The Silly Design Institute

"Not a platitude"

Vision

Dedicated to the serious investigation of Silly Design in "life, the universe, and everything" (D. Adams, BA MA, and post humus honorary member).

Mission Statement

The Silly Design Institute's mission is to make Americans fully aware of both sides of the Design debate, whether they want to be or not.

We feel that both sides of the design debate need to be provided in schools and in the media, to inform the public and the students so that they can make up their own minds and not be dictated to by self-serving organizations, and to this end the Institute:

• supports research by scientists and other scholars challenging various aspects of "Intelligent" Design;
• supports research by scientists and other scholars developing the scientific theories for investigating Silly Design;
• supports research by scientists and other scholars developing falsification tests to demonstrate the superior scientific basis of Silly Design compared to other design "theories"
• encourages the media to portray Silly Design as not just a valid, but the ne plus ultra alternative to "Intelligent" Design whether it has been shown to be one or not
• encourages schools, colleges and universities to improve science education by teaching students more fully about the various concepts of the Design Spectrum, including the scientific weaknesses various Design theories as well as any strengths.

History

The Silly Design Institute will be started as soon as we get funding, people, and a couple of chairs, a desk, a telephone, and a list of Scientists that don't think that Neo-Paleyism explains the diversity of silly organisms. Seriously.

The Theory

The Silly Design Theory (SDT, not to be confused with STD) is based on a very simple set of concepts:

• the existence of design in natural systems is obvious, whether it is a human eye, a bird wing or the flagellum of a bacteria, there is a feature with a purpose;
• the preponderance of these purposeful features in all forms of life, from simple to complex, shows that a design process is at work;
• that the debate over whether the design is the result of natural forces or the intent of some cosmic designer cannot be resolved by investigation of the designs, because the natural forces could be designed by the cosmic designer as the means to achieve the end purpose of the designs;
• that the ultimate purpose of the designs can be determined by investigation of multitudes of features to see if they more accurately reflect (a) random design, the result of totally natural forces, (b) highly specific design, for some intelligent purpose, or (c) variations on a silly design, for some silly (entertainment, amusement, reality tv) purpose;
• that the design purpose, as determined by rigorous scientific investigation, will then make clear whether the designer is (a) a Natural Nothing (NaNo), (b) an Intelligent Designer (IDr) or (c) a Cosmic Imp (CImp), and that this will then finally resolve whether there is or is not a designer as well as the nature of that designer: a metaphysical two-fer.

The Hypothesis to be tested, therefore, is that "life, the universe, and everything" show evidence of Silly Design (SD).

To accomplish this task there are several parameters that will be used to differentiate the different design possibilities. These include:

• SI - the Silliness Index - for comparing the relative silliness of different features, the higher the SI the higher the probability of Silly Design
• IC - Impossibility Content - a feature that is not consistent with the rest of the organism, has no discernable purpose and no possible natural need, finding an IC component would be de facto discovery of a Silly Design feature.

We expect more to be developed as the scientific effort to determine Silly Design matures.

Mascot:

The Duck-billed Platypus, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is high SI and possible IC in it's features, from PLAtYPUS WeiRDeR tHAn THOUGHt:

​

Unlikely but true. In addition to a ducklike bill, poisonous claws, and terminal confusion over milk and eggs, the platypus has 10 sex chromosomes. Most mammals have only two. But a female platypus has 10 X chromosomes and males have five X and five Y. Some of the chromosomes are like ours, and others are like those of birds.

Or as Ogden Nash Wrote:

The Platypus
I like the duck-billed platypus
Because it is anomalous.
I like the way it raises its family
Partly birdly, partly mammaly.
I like its independent attitude.
Let no one call it a duck-billed platitude.

Foreign Affiliates:⁽¹⁾

• Instituto del Diseo Tonto
• Institut de Conception Drle
• Institut des Dummen Designs
• Istituto del Disegno Divertente
• Instituut van Grappig Ontwerp

⁽¹⁾ - all at the same address

Submit Papers:

Submit papers as subtopics to this thread (be sure to reference properly), all submissions to become the property of the Institute, and the author(s) will automatically be added as members of the Institute, thus providing us a growing base of "Known Scientists that Support Silly Design"

Our highly trained editor(s) will peer at, and review, all submissions before including any in our on-line journal. Amount of peer\review to be determined on a case by case basis.

{edited to add papers as they are presented}
Papers to date:

• Investigator: Eye's Silly Design Message 4
  
• A Wing and A Walkingstick Message 18
  
• Sex, Sickness and Silliness Message 23
  
• Flagellum's Funny Flailing Message 33
  

Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : title changed from debate to controversy & subtitle addedEdited by RAZD, : updated sigEdited by RAZD, : No reason given.Edited by RAZD, : added list of scientistsEdited by RAZD, : .

Gee RAZD, I hate to be the one to "dirty" up this thread... I'd love to promote your post, but (besides the title) I don't see any topic being brought up for discussion.The only suggestion I might make is to simply copy your HTML to your homepage, and post this really nice front as a kind of "cover page". Then start posting specific issues / creatures for consideration by proponents of ID. Then you can link back to them through your front on your own webpage, and also link the OP of each issue to your "Silly Design Institute" webpage.Unless you wanted to just get comments by people on your HTML formatting... if that's what you wanted, I can promote this. But if you want to discuss what the content implies, I don't see how we get there from what you posted.Like I said, I hate to be the one to say this, because I think what you did here is, both content-wise and format-wise, kick-ass. Let me know what's under the orange bowl-cut there, and I'll try and figure out what to do with you.Thanks.

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My concept is an open thread dedicated to both sides of the Design debate, where people can add subtopics that they feel are more appropriate to Silly Design (one coming soon on the eye?) than to Intelligent Design, and where the topics can be debated on their scientific\logical merits.Consider this as an opening statement of the Silly Design Theory for comment and consideration in the ongoing debate.I think that each of the elements that have been discussed as valid for Intelligent design will be seen to be more applicable to the Silly Design Theory.Let me add the "paper" on eye design and see what you think.We could always put it in coffeehouse if you don't think it enough for the ID forum (and see how it goes?) {goes off grumbling about the suppression of new scientific thought by the establishment ...}ps thanks.{abe}(it is on my website, as is the eye paper, I need to update my index however){/abe}This message has been edited by RAZD, 09*17*2005 09:08 PM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Investigator: Eye's Silly Design

The Eye Design Problem

Intelligent Design proponents often point to the eye as a sign of design that can be readily seen and understood. For Dembski⁽¹⁾, the match between features of organisms and human technologies shows that design is involved, and in the case of the eye, the comparison is to a camera design, with pinhole opening for light, a lens, and a surface on which to project an image.

They employ various arguments, from "complex specific information" to "irreducibly complex" but these terms are not being adequately defined to provide an objective measurement of these characteristics for comparison. More importantly they don't address some severe failures of ID concepts to explain both the variety of design and the specific usage of these designs.

You often see claims from the ID camp that express certainty that the eye must have been designed. After all, they'll say, how could evolution start with a sightless organism and produce an eye with so many independent parts, such as a retina, which would itself be useless without a lens, or a lens, which would be useless without a retina? The question we raise is: designed for what purpose?

The combination of specific design features of each of the various eyes together with the species where they are found demonstrate the intent of the design. Let's review some of them:

Human:

The human eye has all the necessary components to allow it to gather light, focus it into an image, and process it into recognizable patterns.

But, the retina faces away from the light source, and it is covered by the nerves that convey the impulse from the photoreceptors to the interpretation area of the brain and the veins and arteries that deliver the necessary nutrients to these photoreceptor cells. This is like a clown standing on home plate facing the umpire and holding the bat in front of him, hoping that the pitcher will miss him and hit the bat.

Not only that, but these nerves, veins and arteries all enter and leave the eye near the center of the retina in prime vision territory:

Close your right eye and look at the right side green spot, move in or out and you will find a point where the left side green spot disappears, but the grid is still visible - this is because your brain assumes continuity over the blind spot, but is blind to the reality.

One has to wonder at the cosmic humor of giving the species with probably the biggest ego on the planet an unavoidable blind spot.

But, you ask, is there a better eye?

Octopus:

From What animal has a more sophisticated eye ... (Click):

​

The octopus eye ... has a cornea, an iris, an accommodating lens, a fluid-filled vitreous humor, a retina, and so forth ... the photoreceptor cells in the cephalopod eye point forwards toward the incoming light ... Cephalopods have a rigid lens of fixed focal length ... change their range of focus by moving the entire lens closer or farther from the retina with the ciliary muscle ... are able to always keep their slit-shaped pupils in a horizontal position ... cephalopods also have polarized vision. The chromatophores and iridescent cells on the skin of cephalopods can create a visual pattern that coincides with polarized light. Octopuses and squid can recognise these light patterns and since the chromatophore patterns change depending on mating season, behaviour, and stress, they can effectively communicate with each other. Polarized vision also allows cephalopods to detect otherwise transparent prey such as jellyfish and ctenophores.

Note that all human designs that use lenses and means to capture the light in images or data points involve a fixed focus lens and some means of moving the lens or the receptor field to bring the objects into focus and that in all such cases the field between the lens and the receptor is kept as free from other objects is (humanly) as possible. This is evidence of good design practice refining the efforts of previous designs. Remember that camera example as used by Dembski?

The irony here is that this better design is given to a creature that lives at the bottom of the ocean, participates in psychedelic light shows, bizarre mating rituals and a complete disregard for civilized life as we know it.

Can anything be sillier?

Copepod:

This is a little critter that (shown here as a larvae) has a single eye and a single photoreceptor ... and yet it has a lens.

Why would it have a lens with only one photoreceptor (that is basically an on\off signal processor)? Because the photoreceptor is at the end of a little stalk that can move back and forth and up and down, covering the area that a more complete retina would cover with this single sensor. The stalk dances for the light.

Copepods are predators and use this dancing eye to build up a picture of their surroundings in much the same way that a laser light show can produce an image with one dancing light, or a television can produce an image with a dancing beam (of course both examples are commonly used to expand the intelligence of their viewers ... or is it just for silly entertainment?).

Bug-Eyed!

There are critters with one eye, and critters with two. Snakes have infra-red sensing patches in addition to their eyes. Some spiders have eight (one for each leg?). Some scallops have over a hundred eyes, and one has to wonder if some cosmic designer said "So ya want to see, and a hundred eyes isn't good enough for you ... how about a thousand eh?" And almost covered the entire heads of some insects with little beady eyes.

Integrate that!

Anything else unusual in the eye department?

Four-Eyed Fish?

Try the Anableps minnow, a fish about 4 inches long from South and Central America and that feeds on aerial and aquatic prey. This eye is bifurcated with one half dedicated to looking up at the aerial prey and one half looking down at the aquatic prey simultaneously.

There are two different areas of the retina and different curvature of the lens to accommodate these different views.

Looks like Ben Franklin was not the first to invent the bifocal glasses ... and speaking of glasses, why is it that most humans need optical assistance to read the words that they themselves write?

So, is it Silly or Intelligent?

Assuming that design by some outside Force or Entity is involved in the development of eyes of all the different species on earth, is this a better example of Silly Design Theory or Intelligent Design Theory?

Let's check the Silly Index:

Pegged

After all, they'll say, how could evolution start with a sightless organism and produce an eye with so many independent parts, such as a retina, which would itself be useless without a lens, or a lens, which would be useless without a retina? Isn't that a silly argument?

⁽¹⁾ Dembski has also claimed that not all things need to have been designed. This is his answer when he confronted with questions like "how does the scrotum exhibit good design" (as he was asked on the "Schmevolution Panel" Discussion on the Daily Show by Jon Stewart Sept 15, 2005), when the obvious answer is that this is a Silly Design feature: look at all the film clip on "America's Funniest Home Videos" that end up with {object} striking {scrotum}. The Cosmic Imp must be hooting eh?

Edited by RAZD, : updated sigEdited by RAZD, : pictures

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

thanks.ps - when it comes to web pictures, I look for repeated instances on the web to see if there are statements of copyright etcetera. I do try to honor most wishes in that regard, although the aborigine skull got by me the other night (late, tired, still no excuse). This has a couple of original pictures and people are free to use those that I have made here.

I felt a bit creative...

LOLI love it.Could I ask for some tweaks ... change "oddities per design" to "Silly Index" (so that it is "SI" ... and unitless), and then provide a couple of needle settings, one "pegged" just beyond 100?{ABE} OO and add a shaded red area for 80 and above? {/abe}This message has been edited by RAZD, 09*18*2005 07:59 AMThis message has been edited by RAZD, 09*18*2005 08:23 AM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

I'll give it a tryGive me some needle settings, preferrably short words. Because I'm not English... I'm not even sure what "pegged" means, lol. Something like 'product of continuous improvisation instead of a clear initial plan'?Do you like multiple needles or should I just keep the 'real' one?This message has been edited by Annafan, 18-09-2005 02:14 PMThis message has been edited by Annafan, 18-09-2005 02:15 PM

Pegged means the needle goes as far as it is able. Many meters have pegs to stop the needle at maximum points - kind of like "red-lined" except that here a red line is set for maximum desired level (engine rpm, coolant temperature) and the needle is still capable of going further.Multiples are cool as they show movement.Settings could be 50%, 80%, 100% and "pegged"{abe} you could add a peg just after the word SILLYMETER {/abe}This message has been edited by RAZD, 09*18*2005 09:34 AM

DeletedThis message has been edited by Warren, 09-18-2005 01:31 PM

Cut and paste of an entire paper by someone else is frowned on in this forum. You can post the link to it and then discuss the points.{abe}the paper is on the Access Research Network website:
http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od192/invertedretina192.htm
and "mirrored" on a couple creationist websites {/abe}You really need to learn the rules and proper procedures (like those quote boxes).This "paper" by {Michael J. Denton} is totally bogus. It seems to assume that there is a threshold of light beyond which vision does not work.The fallacy of this is several fold:(1) the iris is designed to reduce light levels as needed, so any other mechanism is not needed, and in addition there are many critters that have nictating membranes that are translucent (like a second pair of eyelids that are like built in dark glasses), so this mechanism solves the problem without the bad wiring design.(2) this just accepts that vision in low light situations is not necessary, when a turned around retina would provide that at no biological cost to the individual.(3) this doesn't answer the problem of the blind spot -- or the susceptability of the nerves arteries and viens to damage from uv, and several other diseases common to man that make bad eyesight worse.(4) it fails to address the problem that humans need glasses to read their own writing because the vision system is so poor, the focus system used by the octopus is more adaptable than the system humans have for a greater range of vision, and this is completely independent of the "high energy" problem.(5) "very high energy demands of the photoreceptor cells in the vertebrate retina" also fails to address the added layer in dogs, cats, etcetera that mirrors the light back (why animal eyes glow in the headlights), but not in humans. Certainly they have exactly the same "high energy" problems as humans in exactly the same environments, but they have systems to INCREASE the energy reaching their eyes with no additional regulatory mechanism to REDUCE it in peak periods.{(6) the arrangement of arteries and veins to feed and service the optic\photoreceptor cells would work just as well turn right-side-out, there is no need to have it inverted to make this work.}No, the cosmic joke is that the eyes of humans are those of Mr Magoo compared to other species.{edited to add comments and reference to the copied article}This message has been edited by RAZD, 09*18*2005 02:29 PM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Ok, what about this one?

Maybe something more like this?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I case you didn't notice:This is not for the Bullshit Design Institute, but for the Silly Design Institute ;-)