Evolving the Musculoskeletal System

Some of this is adaptive growth. You too can have stronger bones - just increase your exercise, particularly exercise that modestly stresses some bones, and those bones will grow stronger. That might be partly adaptive growth, too. I would guess that a child crippled at birth for some reason not related to the bones, would probably grow bones that were not as rounded. They fit together because they adaptively grow together.

Perhaps a bit overstated, but it's roughly correct. It's not an issue, and I don't know of anybody who is sweeping it under the carpet.The thing is, this is actually evidence that favors evolution, not design.Yes, I do realize that you will have great difficulty understanding this point.The thing is, when something is designed and has a large number of complexly related components that are mutually dependent on one another, the resulting designed product is quite fragile. Evolved things, by contrast, are fairly robust - they have to be or they would not survive to reproduce.

Nature does not produce incomplete systems.You are confused, because you are seeing purpose where there is none.Let me suggest a thought experiment.Go find a bright 6 year old kid, and a bunch of lego blocks. Preferably it should be the kind of 6 year old that happens to be interested in lego structures.Experiment 1:
Give that kid an outline of an elaborate house or mansion, and ask him to build a lego structure that matches the outline. The chances are that he will at least try to build something similar to the outline. But his structure will very likely be quite fragile. Oh, and when it is half built, it will be an incomplete system.Experiment 2:
Ask the same kid to build something that is both elaborate and robust. You might have to explain "robust" - I'm not sure if that's in a 6 year old vocabulary. The chances are that he will build something that is elaborate and robust. And when he is half done, it will still be elaborate and robust and won't be an incomplete system.When there is no specific goal to be met, it is far easier to build something where everything fits together quite well. When there is a specific goal, that is far harder because the robustness requirement conflicts with the goal.Evolution builds robust structures, precisely because there is no goal (other than robustness that supports survival and reproduction). And what evolution builds is never an incomplete system, precisely because there is no specific goal that it would have to meet to make it complete.

And there is the problem.You are looking at it as a design. And you cannot comprehend how it is possible as a design. And, indeed, it probably isn't possible as a design. Nature's way is very different from a designer's way, and that is what you are failing to take into account.I commented on this back at Message 86. I'm not sure whether you read that post.

I'm not sure why it is not clear to you, but what Percy is suggesting as a first "organism" is far more primitive than what Koonin is discussing. It is far more primitive than anything that we would actually consider an organism, which is why Percy used scare quotes.

That seems a bit over the top. Indeed, he has. But maybe ICdesign is an auto mechanic or a plumber or a gardener - that is, maybe he doesn't work in an area where the standards of scholarship apply, so perhaps was not fully aware of what was expected.I do hope he will do better in future posts.I occasionally read the Uncommon Descent blog (an ID blog). And I see post after post saying that evolution is obviously wrong, and some particular biological thing just had to have been intelligently designed. As far as I can tell, the people who write that obviously believe what they are saying. They clearly do not understand the theory of evolution, yet it is just as clear that they believe that they do understand it. One might think that when they are is strong disagreement with most biologists, they would begin to question whether their understanding of evolution is correct. But they don't.

From his point of view, it is we evilutionists who lie without remorse, and he sees himself as a messenger for the truth. That still seems over the top to me, and particularly so when I check the forum rules.If you want to say that he comes from a vile subculture, I could agree with that. He is presumably part of a fundamentalist cult that calls itself "Christian" yet seems to be thoroughly anti-Christian. They may know about it in the abstract, but many don't fully understand it. Indeed, it is. But most creationists don't come from an academic and scholarly background, and they belong to a cultic subgroup where "lying for Jesus" is considered well within the norms of acceptable behavior. We should be attempting to educate them on the proper standards for a scholarly forum, and name calling doesn't help with that. It's better to criticize the behavior, not the person.

Granted, though it is probably a steady drum beat in creationist circles. I am no admirer of the way that ICdesign has behaved on this forum.If creationists want to have crazy beliefs, I guess that's up to them. But when they call themselves "Christian", yet behave in ways that violate our normal understanding of what "Christian" implies, I find that very troubling.

No, you cannot. In fact you cannot even adequately define "intelligence". There's no clear consensus on what the word means.

---

Jesus was a liberal hippie

We can paraphrase that as: "Intelligence" means about the same thing as some other words that we can't define either.Dictionary "definitions" are notoriously circular.

---

Jesus was a liberal hippie