ID - How Many Designers and If ID, Macro or Micro Designer(s)?

Hi,The way I see it, there are a couple of glaring problems with the MDT as explained by you and the Pandas thumb article.Firstly, it seems to have no more scientific basis that traditional ID. Although it attempts to answer some things that can be used as criticisms of having a single designer (parasite/host relationships, crap designs etc), it seems to be just as shy of actually suggesting ways to detect the actions of all of these competing, muddling designers.From the article: I suppose you could say that it tries to accommodate the available evidence. But I still can’t think of a testable hypothesis from it!Secondly, it totally and utterly fails to explain the evidence that supports common ancestry. In your post you say: That’s a bit of a poor analogy. It’s more like finding a vital piece of the machinary inside every clock and then being able to lay them all out depending on how similar they are to each other:"Well the pocket watch and wristwatch are closely related, and then they in turn are more related to the carriage clock than the atomic clock, but we can still find common aspects from all of these timepieces that are clearly from primitive sundials"How many designers are there? Is there one in charge of all great apes, or is there one in charge of mammals? Or is there a Department of Mammal Design, with an open plan office? It all just seems a little silly to me. I think one of the correspondants in Pandas thumb sums it all up quite well:

quote:

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Brenda the Designer - "I have made crocodiles! But their teeth keep decaying and falling out due to rotting flesh stuck in them. I have to start all over again!"

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Rob the Designer - "Hey, Brenda! Don’t start over! Let me give you a hand! I’ve already got a ‘small bird’ design template, I’ll just modify it to pick the dead meat out of your croc’s mouth!"

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Brenda - "Oh, thank you!"

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It's seems to be a string of ad hoc explanations. Of course, I might be being a little too critical and have missed some key part of the idea. If you do think that there is some way of testing it I’d be keen to discuss itThis message has been edited by Ooook!, 11 February 2005 11:03 AM