Imperfections of design

Ask yourself, if you were designing the optimum exit for a fetus, would you engineer a route that passes through the narrow confines of the pelvic bones? Add to this the tragic reality that childbirth is not only painful in our species but downright dangerous and sometimes lethal, owing to a baby's head being too large for the mother's birth canal.

—

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

—

Evolution shows us a world in which the development of life is a violent and chaotic process, full of false starts and dead ends, indifferent to suffering and all other moral concerns. Human beings appear to have evolved only because of a series of accidents, including an asteroid strike 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs.

I disagree that the above conflicts with a benevolent God. The question is, to whom is he benevolent? And how? The answer is, to creatures that are made in his image, human beings. Chaos, extinction, and death in the animal world are irrelevent. Man's immortal soul ensures that his existence does not end in suffering and death of the cruel material world, but eternal bliss.

— Adam

Doh! I should not comment until I read the whole article. Feel free to delete the above comment as superfluous.

God has to be a civil engineer. Who else would think it was a good idea to put a waste pipeline through the middle of a recreational area?

lol IAMB. Careful, The Designer is not God . . . or is it? :)

The Designer creates "imperfect humans", such as humans with birth defects (surely this is because of our sins, etc.). Why do we speak from the same tube that takes food? Points for efficiency.

Excellent designes by The Creator including but not limited to:

Dodo
Penguins - not enough oomph in the wing design. good try though
Most dinosaurs
Etc.

Excellent article. Not quite to the point of this thread, but still Khayyam was eloquent concerning the imperfections of the maker and the made.

After a momentary silence spake
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make;
"They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"

The L.A. Times had this excellent article on ID the other day. In short, if we are all the product of intelligent design, why is the result so imperfect?

Isn't this just another example of the problem of evil?

The problem of evil is: How can the obviously inferior state of the world be consistent with the existence of an omnipotent, infinitely loving God?

Any of the usual responses to this -- usually some variation on "Mere mortals can't understand, but this really is as good as it gets. It's all part of God's plan for the world." -- should work fine for creationists intelligent design advocates who want to try to defend their ideas. It doesn't work as a *scientific* explanation, of course, but ID isn't really a scientific theory anyway...

Alex is correct.

And over at Telic Thoughts, they're already on the issue, explaining that it is, indeed, just another manifestation of the problem of evil. (Go see: http://telicthoughts.com/?p=154 Clearly we'd understand that were we not so biased against faith in learning, "Mike Gene" argues.

Oh, and don't you dare confuse Telic Thoughts with an ID advocacy site, and don't think for a moment that they argue ID is a religious view! Don't mind the ID advocates behind the curtain . . .

So it's logically possible to have scientific evidence that there is no intelligent designer, but not logically possible to have scientific evidence that there is one?

Ahh, the Intelligent Design advocates' conundrum.

The half of the Intelligent Design movement that wishes to distance itself from religion cannot publicly invoke "evil" as an excuse for the failure to detect intelligent design. The half of ID that is rabidly creationist invokes "evil" as the excuse for chaos and imperfection. Hilariously, in doing so, they concede the impossibility of truly detecting supernatural design, and thus invalidate the ID movement's claimed impending breakthroughs. Both sides of the same movement trump each other.

Lately there has been so much splintering amongst the ID/Creation camp that I'm left wondering when W. Dembski and the like will crack under the pressure and realize what a waste they've made of their careers.

It's almost sad.

Arguments about the goodness or badness of the design of the universe are sham battles fought with wooden weapons. It isn't that arguments from imperfection make much sense--no arguments involving good or bad have anything much to do with non-human or non-organic nature-but simply that if religionists are going to argue for the existence of God on the basis of what works in the universe, it is at least as legitimate to argue against the existence of God from the many more things that don't work.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: This is a bad argument for opponents of ID to use.

It should only be used on creationists who insist that God's design is perfect. ID-ots generally do not say that. Granted, they try and say as little as possible about the identity and motives of the Designer(s), but the point remains - there is no a priori reason why a design has to be perfect or a designer infallible. Look at human design for goodness sake - the Ford Edsel, anyone? don't try and second guess the designer, people.

Just finished reading Mike Gene's and Bipod's specific responses to Barash.

Bottom line:
Mr. Barash's article, in and of itself, is refuted.

Next article please!

FL

I deny it, I deny it, I deny it. It is now refuted. Next!

You can only say design is bad design if you have knowledge of what the designer was aiming for.

If "the designer" wanted the level of backproblems we see, it did a bangup job.

As a follow up to my previous commnent, when the issue becomes "God" being the designer and his benevolence, what you've got is an argument from evil.

The design in nature is actual. More often than we would like, that design has gotten perverted. But the perversion of design--dysteleology--is not explained by denying design, but by accepting it and meeting the problem of evil head on. The problem of evil is a theological problem. To force a resolution of the problem by reducing all design to apparent design is an evasion. It avoids both the scientific challenge posed by specified complexity, and it avoids the hard work of faith, whose job is to discern God's hand in creation despite the occlusions of evil. ---Wm. Dembski http://www.designinference.com/documents/2000.02.ayala_response.htm

Yes, imperfection is a bad argument against ID because ID does not claim perfection, they only claim an inferred designer. But what is amusing is that this is one reason they really tick off the creationists.

However, it appears to me that Rational Science is second-guessing the Creationists' omniscient omnibenevolent God whose works they claim are evident in their perfection.

Where ID gets dragged into it is that they simultaneously speak for those creationists under the radar while distancing themselves from them in public.

if religionists are going to argue for the existence of God on the basis of what works in the universe, it is at least as legitimate to argue against the existence of God from the many more things that don't work

My question was explicitly about logical possibility, so, at least as far as that question goes, the fact that you think you can count more things in our universe that are broken than things that aren't doesn't seem relevant. Is the existence/nonexistence of an intelligent designer a question that science can address or isn't it?

Lately there has been so much splintering amongst the ID/Creation camp that I'm left wondering when W. Dembski and the like will crack under the pressure and realize what a waste they've made of their careers.

If Gould could survive being told by other prominent evolutionists that his ideas are so confused as to be barely worth bothering with, I'm guessing that Dembski will survive whatever differences there are within the ID community.

Regarding imperfect design, Robert DiSilvestro, OSU Professor of Entymology (and also part of the OSU PhD Dissertation scandal) stated that it is the result of sin.

Take, for example, the "design" of the dandelion. Dandelion's reproduce asexually. Still, they put forth an extremely showy but useless flower at a great energy expense to the organism. This inefficient "design", according to Dr. DiSilvestro, is the result of sin - dandelion sin (for surely God would not punish a dandelion for human errors). So, if dandelions can sin, they must have consciousness and, dare I conjecture it, dandelion souls.

I wonder how far Dr. DiSilvestro goes into the theological implications of poor design in his introductory classes.

The design in nature is actual.

More often than we would like, that design has gotten perverted

DiSilvestro is a nutritional biochemist. Needham, another outspoken creationis on the questionable dissertation committe, is an entomologist. Tom: could you provide links to the remarks you ascribe to DiSilvestro?

So, if dandelions can sin, they must have consciousness and, dare I conjecture it, dandelion souls.

—

'Mike Gene' babbles about perfection. I was not aware of people demanding that the design be perfect. However, it might be nice if the design weren't so crap (in places) as to be downright painful.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: This is a bad argument for opponents of ID to use. It should only be used on creationists who insist that God's design is perfect. ID-ots generally do not say that. Granted, they try and say as little as possible about the identity and motives of the Designer(s), but the point remains - there is no a priori reason why a design has to be perfect or a designer infallible. Look at human design for goodness sake - the Ford Edsel, anyone? don't try and second guess the designer, people.

Even Dembski has admitted that CSI can be generated naturally. He just calls it 'apparent' CSI. Just like Behe eventually admitted that IC things could evolve. It's up to FL and Slavador and company to understand that these concepts failed. The ID 'theorists' just aren't going to come out and say that verbatim. Their consulting fees would dry up. The smart ones might switch to the newer cosmological ID when nobody buys the biological kind anymore.

Just finished reading Mike Gene's and Bipod's specific responses to Barash. Bottom line:  Mr. Barash's article, in and of itself, is refuted. Next article please!

— FL

The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.

'Mike Gene' babbles about perfection.  I was not aware of people demanding that the design be perfect.  However, it might be nice if the design weren't so crap (in places) as to be downright painful.

— SteveF

My question was explicitly about logical possibility, so, at least as far as that question goes, the fact that you think you can count more things in our universe that are broken than things that aren't doesn't seem relevant. Is the existence/nonexistence of an intelligent designer a question that science can address or isn't it?

If Gould could survive being told by other prominent evolutionists that his ideas are so confused as to be barely worth bothering with, I'm guessing that Dembski will survive whatever differences there are within the ID community.

Somehow, I doubt that Maynard Smith killed Gould, though.

Re "Is the existence/nonexistence of an intelligent designer a question that science can address or isn't it?"

The question isn't whether science can address the question, the question is whether there is a consistent, verifiable pattern in nature that is likely if life was deliberately engineered but unlikely if it evolved without D.E.

Henry

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but Gould is dead.

Perhaps you haven't noticed that he lived for 8 years after the criticism in question was made, and that criticism has not been shown to cause lung cancer.

A new variation, perhaps even a new species or genus, of creationism has just been revealed detected.

Which school board will be the first to allow their students to gain science credits by the study of Perverted Design?

I predict that PD will garner a very high sign-up rate, at least until parental consent is required!

Barash stated the self-evident (life is not only far from well-designed, but its flaws are exactly what the evolutionary process of incremental trial and error would be expected to produce), and your (and my) refutations were fully complete. That's all Dembski has done as well. (Emphasis added)

Perhaps you haven't noticed that I was toying with you, attacking the *literal* content of what you wrote. To spell it out: the situation with Gould was nothing like the split in ID that was referred to. Even if he was totally wrong about adaptationism, Gould's career was clearly not a waste.

The whole premise being put forth by Gene is wrong to begin with. He assumes that we detect bad design by comparing it to some absolute standard of perfection. But we need not do that at all; we can tell if something is badly designed simply by comparing it to other designs that carry out the same function. For example, the vertebrate eye can be compared to the cephlapod eye -- there's no need to envision some sort of "perfect eye" in order to detect possible design flaws.

Some evolutionists claim that the verted retinae of cephalopods, such as squids and octopuses, are more efficient than the inverted retinae found in vertebrates.[46] But this presupposes that the inverted retina is inefficient in the first place. As shown above, evolutionists have failed to demonstrate that the inverted retina is a bad design, and that it functions poorly; they ignore the many good reasons for it. Also, they have never shown that cephalopods actually see better. On the contrary, their eyes merely 'approach some of the lower vertebrate eyes in efficiency'[47] and they are probably colour blind.[48] Moreover, the cephalopod retina, besides being 'verted', is actually much simpler than the 'inverted' retina of vertebrates; as Budelmann states, 'The structure of the [cephalopod] retina is much simpler than in the vertebrate eye, with only two neural components, the receptor cells and efferent fibres'.[49] It is an undulating structure with 'long cylindrical photoreceptor cells with rhabdomeres consisting of microvilli',[50] so that the cephalopod eye has been described as a 'compound eye with a single lens'.[51] The rhabdomeres act as light guides, and their microvilli are arranged such that the animal can detect the direction of polarized light -- this foils camouflage based on reflection. Finally, in their natural environment cephalopods are exposed to a much lower light intensity than are most vertebrates and they generally live only two or three years at the most. Nothing is known about the lifespan of the giant squid; in any case it is believed to frequent great depths at which there is little light.[52] Thus for cephalopods there is less need for protection against photic damage. Being differently designed for a different environment, the cephalopod eye can function well with a 'verted' retina.[53] http://www.trueorigins.org/retina.asp (footnote refs can be found in the article)

Barash is yet another ID critic who hears "God" when ID is mentioned. As a result, he takes the intellectually lazy way out and looks for "imperfections." I suppose the argument is supposed to work like this: ID = God; God = Perfection; the human body is not perfect; thus God did not create the human body; thus ID is false. One of the advantages to hearing 'God' when ID is mentioned is that you never really have to address ID. Nevertheless, there is another fundamental problem with this whole line of argumentation.

The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

I believe that an orderly universe, one indifferent to human preoccupations, in which everything has an explanation even if we still have a long way to go before we find it, is a more beautiful, more wonderful place than a universe tricked out with capricious ad hoc magic.

Perhaps you haven't noticed that I was toying with you, attacking the *literal* content of what you wrote.

Perahps you haven't noticed that it is *literally* correct to say that Gould survived Smith's criticism. Perhaps you haven't noticed that "P survived E" does not entail that P became an immortal.

I suppose the argument is supposed to work like this: ID = God; God = Perfection; the human body is not perfect; thus God did not create the human body; thus ID is false.

Perahps you haven't noticed that it is *literally* correct to say that Gould survived Smith's criticism. Perhaps you haven't noticed that "P survived E" does not entail that P became an immortal.

Lately there has been so much splintering amongst the ID/Creation camp that I'm left wondering when W. Dembski and the like will crack under the pressure and realize what a waste they've made of their careers.

And of course, as I tried to point out, *survival* wasn't mentioned in statement that your bogus analogy was a response to

You did? What was the number of the comment in which you tried to point out that "survival" (as opposed to, I suppose, not cracking under the pressure) wasn't in the original statement?

The same can't be said of Dumbshi.

Where did Berlinski ever get the idea that PT'ers play children's games with Dembski's name?

you couldn't make any headway on the "logical possibility" stuff

Well, yes, I did make no headway in the sense that I'm still puzzling over what you could have meant when you wrote that "it is not logically possible to have evidence of intelligent design that is at the same time evidence against evolution".

There are no real explanations in traditional religions. The explanation is just another part of the faith. When a child at Passover asks "Why is this night different than all the others?" the question and the carefully scripted answer are part of a ritual, not of a process of genuine inquiry.

Religions are full of notions that are highly meaningful to the insiders, but pee-in-your-pants stupid to any non-believer asked to take them seriously. Creation by divine fiat is not even the worst of it. Is there any idea more perfectly absurd than the notion that the manager of the Universe needs to arrange his own unjust execution so that he can persuade himself to forgive the failings of his own creations? Wagner operas have more plausible plots, which, by the way, does not imply that people can't be into Christianity or the Ring. But why pretend that such things make any sense as accounts of what goes on in the real world?

You did? What was the number of the comment in which you tried to point out that "survival" (as opposed to, I suppose, not cracking under the pressure) wasn't in the original statement?

Where did Berlinski ever get the idea that PT'ers play children's games with Dembski's name?

Well, yes, I did make no headway in the sense that I'm still puzzling over what you could have meant when you wrote that "it is not logically possible to have evidence of intelligent design that is at the same time evidence against evolution".

The presence or absence of color perception has nothing to do with the issue of verted vs. inverted.

#37660: "To spell it out: the situation with Gould was nothing like the split in ID that was referred to. Even if he was totally wrong about adaptationism, Gould's career was clearly not a waste."

This says nothing about the absence of the word "survival" in #37611, nor does it make a distinction between surviving and failing to crack under the pressure.

When you figure it out, let me know.

Don't hold your breath. Your argument is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

First I should note that the original article had about nil to do with ID's scientific claims. It is the IDers who are clear about engaging in natural theology and philosophy vs. engaging in science. They maintain the distinction between a scientific claim and a philosohical claim. And their scientific claim is rather minimal: That intelligent design can be detected, even if is actually an artifact of aliens, humans, the Mind of God or some monkeys that scientists injected human brain cells in. But in the article and here on "The Panda's Thumb" natural theology and philosophy are blurred right into "science," a hallmark of scientism. The very name of the blog is based on the notion that people can engage in natural theology and claim answers they base on doing so are "scientific" answers.

On the last comment and Dawkins:
Dawkin's arguments seem to be, "Nature is red in tooth and claw, red I tell you!"

"Huh, this means that there is nothing in Nature but pitiless indifference. I uh...am not indifferent to these things because I don't exist in Nature. I am a sensitive little fellow about suffering. Wait a minute, yes I do exist in Nature...and this is just what mommy Nature selected for me to say! I can't get out of Nature, how could I...why that'd be capricious ad hoc magic or somthing'.

No, I am in Nature and would you just look at the orderly, beautiful and wonderful place mommy Nature is. So I want my mommy Nature to be my smothering mother even if she is red in tooth and claw."

It's a bit of a love hate relationship for effeminates. He seems to be one mixed up little fellow. Perhaps it is his selfish genes? Selfish genes? How are genes selfish, are they not always themselves so who shall blame them for being selfish? Do they even have a Self that understands self-evident truths evident in the Self which can then pervert the truth to make some stupid and ignorant argument about selfishness or evil?

There is no justice? I wonder if Dawkins ever thinks about how Socrates could educate his students sans vast amounts of State funding. Did he, perhaps, use an opposition between metaphysical knowledge like justice and knowledge about what happens in the physical world? Why were his students apparently so interested? Why do Darwinists and assorted Leftist half-wits seem to need more and more State funding to educate their apathetic students when he needed none to educate his?

Perhaps these days the usual half-wits would blame Socrates for speaking about justice and kick him out of schools based on separation of "religion" and State. After all, to effete pansies anything transcendent is "religion," which is why they can't see the difference between ID and "religion."

Dawkins,
"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation."

Or so says his own "selfish" genes. Who is he but a descendent of Ape-man, that he should judge?

There are no real explanations in traditional religions.

— Jim Harrison

Now as for me, I'm no opthalmologist like Dr. Gurney, but even as a layperson, I rather like not being color-blind.

— FL

Evolutionists have seen "odd arrangements and funny solutions" in nature and they insist these are paths a sensible designer would never tread. They are mistaken. Not only is it sensible, but message theory absolutely requires it, though at first it will seem paradoxical. We expect a designer of life to create perfect designs. Yet this expectation itself constrains a biomessage sender to do the unexpected. A world full of perfect optimal designs would form an ambiguous message. In fact, it would not look like a message at all. It would provide no clues of an intentional message. It would look precisely as expected from a designer having no such intentions. Life's designer created life to look like a message, and therefore had to accept an astonishing design constraint: life must incorporate odd designs. How can I be so utterly sure on this point? Because evolutionists have (unknowingly) said so. In fact, they insist on it. Every one of them -- from Darwin, to Ghiselin, to Gould -- has emphasized how unreasonable it is for a designer to have created such non-optimal, odd structures. We can rightfully conclude that if evolutionists had the wherewithal to create life, then they would independently go forth and create optimal perfect designs. We can conclude that a world of perfect designs would look precisely like the work of multiple designers acting independently. The biomessage sender created life to look unlike the product of multiple designers, and therefore had to use odd designs. It is not enough for a biomessage sender to merely include odd designs. All the designs together must form a pattern attributable only to a single designer. Life on earth has such a pattern. Suppose we examined many separate handwritten documents. How would we recognize they all had the same author? Answer: By the overall pattern, especially the funny quirks and odd imperfections. It is the same with living organisms. The quirks and imperfections play a key role in the pattern. They unite all organisms into a unified whole, while looking unlike the product of multiple designers. They give life the distinctive look of a single designer. They also make the pattern look like an intentional message, rather than an ordinary design effort.

#37660: "To spell it out: the situation with Gould was nothing like the split in ID that was referred to. Even if he was totally wrong about adaptationism, Gould's career was clearly not a waste." This says nothing about the absence of the word "survival" in #37611, nor does it make a distinction between surviving and failing to crack under the pressure.

When you figure it out, let me know. Don't hold your breath. Your argument is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Now as I took pains to mention earlier, you can try to claim that apparently bad designs aren't really bad, and that they only appear that way, all you want. But that pretty much pulls the rug out from under the basic ID argument that mere appearance is sufficient to warrant a design inference.

At one time it was thought that the eye evolved separately in different life-forms. Today, as Stephen Jay Gould has said, there is no longer any separate story of evolutionary origins for the eye because an underlying master-control gene, common to all phyla, positioned the fundamental structure of the eye on one and the same genetic pathway. Fully functional eyes appear right at the beginning of the Cambrian explosion. The Pax-6 gene governs the development of this delicate and intricately organized organ in the most varied species. A single genetic blueprint was pre-programmed into the very stuff of being.

To truly appreciate our good fortune, [in being able to see quite far] at least once everyone should stand on a mountaintop under the open sky, on a clear, moonless night. The air is so clear, and the stars so vivid, that only your lungs will remind your eyes that you're on a planet with an atmosphere. Consider the atmosphere's transparency, which is actually just part of the story. Our atmosphere participates in one of the most extraordinary coincidences known to science: an eerie harmony among the range of wavelengths of light emitted by the Sun, transmitted by Earth's atmosphere, converted by plants into chemical energy, and detected by the human eye. The human eye perceives light of different wavelengths as different colors, ranging from violet blue (the shortest wavelengths in the visible spectrum) to red (the longest). Looking at a diagram of the electromagnetic spectrum, we see the visible light emerging gracefully from the ultraviolet, differentiating into the familiar colors of the rainbow, and disappearing seamlessly into the warm, invisible infrared. The visible wavelengths rise and fall at the nano-scale, the distances from their peaks measured in ten-billionths of a meter, called Angstroms (A). We see blue at approximately 4,800 A, green at 5,200 A, yellow at 5,800 A, and red at 6,600 A. Earth's atmosphere is transparent to radiation between 3,100 to 9,500 A and to the much longer radio wavelengths. The radiation we see is near the middle of that range, between 4,000 and 7,000 A, the range in which the Sun emits 40 percent of its energy. Its spectrum peaks smack in the middle of this visible spectrum, at 5,500 A. This is but a tiny sample of the entire range. [....] As it happens, our atmosphere strikes a nearly perfect balance, transmitting most of the radiation that is useful for life while blocking most ofthe lethal energy.

As opposed to the completely satisfactory explanations of metaphysical naturalism. Why are we here? Because we're here; roll the bones.

Why does it happen? Because it happens; roll the bones.

The distinction, as I *have* repeated, is that Gould's career was not in fact a waste.

Your text appears to be an artifact of a mind as if it is coded for some meaning or function.  But actually, according to you it seems to have been selected by Nature somehow in your brain events and so on.  I suppose we'd best stick with the naturalistic interpretation of it because that would be downright scientific!  As the average writer on the Panda's Thumb knows the term scientific means true or just about true.  So, I wonder what random brain events have been selected by Nature in your head?  Or is it all "random"?  We cannot recognize an artifact of intelligence, correct?

— mynym

I'm here because there was this sperm and this ovum and...

Entrance of the sperm stimulates calcium ion channels in the egg's wall to open. This immediately closes the egg's membrane to all other invaders. One is company. Two's a crowd, genetically speaking. The closure is first induced by a change in the electrical charge across the membrane, and then by a release of a chemical hardener that cross-links the gelatinous outer membrane coating. The sperm is now within the egg, but it is kept at bay. The egg still has a full set of chromosomes, twenty-three pairs. Half must be discarded. At this stage the egg undergoes meiotic division, division without chromosome replication. Though the egg's chromosomes are divided equally between the two new cells, as before, almost all the cytoplasm is concentrated in one daughter cell, that which contains the sperm's nucleus. This done, the sperm and egg each duplicate their respective twenty-three chromatids, motor proteins move the two nuclei together, the nuclear membranes open, and the chromatids mingle, each finding and pairing with its corresponding partner. Spindle fibers and motor proteins then pull one member of each pair to opposite poles, two nuclear membranes form, and mitotic cellular division occurs. Another bio-ballet, a coordinated dance of molecules within the body, has passed. A few days and several further mitotic divisions will go by before this new bit of life reaches the uterus. At this point, one has to bend over backward to accept that all of these necessary and interwoven steps have evolved randomly. There are only two forms of reproduction, mitosis and meiosis. There are no intermediate forms visible in nature. Yet somehow, according to evolutionists, a batch of lucky mutations allowed meiosis to blossom on the tree of life. In human reproduction, meiosis gives way to mitosis, but with an amazing twist to the mitotic principle of daughter cells being replicas of the parent. As the cells divide, some of the daughters discover or interpret how and where to become the cells of a heart, and some a nose or toe. How this miracle of structuring occurs remains a speculative mystery. The knowledgeable differentiation among the newly forming cells appears in principle to be orchestrated by concentration gradients of specific molecules within the cluster of cells, but the wonder of it remains. Who or what supplied the scheme? Wisdom is encoded in the very stuff on which it must act, the blueprint and the builder all in one.

Of course not, he helped Darwinists actually look at empirical evidence such as the fossil record as if it might falsify Darwinian principles instead of relying soley on how Darwinian theory is just like gravity or just like the earth being round, or just like this, or just like that.

This seems to have been directed at me, but I simply cannot see how this nonsensical rambling is in any way connected with what I've written.

You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution. It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).

— Richard Dawkins

That anti-ID article is a good example of anti-ID opportunism. Even if the argument did hold any weight perhaps the design was done well, and evolution brought about defects. After all the negative traits mentioned are not enough to stop reproduction.

The word is "solely", troll.

Not really.

Richard Dawkins wrote: You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution.

The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution.

It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).

mynym: You have a hard time making some connections, I suppose.

mynym,

"So you're going to let those who you oppose philosophically and supposedly scientifically deal in empirical evidence and give an answer such as that, leaving it all there. That's fine with me. My goal is generally to strengthen those who already believe in agency and not to get those stuck in Plato's cave, those little fellows who want to stay in the womb of Mother Nature, out."

What on earth are you talking about???

He's saying he wants to help his "team" win rather than engage in honest debate.

Next article please! FL

This inefficient "design", according to Dr. DiSilvestro, is the result of sin - dandelion sin (for surely God would not punish a dandelion for human errors).

Instead of the education typical to philosophers and real scientists they work towards indoctrination. Given their typical basic philosophy of life, that is not surprising.

You have a hard time making some connections, I suppose. You cannot recognize intelligent design or an artifact of intelligence, just you argue against it. Apparently you just can't make the connection. Maybe its the god-of-the-gaps in the way of your synaptic gaps? Or maybe your mommy Nature is responsible for your selections? Why should anyone connect any sort of transcendent meaning to what you have written?

Goodness, reduced to quoting an article from a YEC website?

As Ian Musgrave pointed out here these creationist claims about the supposed need for an inverted retina in vertebrates are just plain wrong.

Abstract: It has been commonly claimed that the vertebrate eye is functionally suboptimal, because photoreceptors in the retina are oriented away from incoming light. However, there are excellent functional reasons for vertebrate photoreceptors to be oriented as they are. Photoreceptor structure and function is maintained by a critical tissue, the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), which recycles photopigments, removes spent outer segments of the photoreceptors, provides an opaque layer to absorb excess light, and performs additional functions. These aspects of the structure and function of the vertebrate eye have been ignored in evolutionary arguments about suboptimality, yet they are essential for understanding how the eye works.

from http://www.justabovesunset.com/id755.html - "But if Intelligent Design shows a creator, what about what was created? Cancer. Milwaukee. One wonders about the intelligence."

Let's go to a non-YEC website (if that will be of help)

Oops, hope we're not ignoring Dr. Gurney's ophthalmology credentials

And this is on top of what Mike Gene and Wm. Dembski wrote (quoted above) about the Barash article. I don't want those points to be forgotten while we're going back and forth about the vertebrate retina.

I buried bipods arguments over at telic thoughts anyway. The very fact there is imperfect design from a 'design' point of view clearly points to a natural alien intelligence as a designer. Essentially ID is a brilliant tool for establishing there isn't a God and we were made by aliens just as the Raelians claim.

All hail Rael!

Lenny ( I love your posts)
speaking of eyes, have you seen this:

http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/articles_2005_Avida.html

what good is half am eye (#1)...

Its on its way to beating specified complexity...

Liver flukes? With the surplus of such parasites (many of which are not species specific, including the sheep liver fluke), what makes anyone think it would be difficult to find an evolutionary path? It's not as if the sheep liver fluke burst on the world in exactly the form it's in. Consider just three closely related parasites in that family: Fasciola hepatica (the sheep liver fluke), Fascioloides magna, and Fasciolopsis buski. Had I not labeled it, ID advocates wouldn't be able to tell which is the sheep liver fluke, and which is just a big parasiate of ruminants in general. They all look alike, and their life cycles are extremely similar.

How difficult is it for a fluke of one type to jump species and find a niche to become a fluke of another type? What's so difficult to envision about that?

Here, go see how big the world of parasites really is:
http://www.biosci.ohio-state.edu/~parasite/taxonomic_platyhelminthes.html

The ineradicable tendency of human beings to believe in all sorts of obvious nonsense is itself instance of bad engineering. The prevelence of religion is a pretty good argument against intelligent design.

The ineradicable tendency of human beings to believe in all sorts of obvious nonsense is itself instance of bad engineering.

The prevelence of religion is a pretty good argument against intelligent design.

what makes anyone think it would be difficult to find an evolutionary path

Nonetheless, the claim that biological design is suboptimal has been tremendously successful at shutting down discussion about design. Interestingly, that success comes not from analyzing a given biological structure and showing how a constrained optimization for constructing that structure might have been improved. This would constitute a legitimate scientific inquiry so long as the proposed improvements can be concretely implemented and do not degenerate into wish-fulfillment where one imagines some improvement, but has no idea how it can be effected or whether it might lead to deficits elsewhere. Just because we can always imagine some improvement in design doesn't mean that the structure in question wasn't designed, or that the improvement can be effected, or that the improvement, even if it could be effected, would not entail deficits elsewhere. The success of the suboptimality objection comes not from science at all, but from shifting the terms of the discussion from science to theology. [emphasis mine] In place of How specifically can an existing structure be improved? the question instead becomes What sort of God would create a structure like that? Darwin, for instance, thought there was just "too much misery in the world" to accept design: "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."[3] Other examples he pointed to included "ants making slaves" and "the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brother."[4] The problem of suboptimal design is thus transformed into the problem of evil.

I think the point is that regardless of any beneficial functions attributable to heuristic reasoning and religiousity, both are associated with costs that are difficult to reconcile with the idea that human cognitive systems are perfectly designed for what they do by some intelligence. Unless there is some computational barrier, a better designer might have built a brain that solves the same kinds of problems, but is less susceptible to gullibility.

You attempted to paint ID as religious by using quotes from Dr. Dembski when he was saying how opponents of ID are the ones engaged in theology (and poor theology at that).

Since nature is full of dangerous animals that are liable to eat you, it makes sense to be on the look out even if the tendency to see enemies everywhere has drawbacks--think of the birds that refrain from eating perfectly edible moths because the spots on their wings remind them of the eyes of predators. I think the human tendency to find purposes and therefore agents lurking everywhere lies behind the intuitive appeal of the argument from design as well as cruder forms of superstition, e.g., the Virgin Mary in the potato chip bit. On this view, it's not so much that religiosity is adaptive in itself but that it is a regular consequence of something adaptive, namely the programatic paranoia of the vulnerable animal. In order to make a beast appropriately afraid of real threats, evolution produced one afraid of imaginary threats as well.

I think the point is that regardless of any beneficial functions attributable to heuristic reasoning and religiousity, both are associated with costs that are difficult to reconcile with the idea that human cognitive systems are perfectly designed for what they do by some intelligence.

Unless there is some computational barrier, a better designer might have built a brain that solves the same kinds of problems, but is less susceptible to gullibility.

On this view, it's not so much that religiosity is adaptive in itself but that it is a regular consequence of something adaptive, namely the programatic paranoia of the vulnerable animal. In order to make a beast appropriately afraid of real threats, evolution produced one afraid of imaginary threats as well.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again: This is a bad argument for opponents of ID to use.

— Andy Groves

Lenny ( I love your posts) speaking of eyes, have you seen this: http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/articles_2005_Avida.... what good is half am eye (#1)... Its on its way to beating specified complexity...

That too isn't clear at all -- just look at how good societies with strong religions are at slaughtering their competitors.

"Thank you! The "argument from bad design" plays right into IDers' hands."

I disagree. I think the discomfort the idea of 'bad design' occasions ID/C advocates is evidenced by the numbers who have shown up on this thread.

At least two things happen when bad design is demonstrated. First, the difference in the explanatory power of ID/C and the evolutionary perspective is contrasted. After all, those traits that are examples of poor design are easily explained by reference to evolutionary theory. Second, instances of bad design drive a wedge between ID/C advocates, who might simply say design need not be perfect, and their fundamentalist Christian supporters who believe fervently that the Designer is their omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God.

FL, you quote miner. You attempted to paint ID as religious by using quotes from Dr. Dembski when he was saying how opponents of ID are the ones engaged in theology (and poor theology at that).

FL, why do you not answer Lenny's questions?

Mynym, do you really think that Remine quote makes any sense?

FL, Mynym, Qualiatative, can any of you actually come up with an example of this "empirical evidence" for ID that I keep hearing about, and can you explain how it is evidence for ID?

You know, I wish every one of the ID-er's grassroots supporters could see this website. Not because I believe they'd find the information especially convincing, but because if they could get a look at the bickering that goes on here - between ts and Nat Whilk in this case - they'd never believe for a second that "Evolutionists" could maintain any kind of conspiracy, and one of the ID-er's main rhetorical weapons would be gone.

Of course, the ID-er's would then try to use it to support their "evolution is a dying theory" strategy - they're nothing if not adaptable (despite their problems with evolution, they're pretty good at it themselves). But with any luck, if the aformentioned grassroots supporters see that a bunch of high-tempered, "no-*I'm*-the-one-who's-right-and-here's-my-evidence" hairsplitters actually *agree* on evolution, they might come away wondering if there's not something to it.

Teleological arguments must demonstrate that the present designs are sufficient for some future state. Unfortunately, when such arguments are applied to historical events, teleologists have the easier, less intellectually challenging, argument to make. A series of past, contingent events are easy to justify as sufficient teleological steps from an a priori stance. So, there is no point, in my opinion, in challenging teleologists on the historical level. They can always assert that a past state X, however suboptimal, is sufficient for a later state Y, whenever historical evidence shows that state X precedes state Y. They can deny, then, any role of accidents or chance.

Consider the pseudo-teleology now being adopted by IDists, and first described by Polyani, "It is true that the teleology rejected in our day is understood as an overriding cosmic purpose necessitating all the structures and occurrences in the universe in order to accomplish itself. This form of teleology is indeed a form of determinism -- perhaps even a tighter form of determinism than is provided for by a materialistic, mechanistic atomism. However, since at least the time of Charles Saunders Peirce and William James a looser view of teleology has been offered to us -- one that would make it possible for us to suppose that some sort of intelligible directional tendencies may be operative in the world without our having to suppose that they determine all things."

The place to challenge teleogists is in their inability to apply teleological explanations to the prediction of new states. The "looser", pseudo-teleology of IDists is ad-hoc. Ad-hoc explanations are easy to test by noting their inability to generalize to new scenarios. This, then, is my view of the role of sub-optimal arguments: A suboptimal feature is explained ad-hoc by pseudo-teleologists as a state sufficient to generate a later, complex (and by implication, more optimal) state. Yet, when you look at other states with similar suboptimal features, they clearly do not generate the same complex states. In other words, the ad-hoc explanation does not generalize, and therefore makes a poor explanation. This is not to say that it is impossible for a pseudo-teleologist to spin this discrepancy. We've seen how this is done. In particular, pseudo-teleologists equivocate on the nature of the later complex states that is supposedly determined (or "persuaded") by the previously suboptimal state. "More complex" as we have all discovered can mean just about anything in the hands of pseudo-teleologists.

So the bottom line is that pseudo-teleogists may explore this mushy form of thinking for themselves, but they are simply less persuasive than current methodological approaches. In fact, I think it is easier to reject applications of pseudo-teleological thinking to evolutionary theory. I do not see the utility of pseudo-teleological arguments that features of present state X are sufficient for the development some future state Y. This should be obvious: if a species X is an ancestor of species Y, there is nothing in evolution that demands species X produce species Y.

As I thought I explained, "what they do" is propagate the species (or, more properly, the genes that build them).

You're hung up on a rather egocentric and anti-evolutionary view of the purpose of human intelligence.

The so-called "costs" are only relative to your (and my) personal desires, not anything having to do with evolution.

you haven't identified these costs or explained why they are hard to reconcile with species propagation.

Having spent a great deal of time following the attempt to develop Artificial Intelligence, I can tell you that there are no grounds for your claim.

That is, there is no known design that can even begin to approach the achievements of human intelligence, even disregarding the previous point that the "purpose" of human intelligence is to propagate the species, and pretending that the purpose is to solve problems, do science, explore the universe, develop a humane and sophisticated society, etc.

if human cognition was designed by an intelligent agent, it is hardly surprising that the design includes susceptibility to religion. This is a common theme of both religion (that we are made to glorify God) and science fiction.

But for those who think it's a good argument, I offer this: If the human brain had been intelligently designed, the average IQ would be a lot higher than 100.

At least two things happen when bad design is demonstrated. First, the difference in the explanatory power of ID/C and the evolutionary perspective is contrasted. After all, those traits that are examples of poor design are easily explained by reference to evolutionary theory. Second, instances of bad design drive a wedge between ID/C advocates, who might simply say design need not be perfect, and their fundamentalist Christian supporters who believe fervently that the Designer is their omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God.

Of course not, he helped Darwinists actually look at empirical evidence such as the fossil record as if it might falsify Darwinian principles instead of relying soley on how Darwinian theory is just like gravity or just like the earth being round, or just like this, or just like that. I.e., "just like" a form of knowledge that is so well established by empirical evidence that any anomalies ought to be fit to the theory for now. These "just like" associative arguments that Darwinists are so fond of seem to reveal that they actually can't track and predict the destination of an adaptation "just like" the trajectory of a physical object can be traced given gravity and physics. What is the mathematical language that represents natural selection and makes predictions that can be falsified or verified as sure as gravity? Aren't Darwinian principles as sure as gravity and as verifiable as tracing the trajectory of an object before it is set in motion? Do Darwinists think that physicists sit around after an object comes to rest and then write a little story about how Nature selected it to be there by its natural selections? Is Darwinism on the same epistemic level as theories that make predictions and have been repeatedly tested and encoded in the precise language of mathematics or not? What equation represents natural selection, what adaptation has it predicted and how has it been verified by empirical evidence?

— mynym

At least two things happen when bad design is demonstrated. First, the difference in the explanatory power of ID/C and the evolutionary perspective is contrasted. After all, those traits that are examples of poor design are easily explained by reference to evolutionary theory. Second, instances of bad design drive a wedge between ID/C advocates, who might simply say design need not be perfect, and their fundamentalist Christian supporters who believe fervently that the Designer is their omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God.

Are they?  Perhaps it is Musgrave and you guys who are wrong instead.  Let's go to a non-YEC website (if that will be of help) and read what George Ayoub has to say about things:

— FL

And this is on top of what Mike Gene and Wm. Dembski wrote (quoted above) about the Barash article.  I don't want those points to be forgotten while we're going back and forth about the vertebrate retina.

At least two things happen when bad design is demonstrated. First, the difference in the explanatory power of ID/C and the evolutionary perspective is contrasted. After all, those traits that are examples of poor design are easily explained by reference to evolutionary theory. Second, instances of bad design drive a wedge between ID/C advocates, who might simply say design need not be perfect, and their fundamentalist Christian supporters who believe fervently that the Designer is their omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God.

— GT(N)T

Uhh, Qualitative, I appreciate your "more contextual quote", but I thought my quotation of Dr. Dembski expressed the same point that you seek to call attention to with your larger quote. Neither quote is about "painting ID as religious". Both quotes point out what you point out above. We are not in disagreement here, as far as I can tell; nor am I quote mining.

I typically operate under the assumption that everyone here disagrees with me.

I've heard this argument a million times and it has never bothered me. The argument that "I could have done it better" is laughable given the fact that no human being has ever successfully designed anything remotely as complex as a living organism.

Also, where did anyone say that the designer had to design for efficiency or for beauty or for ease of function? Perhaps these issues do not concern the designer.

That article commits the classic "psychoanalyzing the designer" fallacy.

To evaluate whether a designer did a good job designing, you have to know what the designer's purposes are.

If you don't know what the designer's objective is, then you can't evaluate the design. Period.

So, every time someone makes this (tired) argument, it would be helpful if they would state up front what they are assuming the designer's objective to be.

That article commits the classic "psychoanalyzing the designer" fallacy.

— Jon Crowell

Also, where did anyone say that the designer had to design for efficiency or for beauty or for ease of function? Perhaps these issues do not concern the designer.

Since we can't ever know what attributes The Designer prizes (efficiency? inefficiency? beauty? pathogenicity?....) the whole exersize of trying to discern anything at all about The Designer - including her existence - from her alleged handiwork seems kind of silly.

What a useful way to approach dialog!

With your apparent issues with reading comprehension, maybe you shouldn't be so confident of who's misunderstanding whom.

Clearly, The Designer has a limited imagination. Why make so many similar species? Better yet, why make extinct species? From this FACT, The Designer failed.

Perhaps we are part of The Designer's (failed) science class experient?

When we make the obvious next step, we are rebuked for doing so?

Thus for cephalopods there is less need for protection against photic damage. Being differently designed for a different environment, the cephalopod eye can function well with a 'verted' retina.[53]

— FL, from trueorigins.org

Except that it is necessary for us to make inferences about the designer when the ID camp utterly refuses to do it. They want to imply a supernatural (god) designer, but they think that if they stop just short of actually saying the words that they can pass constitutional muster. When we make the obvious next step, we are rebuked for doing so? Please.

Indeed! Since we can't ever know what attributes The Designer prizes (efficiency? inefficiency? beauty? pathogenicity?....) the whole exersize of trying to discern anything at all about The Designer - including her existence - from her alleged handiwork seems kind of silly.

This appears to be the common creationist argument that the inverted retina suffered by vertebrates is necessary to shield us from bright light experienced above the surface of the ocean. My question is this....how can this be that case when this particular "design" first appeared in marine vertebrates 100 million years before our ancestors crawled out onto the land?

To whover made these statements: Are you aware that it is possible to detect that something is designed without knowing what it is designed for? We may not know what the objective of the designer is, but we can still infer the existence of one.

— Jon Crowell

Are you aware that it is possible to detect that something is designed without knowing what it is designed for? We may not know what the objective of the designer is, but we can still infer the existence of one.

— Jon Crowell

"The argument that "I could have done it better" is laughable..."

The argument isn't that 'I' could have done it better. The argument is that an omniscient, omnipotent, well-meaning god should have been able to have done it better.

Any examples you'd like to share with us? Any examples where we don't know the identity of the designer and can make inferences about the intent?

The argument is that an omniscient, omnipotent, well-meaning god should have been able to have done it better.

"The argument that "I could have done it better" is laughable..."

No, it's an obvious one. If you're not able to ask questions and make predictions about the motives of the designers, then you're simply not doing science. IT'S DONE ALL THE TIME when design is found in science (i.e., archaeology and forensics).

Arguing that you can't psycho-analyze the designers just about admits that you don't want to do science.

"SETI

Actually, this happens all the time. You come across things in your daily life which you have never seen before and you have no idea what they are or what they are for or who designed them, but you know immediately that they were designed. I could take the circuit board out of my computer and show it to any 6-year-old and ask "did someone make this" and he would say "yes"."

Absolutely wrong.

For one, SETI makes an explicit assumption the intelligences are human comprehendable. For another, it makes an assumption that intelligences are using current human knowledge and technology and does not make allowances for future or unknown technology.

Are you aware that it is possible to detect that something is designed without knowing what it is designed for? We may not know what the objective of the designer is, but we can still infer the existence of one.

— Jon Crowell

You are assuming a blind RM/NS transition from marine vertebrates to humans in order to "disprove" a designer.

— Qualitative

Flint is correct on archaeologists. They make inferences on design and motives based on what they know about a possible artifact maker's culture, capabilities and environment. That's part of what makes it a discipline and a science instead of a collection of WAGs.

The argument is that an omniscient, omnipotent, well-meaning god should have been able to have done it better.

The argument that "I could have done it better" is laughable...

The argument isn't that 'I' could have done it better.

— GT(N)T

No, it's an obvious one.

— rogertang

Mynym,

yer Dumb.

love,
God

P.S. Just because your feeble mind can't see rational explanations to things, doesn't mean they don't exist. So in your ignorance you blame nature's crappy work on me. Thanks a lot, dumb7ss!

I have a box that someone told me is from China.

The box isn't locked, but it is difficult to open. I just can't figure out how it works.

Obviously everyone knows that a box should be easy to open when it isn't locked. Any designer who designed a box would design it in such a way that it would be easy to open when unlocked. I mean, there is absolutely no point in designing a box that is tricky to open or for which the mechanism is difficult to figure out.

Therefore I conclude that this box evolved from a lump of mud.

Jon Crowell wrote: Please state what this being's objectives are. If you don't know, then please state that you have no basis for claiming that this being "should have been able to do it better."

All this argument about what Bad Design actually is points to He Who Should Really Be Worshipped ... Loki. Gets rid of a whole lot of complaints.

I have a box that someone told me is from China. The box isn't locked, but it is difficult to open. I just can't figure out how it works. Obviously everyone knows that a box should be easy to open when it isn't locked. Any designer who designed a box would design it in such a way that it would be easy to open when unlocked. I mean, there is absolutely no point in designing a box that is tricky to open or for which the mechanism is difficult to figure out. Therefore I conclude that this box evolved from a lump of mud.

— Jon Crowell

Jon is trying to run off and attack some men made out of straw. Look at him go, slicing them down like nothing! Sure is easier to attack caricatures of his opponents than to actually bother answering any of their arguments.

Ho-hum.

Jon is trying to run off and attack some men made out of straw. Look at him go, slicing them down like nothing! Sure is easier to attack caricatures of his opponents than to actually bother answering any of their arguments. Ho-hum.

— Joseph O'Donnell

Er. [bold]He's[/bold] Jack.

Second try:

I have a box that someone told me is from China.

The box isn't locked, but it is difficult to open. I just can't figure out how it works.

Obviously everyone knows that a box should be easy to open when it isn't locked. Any designer who designed a box would design it in such a way that it would be easy to open when unlocked. I mean, there is absolutely no point in designing a box that is tricky to open or for which the mechanism is difficult to figure out.

Therefore I conclude that if this box was designed, the designer is a real idiot.

Well, Mr. Crowell, seeing as you're the one making the extraordinary claim, I think you should answer the question--what reason would a being of unlimited power and knowledge have for creating things with what most rational observers would consider as design flaws? If you cannot answer this question, then the question becomes--can you provide a method for us to discover this reason?

I have a box that someone told me is from China. The box isn't locked, but it is difficult to open. I just can't figure out how it works. Obviously everyone knows that a box should be easy to open when it isn't locked. Any designer who designed a box would design it in such a way that it would be easy to open when unlocked. I mean, there is absolutely no point in designing a box that is tricky to open or for which the mechanism is difficult to figure out. Therefore I conclude that if this box was designed, the designer is a real idiot.

— Jon Crowell

Is it a self replicating box with a long fossil history? Enquiring minds want to know.

Flawed Design
Sub-optimal Design
Cruel Design

*Teach the controversy*.

"you can't admit that you don't know what the designer's objective"

I also don't know the objective of SNNNAAAARRMMAN, the invisible shoe-weasel, either, although it may involve cup-cakes. God doesn't exist and so can't have objectives, but the man made god-concept has an objective.

Is it a self replicating box with a long fossil history? Enquiring minds want to know. Flawed Design Sub-optimal Design Cruel Design *Teach the controversy*.

I also don't know the objective of SNNNAAAARRMMAN, the invisible shoe-weasel, either, although it may involve cup-cakes. God doesn't exist and so can't have objectives, but the man made god-concept has an objective.

Sounds to me like you don't have an answer to my question. You realize that you don't know what the designer's objective is. Moreover, any objective you come up with could easily be questioned. On the other hand, you can't admit that you don't know what the designer's objective is because the whole argument being discussed in this thread is based on assuming you know what the objective is and can point out that the designer failed in that objective. So you're trapped. It is too much to expect someone on an Internet discussion board to admit it when they are beaten, however. Instead you dodge the question and try and get me to answer a question of yours. I won't play your little game, however. I absolutely insist that you either state what the designer's objective is or else admit that this whole argument from "bad design" fails because you don't know what the objective is.

We can however rule out the Christian god, who explicitly states he made man in his own image, so purpose and form are declared by the creating party and are at odds with reality?

Be honest. State what your end goal is. Don't bare false witness.

Jon,

Out of interest, how would you go about determining 'good' or 'bad' design? Is it possible and if so, what methodology would you use?

We can however rule out the Christian god, who explicitly states he made man in his own image, so purpose and form are declared by the creating party and are at odds with reality? Be honest. State what your end goal is. Don't bare false witness.

Pretend that the argument about the box (which concludes with the claim that if the box is designed then the designer is a real idiot) has just appeared on an LSAT that you are taking. What are you going to say that the weakness in the argument is?

"Okay. So you admit that you don't know what the objective of the designer would be".

No, I said that non existent things cannot have objectives. If you take this to prove your argument that you are acknowledging the creator doesn't exist.

I'm done with you, heh heh. Any other takers?

Mr. Crowell, you are correct in that I cannot answer the question of what your hypothetical designer's motives are.

I hope we can all agree that "argument from bad design" is a hopeless proposition, because "bad" is clearly a comparative term begging "compared to what?" and we can't answer that question without specifing the "what". The candidate usually put forward is "something that serves its current purpose more efficiently." Sure enough, we can find plenty of biological structures doing an inefficient, often barely adequate job. In many cases, we can track back to see where these structures came from, what they used to do, and find that their prior function was both different and better addressed. But is efficiency or suitability part of the Designer's objectives? Flip a coin.

However, the entire logical contraption is possible only if we assume some intelligent agent as the designer. As soon as we drop this requirement and simply allow messy biological processes to meander from place to place via incremental kludging, we're fine again. But this was the point of the original article: that positing an "intelligent designer" leads us into all manner of unnecessary complication and confusion. The only way out is to say "The Designer wanted things this way for unguessable reasons." But in that case, why bother with a Designer at all?

The first point John is that I would know what the creators objectives were if he codified them in a document called the bible. It turns out that reality is incongruent with this document, so we can rule out this entity. SNNNAAAARRMMAN never wrote a book, so he's still in the running.

My second point is that I believe you are disingenuous -- you want to promote the advancement of religion, not science.

For the record, I have nothing against multiple designers, incompetent designers, alien designers, God as the designer, Jesus as the designer, a confused designer, a only partially intelligent designer, a designer whose objective it is to make life miserable for everyone, or anything else as the designer.

All I care to point out is that the argument made in the original essay only precludes the competence of a designer who wanted to make sure that no one ever experiences back pain.

For the record, I have nothing against multiple designers, incompetent designers, alien designers, God as the designer, Jesus as the designer, a confused designer, a only partially intelligent designer, a designer whose objective it is to make life miserable for everyone, or anything else as the designer. All I care to point out is that the argument made in the original essay only precludes the competence of a designer who wanted to make sure that no one ever experiences back pain.

— Jon Crowell

My second point is that I believe you are disingenuous -- you want to promote the advancement of religion, not science.

So what was your problem with evolution as the designer, again, then?

For the record, I have nothing against multiple designers, incompetent designers, alien designers, God as the designer, Jesus as the designer, a confused designer, a only partially intelligent designer, a designer whose objective it is to make life miserable for everyone, or anything else as the designer.

All I care to point out is that the argument made in the original essay only precludes the competence of a designer who wanted to make sure that no one ever experiences back pain.

Out of interest, how would you go about determining 'good' or 'bad' design? Is it possible and if so, what methodology would you use?

"For the record, I have nothing against multiple designers......or anything else as the designer."

So Evolution is okay, then?

But Crowell, there the question becomes "What kind of designer wants people to experience back pain?" Of course, you can say "We are not meant to know". And I can say that I'm actually butterfly on a field, and this whole world is a delusion of mine, as I wing to and fro. That doesn't mean these are well-made arguments. The fact is, an incomprehensible designer is a hand-wave. It allows virtually everything. It is no different then saying we all sprang into existence yesterday, and all our memories are lies. You can't disprove it because it destroys all possible methods of disproof.

So Jon, given your line of 'reasoning' and the text in the bible, do you rule out the Christian god as the designer?

So Evolution is okay, then?

I was going to put this on the bathroom wall, but i get an error message about defining a comment template or something.

1 you say that CSI is essential to the determination of design

2 you say that a watch laying in some grass is detectably designed

Q: How much CSI is in the watch, how much in the grass, and what's the rule which allows the conclusion about the watch?

That too isn't clear at all �" just look at how good societies with strong religions are at slaughtering their competitors. The USSR, of course, was atheistic, and did a very good job of slaughtering competitors (and internal "enemies"), too. Heck, it did better than the Inquisition did.

— Lenny FLank

wait a minute ... you have totally mis-characterized me....I am not at all saying what you think I'm saying:

— JRQ

Yes, that's precicely the point...the costs have nothing to do with evolution. The "costs" are only costs assuming the kinds of purposes the ID folks believe the designer intended.

My "claim" is only that any intelligent agent of the kind promoted by the ID movemement would not be subject to the same constraints as evolution.

(wait a minute, are you being sarcastic?)

At least two things happen when bad design is demonstrated. First, the difference in the explanatory power of ID/C and the evolutionary perspective is contrasted. After all, those traits that are examples of poor design are easily explained by reference to evolutionary theory. Second, instances of bad design drive a wedge between ID/C advocates, who might simply say design need not be perfect, and their fundamentalist Christian supporters who believe fervently that the Designer is their omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God. bingo!

All these supposed rebuttals against "bad design" work equally well against claimed evidence for "good design", and hence defeat a major point of argument for ID. I'm perfectly okay with notion that we can't know for sure if something is good or bad design according to how God (or horrible space aliens) would have done things. But that being the case, Behe's "if it looks like a duck" argument goes down in flames, because we can never know for sure what "ducks" are supposed to look like.

— Steve Reuland

Indeed! Since we can't ever know what attributes The Designer prizes (efficiency? inefficiency? beauty? pathogenicity?....) the whole exersize of trying to discern anything at all about The Designer - including her existence - from her alleged handiwork seems kind of silly.

— Russell

To whover made these statements: Are you aware that it is possible to detect that something is designed without knowing what it is designed for? We may not know what the objective of the designer is, but we can still infer the existence of one.

— Jon Crowell

The argument isn't that 'I' could have done it better. The argument is that an omniscient, omnipotent, well-meaning god should have been able to have done it better.

— GT(N)T

Therefore I conclude that if this box was designed, the designer is a real idiot. Will someone please point out the flaw in this argument.

— Jon Crowell

Posted by Rich on July 12, 2005 11:27 PM Lenny ( I love your posts) speaking of eyes, have you seen this: http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2005/articles_2005_Avida.... what good is half am eye (#1)... Its on its way to beating specified complexity...

They had evolved a way to tell when Ofria was testing them by looking at the numbers he fed them. As soon as they recognized they were being tested, they stopped processing numbers. "If it was a test environment, they said, 'Let's play dead,' " says Ofria.