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Author Topic:   A Programmer Unimpressed with Biological "Design"
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 16 of 18 (85327)
02-11-2004 5:46 AM


On the general topic of "Unintelligent Design", I thought I'd chime in with another example:
Members of the class Gastropoda (snails, slugs, conchs, etc.) undergo a transformation in their embryonic stage that twists their viscera around 180 degrees.
This has the effect of putting the anus (and the mantle cavity that goes along with it) right above the head of the organism. This allows some space for the organism to retract its head into its shell.
Unfortunately it also positions the anus right by the gill. This would be like having your own anus positioned between your eyes.
That doesn't exactly smack of the "evidence of brilliant design" creationists say is all around us. Or maybe God just has it in for snails.
Just read about that in Hickman, Roberts, and Larson's Animal Diversity, my wife's zoology textbook.
[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 02-11-2004]

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by 1.61803, posted 02-25-2004 11:51 AM crashfrog has not replied

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1504 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 17 of 18 (88598)
02-25-2004 11:51 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by crashfrog
02-11-2004 5:46 AM


So thats why snails move so slow..
They have they're head up they're ass....
maybe god is'nt finished with snails yet LOL!!!
[This message has been edited by 1.61803, 02-25-2004]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by crashfrog, posted 02-11-2004 5:46 AM crashfrog has not replied

  
lpetrich
Inactive Member


Message 18 of 18 (88996)
02-27-2004 4:59 AM


Gastropodlike U-shaped guts are known from elsehwere, like
Crinoids
Lophophorates (brachiopods, bryozoans, phoronids)
There are other examples of such kludgy designs.
Amniote early embryos have gill bars, gill pouches, and a fishlike circulation (heart - ventral aorta - gill arches - dorsal aortas). Several of these structures are then used for other purposes; the remainder is resorbed. Birds and mammals resorb one of a pair of arches, the systemic arches; birds resorb the left one and mammals the right one.
Some land vertebrates have extra digits with little or no functionality.
(per-foot, not per-animal):
* Dogs and cats have four functional digits and one dewclaw.
* Cows, pigs, etc. have two extra digits, one on each side of their two functional digits.
* Horses are sometimes born with extra digits on each side of their one functional digit.
And extinct equines form a nice intermediate state -- they grow all three digits, though in the later ones, the side digits are much smaller than the middle one.
Plants alternate between a haploid gametophyte stage and a diploid sporophyte stage. These are distinct individuals among the more primitive plants, but among seed plants, the gametophytes are microscopic and typically only a few cells. Nearly all of a seed plant is sporophyte. It is as if seed plants were trying to converge on the animal situation of only the gametes being haploid, but could not quite make it.
[This message has been edited by lpetrich, 02-27-2004]

  
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