Adequate, I think I've gone out of my way to try and say that just because the designer is perfect - it doesn't mean that he is logically bound to create perfect creatures. I don't think perfection isn't something we can measure. I could say that plant photosynthesis is "perfect" - but you could think of a hypothetically better variation where a plant generates more energy from the sun and can store it longer.I don't think any created thing can ever be "perfect." Only God is.Since we've only been focusing on whales, do you consider tiny legs on a Dorudon an example of imperfect design? However you interpret them vestigially- they fulfilled a purpose. Do you think they are imperfect because they made you believe in evolution? It worked then and it works now. If we lose a significant amount of species it will work less well. How about going from a single celled aquatic organism to a bird?
That's pretty amazing power, eh? So if you add time - THEN evolution has near limitless power. Again, this is not an attack on the "perfection" of the wing design and how well wings work. This is an attack on how similar the structures are - which is apparently bad because it makes you think of evolution.What would a better wing be? One with different shaped bones so you didn't think of evolution?
Why is bone structure your sticking point. Maybe God should have put unique muscles and organs in each creature just so you wouldn't think they evolved. Making it up of course. I just barely started to do some reading on this.Here's an interesting tid-bit:Bees also have the vitellogenin gene - which has nothing to do with egg yolks. It is a glycolipoprotein - used to transport lipids. Bees use it to store food in their bodies and as an antioxidant - and they didn't get it from their lizard ancestor. Actually, that's pretty much how it went... I'm pretty sure they also said "by jingo!" I didn't do the calculations. I referred to the paper. Are you saying that the right mutations were able to happen because we now have whales? and the only way you can have a whale is by mutations? I never claimed I knew more about whales than he. I cited people who know more about whales and function of the pelvis than he. I can dissect a whale and be no more an expert than I am now. It takes someone who is familiar with whale anatomy and behavior to say what the bones are used for. The only reason we got on the topic of whale legs is because someone used them as evidence of bad design. The solutions of evolutionary biology is that time will produce organisms that look ideally designed for their environment. If there was a "better" design for the arm, flipper, and wing, certainly it would have evolved by now, wouldn't it? The truth is that the current design works very well. It meets the needs of the organism. Why wouldn't God use a design that works well?Evolution predicts step-wise solutions that lead to a powerfully functional design - limited only by the laws of physics.Why would the creation solution be any different - only that God started with the powerfully functional design?Darwin said: "How have all those exquisite adaptations of one part of the organization to another part, and to the conditions of life, and of one distinct organic being, been perfected? ... In short, we see beautiful adaptations everywhere and in every part of the organic world."I am looking at the big picture. You want to focus on the mysterious bones in the whales hind quarters and say they are proof that there isn't a designer.I'm looking at the whale as a whole, saying that it is a creature beyond the constructive ability of random mutations.You focus on one animal and wonder why it also doesn't have echolocation. Obviously proof that there isn't a designer.I'm looking at the broader ecological structure and noting that a well designed circle of life is based on creatures that don't have every conceivable ability and adaptation.I wish I had more time to respond to everybody's questions quicker. I try not to dish out cliche one-liners. I try to be thorough and do my research.

Hmm. So God can make a rock so big he can't lift it. That's good to know.

Perfect can be a relative as well as an absolute term. If I speak of "the perfect bacon sandwich", I do not mean that it is the sum of all perfections, I just mean that it's better than all other conceivable bacon sandwiches. To summarize my view: the point about whale legs and indeed everything else is that it would be freakishly strange if good design also always just happened to be consistent with evolution. You seem to have been driven to (implicitly) defend the view that it is, but without offering us any particular criterion to identify good design. What does "working" consist of? What sort of thing would you say didn't "work"? Superman can leap tall buildings in a single bound, and I can nearly do the same thing --- I can go up the stairs of the building, one at a time. That would have been nice of him, yes.Again, the point is not that I think that the wings are bad, but that you must think that making wings bearing all the hallmarks of evolution was the best of all possible ideas. Again.Really, what are the odds that every time the perfect being thought up the perfect design, it just turned out to be one that would gladden the hearts of Darwinians? The key words there would be bees use it. So they do. We don't --- it's a pseudogene. But for some reason when the Almighty brooded over the primordial chaos, he thought that it would be better to give us one of those than not.You don't know why, do you? But I do know why it's there. No, it isn't. The features that made them recognize it as whale-ish were not adaptations to living underwater. My point is that you're only retrospectively identifying these as the right mutations. Is it really conceivable that there is only one right way to not develop legs? Not necessarily. As you point out in the next paragraph: "evolution predicts step-wise solutions". Which is why you're wrong to say that they are "limited only by the laws of physics". We may assume that a God of unlimited power and wisdom wouldn't ever settle for "good enough". He'd produce the best arm, the best flipper, the best wing. So why does he always do so in such a way as to fool me into believing in evolution? Either that was part of his goal (but surely we must say with Einstein that "he is not malicious") or the whole of nature constitutes a coincidence so vast that the mind can barely grasp its magnitude --- or, of course, evolution occurred. No, I want to look at the big picture. Which is why I just urged you to look at it with me. And why I keep referring to it.You know, like this: Does this sound like I want to focus on whale legs, or like I want to look at the big picture?It is easy enough for you to hypothesize that Dorudon's legs were used as a "sexual clasper". It is only slightly more difficult for you to imagine that they might have been the best of all conceivable sexual claspers. This is particularly easy since you are free to imagine that handicapping an animal might have been part of God's perfect plan.One homology does not a summer make. I agree.The question that I keep asking you is why in every instance, every darn time, God's perfect plan involved mimicking the expected results of evolution. That's the big picture. That's what I'm looking at. I am still awaiting your answer.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

God obviously either loves Darwinians or despise creationists enough to want to seriously annoy them.Praise be to him I say.

Boss: Ah, Jenkins, isn't it? Do come in, sit yourself down. About this new design of yours ... Jenkins: Yes, sir. We're all very excited about it. Boss: So am I, Jenkins. So am I. But I was wondering ... Jenkins: Sir? Boss: These structures on the diagram here? Labeled "wings"? Jenkins: Sir? Boss: You do know that the product isn't meant to fly? Jenkins: Sir. Boss: Because, and I can't emphasize this enough, it's a lawnmower. Jenkins: Yes sir. Boss: Contact with the grass could be considered a sine qua non of its function. Jenkins: Yes sir. Boss: Flight would be most undesirable and might well expose us to lawsuits. Jenkins: Well of course, sir. Of course I know that. Boss: So it seems to me that the wings would be a flaw in the design. Jenkins: Only if they made it fly. Boss: They don't? Jenkins: Oh good heavens no. No, they're far too small. If you look at the area to weight ratio ... make it fly? Oh my, there's going to be a few chuckles in the lab over that, if I may say so sir. Boss: I defer to your engineering expertise, of course. But can I ask ... if they don't make it fly, in what sense are they wings? Jenkins: Homology, sir. Boss: Homology? Jenkins: Yes, sir. I copied the shape, the internal structure, the wiring, everything, from a blueprint of a Boeing 747. Look, they've even got little ailerons. Boss: But it won't fly. Jenkins: Oh no, don't you worry about that. Boss: Well, I must admit that a lawnmower with wings that doesn't fly is, if anything, better than one with wings that does. And yet ... Jenkins: Sir? Boss: Well, I don't wish to seem obtuse, but ... why have wings at all? I admit that I'm no engineer, but it seems like bad design.(There is an awkward silence for about six thousand years.) Creationist: Excuse me. Boss: Who are you and who let you in? Creationist: I'm a self-appointed expert on Intelligent Design. Boss: And who let you in? Creationist: Which part of "self-appointed" is giving you trouble? Boss: Security! Creationist: No, wait, let me speak. This is, after all, one of those situations where an expert --- Boss: Self-appointed expert. Creationist: --- where a self-appointed expert on Intelligent Design is invaluable. Boss: There's something in what you say. This isn't going to cost me anything, is it? Creationist: Time and possibly some brain-cells, but no actual money. Boss: OK, the floor's yours. Please explain in what way Jenkins' design is intelligent. Creationist: Oh, I can't do that. Boss: You can't? Creationist: No. But what I can say is this. This design was produced by Jenkins. The Jenkins! The great Jenkins! The inventor of the non-flammable match for use in gunpowder factories and at gas stations, the first and indeed only man to attach a non-functioning rudder to a non-aquatic ironing-board, and of course the unparalleled visionary who realized that if he put square wheels on houses this would prevent them from rolling downhill. Boss: I'm familiar with his work. Painfully so. What's your point? Creationist: My point is that Jenkins is a perfect engineer. If he put non-flying wings on a lawnmower, he must have intended them for some function. Boss: And can you say what this function is? Creationist: I'm glad you asked --- I can speculate wildly on that very subject. Boss: And could you also tell me why this function would best be achieved by copying the wings of a 747? Creationist: Yes! Yes! Yes. Er ... no. Not as such. But ... this is Jenkins! The Jenkins! The grea --- Boss: Yes, yes. Well, it's true that I don't know much about engineering. Though nor, I suspect, do you. But Jenkins has been with the company for a long time --- it seems like an eternity --- so I guess I'll just have to have faith in Jenkins. Creationist: Amen to that. Boss: By the way ... by the way, where is Jenkins? Creationist: I believe he's around here somewhere ...Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

The argument that animals aren't perfect is nowhere being used to establish the lack of a designer. It is a counter to the argument that animals being perfect establishes a designer. If you reject animals as perfect there is no argument to be had.

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When cometh the day
We lowly ones
Through quiet reflection
And great dedication
Master the art of karate
Lo, we shall rise up
And then we'll make
The bugger's eyes water
Roger Waters

Very funny Doctor. But let me provide an alternate ending: Boss: OK, the floor's yours. Please explain in what way Jenkins' design is intelligent. Creationist: Well Jenkins original design was a 747, Sir. Boss: "Was"? Creationist: Yes, Sir. Beautiful machine. Breathtaking. Perfect. Boss: So what happened? Creationist: Well, Jenkins had a fairly major falling out with the Company, Sir... Boss: How major? Creationist: Well...we sort of collaborated with our main competitor... behind his back... Boss: Infernal Enterprises? Why on earth would we do that? Creationist: (Evasive, sheepish) Oh...you know...better pay...fancier sounding titles... Boss: So how on earth did Jenkins react? Creationist: Not very well at all, sir. He built degenerative mechanisms into all his inventions. We call them "mutations"(nervous laugh). The longer the machines operate, the more the "mutations" break them down, and we have to keep assigning more and more basic functions to them... Boss: You mean, his 747... Creationist: Yes Sir. His beautiful, beautiful 747... Boss: Is now a lawnmower??? Creationist: Yes Sir- but what a lawnmower...! Boss: (Sighs, and then murmurs) Why does it still have wings? Creationist: Oh Sir- do you know what it would cost to get rid of them? Makes far more economic sense to just leave them where they are. I mean, they still look pretty. And some engineers are saying that they even might even improve cooling to the engine. Typical of Jenkins. He could never be completely destructive. Not in his nature...Edited by Kaichos Man, : SpacingEdited by Kaichos Man, : formatEdited by Kaichos Man, : format

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"When man loses God, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in anything" G.K. Chesterton

If any creationist really thinks that evolutionary processes could and did do the equivalent of turning a plane into a lawnmower (and "what a lawnmower"!) then in what sense is he a creationist? It seems something of a falling off from the faith.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

That isn't intelligent design; it's malicious design. A perfect booby-trap may refute the "bad design" thesis but it isn't something I'd brag about.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

The horse was originally (according to evolutionary folklore) a small creature with a fully articulated spine and five toes on each foot. It now has one toe on each foot, a fixed spine (not capable of sideways movement) and is much bigger due to a mutation to a growth-control gene.An impressive creature, but it is what it is today due to a succession of deleterious mutations.Oh, and it eats grass. There's your lawnmower.

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"When man loses God, he does not believe in nothing. He believes in anything" G.K. Chesterton

Hi, Kaichos Man. Mutations that make the horse bigger and help it run faster are "deleterious"?I'm not sure you're clear on what "deleterious" means. Start here. Then, you can go here for a discussion of what "deleterious" means in the classification of mutations.After you've done that, feel free to revise your statement and bring it more in line with the topic of the thread.

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