Intelligent Design Isn't So Intelligent

[Skwim]

That assumes God did all aspects of the implementation, the creation. My challenge is that the implementation of the design was not done by God alone.

Whoa! Back up there a minute. You mean he had incompetent or devious cohorts doing behind-the-scenes dirty work?

.

 

[Skwim]

I find the whole discussion about creationism boring most of the time because people with different opinions do seldom respect the other part, or honestly try to understand what they are saying.

I'll follow the tread!

Kindly

Edna Davidsen

Hey, never feel obligated to respond to any of my posts. It's neither worth your time to write it out nor my time to read it.

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[sun rise]

Whoa! Back up there a minute. You mean he had incompetent or devious cohorts doing behind-the-scenes dirty work?

.

I'm asserting that it's theoretically possible from within the Christian ideology. I'm challenging your conclusion with a different theoretical possibility while not believing at all in this frame-of-reference.

To respond to your question, we have at least one fallen angel in Christian belief and an entire literature about Jewish and Christian demonology. So if one wants to argue that God made a mistaken, it's not in physical creation that the error was made but in creating flawed angels who in turn took God's perfect design and implemented it badly because of the original tension between good and evil. So you accept the "snake" as being literally true, then where did that "snake" come from? From a bad angel.

(My own believe is vastly different but that's for other threads. I enjoy challenging your conclusions

 

[columbus]

This being the background of ID, the question I pose is, If this designer is so intelligent, why did he make so many goofs?
Goofs such as:

I see most of your list as rather minor details, compared to the biggest design issues humans have.

It's like asking why so many cars were built with rear drive, rather than the more efficient front drive, instead of asking why the USA built a transportation system so heavily dependent on the hideously inefficient independent passenger vehicle with fossil fuel power, instead of investing in a top shelf public transportation system.

Let me ask about a more meta-design issue with the Human Race.
Why are there men?
I realize that sexual reproduction has a huge advantage over asexual. By sharing DNA amongst mothers, any little genetic advantage can be leveraged into a more reproductively fit population. Sexual reproduction makes evolution possible. But the way it works is to have half the population effectively barren, serving only to transfer DNA between individuals who can actually reproduce. Suppose, instead, everyone had both a reproductive system like women do, and also testes to produce sharable gametes. No more need for the inefficient male of the species, consuming all those resources but never giving birth to a new human.

The male, as a concept, strikes me as a far bigger design flaw than our throats.
Tom

 

[Twilight Hue]

To escape the onus that has accrued to plain old creationism (it's been banned as a legitimate subject in public school science classes) some Biblical creationists have tried to disencumber themselves from this millstone by claiming life was created pretty much as is by an intelligent designer. To arrive at such a conclusion they had to disavow any reliance on religion; however, in their efforts through "scientific" investigation they found their evidence happens to point to just such a religious figure, *Surprise!*Surprise!*Surprise!* And guess who best fits the description. Yup, god. And, of course, the god best fitting all the scientific evidence is almost always the god of Abraham. WOW! Who would have thought. Life was created by an intelligent designer who happens to be the god of Abraham.

This being the background of ID, the question I pose is, If this designer is so intelligent, why did he make so many goofs?
Goofs such as:

"In the human female, a fertilized egg can implant into the fallopian tube, cervix or ovary rather than the uterus causing an ectopic pregnancy. The existence of a cavity between the ovary and the fallopian tube could indicate a flawed design in the female reproductive system. Prior to modern surgery, ectopic pregnancy invariably caused the deaths of both mother and baby. Even in modern times, in almost all cases the pregnancy must be aborted to save the life of the mother.

In the human female, the birth canal passes through the pelvis. The prenatal skull will deform to a surprising extent. However, if the baby's head is significantly larger than the pelvic opening, the baby cannot be born naturally. Prior to the development of modern surgery (caesarean section), such a complication would lead to the death of the mother, the baby, or both. Other birthing complications such as breech birth are worsened by this position of the birth canal.

In the human male, testes develop initially within the abdomen. Later during gestation, they migrate through the abdominal wall into the scrotum. This causes two weak points in the abdominal wall where hernias can later form. Prior to modern surgical techniques, complications from hernias, such as intestinal blockage and gangrene, usually resulted in death.

The existence of the pharynx, a passage used for both ingestion and respiration, with the consequent drastic increase in the risk of choking.

The breathing reflex is stimulated not directly by the absence of oxygen but indirectly by the presence of carbon dioxide. A result is that, at high altitudes, oxygen deprivation can occur in unadapted individuals who do not consciously increase their breathing rate.

Barely used nerves and muscles, such as the plantaris muscle of the foot,[8] that are missing in part of the human population and are routinely harvested as spare parts if needed during operations. Another example is the muscles that move the ears, which some people can learn to control to a degree, but serve no purpose in any case"
source​

_______________________________________________

"The existence of unnecessary wings in flightless birds, e.g. ostriches

Whales and dolphins breathe air, but live in the water, meaning they must swim to the surface frequently to breathe.

Sturdy but heavy bones, suited for non-flight, occurring in animals like bats. Or, on the converse: unstable, light, hollow bones, suited for flight, occurring in birds like penguins and ostriches, which cannot fly.

Various vestigial body parts, like the femur and pelvis in whales (evolution says the ancestor of whales lived on land)."
source​

_____________________________________________

In addition, this intelligent designer thought it smart that we have

Weather events such as tornadoes and hurricanes/typhoons that devastate land and property, and kill thousands.

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that do the same.

Tsunamis, whatever their origin, that also do the same.

​

CONCLUSION
Mean, cruel, evil, or just plain dumb? I'm voting for #1

1) Not intelligent at all

.
​

I see it already.....

Tape recorder on repeat........

"It was God's intentional plan and direction all along, and perfect divine will......

Trust God, he knows what he's doing".

 

[Twilight Hue]

@Windwalker sage post, here's another way things went wrong that is not in opposition to what he wrote:

As anyone who has ever done design including software design can tell you: you can have a perfect design but the implementation can be flawed. So rather than blame God for a bad design, blame those who tried to implement the perfect design but introduced bugs into the "software".[/QUOTE]

God is downright lousy at perfection. That's what he gets for using cheap foreign labor.

 

[Skwim]

I'm asserting that it's theoretically possible from within the Christian ideology. I'm challenging your conclusion with a different theoretical possibility while not believing at all in this frame-of-reference.

To respond to your question, we have at least one fallen angel in Christian belief and an entire literature about Jewish and Christian demonology. So if one wants to argue that God made a mistaken, it's not in physical creation that the error was made but in creating flawed angels who in turn took God's perfect design and implemented it badly because of the original tension between good and evil. So you accept the "snake" as being literally true, then where did that "snake" come from? From a bad angel.

(My own believe is vastly different but that's for other threads. I enjoy challenging your conclusions

If fallen angles is your bid then I'll raise you god's omniscience and contend he would be well aware of such shenanigans and would have put an immediate stop to them, thus bringing the ball back into his court from whence he would continue his game. Now, I have to admit that for an omniscient god to be blind to the deviousness of his fallen angel The Snake doesn't square at all. So perhaps the plan from the very beginning was to inoculate his two prime creations with such fallibility as to infect all those who followed---The Snake being only a scapegoat---AND, to purposely leave his creations with imperfections because . . . . .well because they'd be far more interesting to watch than beings going to church morning after morning after morning after . . . . . . .Putting them in a hospital from time to time and watching them struggle and suffer is far more diversionary.

Personally, if I bought into the god of Abraham I'd be very inclined to believe he created the universe and mankind out of boredom.

.

.

 

[socharlie]

To escape the onus that has accrued to plain old creationism (it's been banned as a legitimate subject in public school science classes) some Biblical creationists have tried to disencumber themselves from this millstone by claiming life was created pretty much as is by an intelligent designer. To arrive at such a conclusion they had to disavow any reliance on religion; however, in their efforts through "scientific" investigation they found their evidence happens to point to just such a religious figure, *Surprise!*Surprise!*Surprise!* And guess who best fits the description. Yup, god. And, of course, the god best fitting all the scientific evidence is almost always the god of Abraham. WOW! Who would have thought. Life was created by an intelligent designer who happens to be the god of Abraham.

This being the background of ID, the question I pose is, If this designer is so intelligent, why did he make so many goofs?
Goofs such as:

"In the human female, a fertilized egg can implant into the fallopian tube, cervix or ovary rather than the uterus causing an ectopic pregnancy. The existence of a cavity between the ovary and the fallopian tube could indicate a flawed design in the female reproductive system. Prior to modern surgery, ectopic pregnancy invariably caused the deaths of both mother and baby. Even in modern times, in almost all cases the pregnancy must be aborted to save the life of the mother.

In the human female, the birth canal passes through the pelvis. The prenatal skull will deform to a surprising extent. However, if the baby's head is significantly larger than the pelvic opening, the baby cannot be born naturally. Prior to the development of modern surgery (caesarean section), such a complication would lead to the death of the mother, the baby, or both. Other birthing complications such as breech birth are worsened by this position of the birth canal.

In the human male, testes develop initially within the abdomen. Later during gestation, they migrate through the abdominal wall into the scrotum. This causes two weak points in the abdominal wall where hernias can later form. Prior to modern surgical techniques, complications from hernias, such as intestinal blockage and gangrene, usually resulted in death.

The existence of the pharynx, a passage used for both ingestion and respiration, with the consequent drastic increase in the risk of choking.

The breathing reflex is stimulated not directly by the absence of oxygen but indirectly by the presence of carbon dioxide. A result is that, at high altitudes, oxygen deprivation can occur in unadapted individuals who do not consciously increase their breathing rate.

Barely used nerves and muscles, such as the plantaris muscle of the foot,[8] that are missing in part of the human population and are routinely harvested as spare parts if needed during operations. Another example is the muscles that move the ears, which some people can learn to control to a degree, but serve no purpose in any case"
source​

_______________________________________________

"The existence of unnecessary wings in flightless birds, e.g. ostriches

Whales and dolphins breathe air, but live in the water, meaning they must swim to the surface frequently to breathe.

Sturdy but heavy bones, suited for non-flight, occurring in animals like bats. Or, on the converse: unstable, light, hollow bones, suited for flight, occurring in birds like penguins and ostriches, which cannot fly.

Various vestigial body parts, like the femur and pelvis in whales (evolution says the ancestor of whales lived on land)."
source​

_____________________________________________

In addition, this intelligent designer thought it smart that we have

Weather events such as tornadoes and hurricanes/typhoons that devastate land and property, and kill thousands.

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that do the same.

Tsunamis, whatever their origin, that also do the same.

​

CONCLUSION
Mean, cruel, evil, or just plain dumb? I'm voting for #1

1) Not intelligent at all

.
​

the way I understand, life developed from elementary matter by the way of Natural Laws, depending on existing conditions. The program to do so built in in that elementary matter. It means there are many form of life on Earth,
and elsewhere. Genesis speaks about allowable corrections to direct developments.

 

[socharlie]

@Windwalker sage post, here's another way things went wrong that is not in opposition to what he wrote:

As anyone who has ever done design including software design can tell you: you can have a perfect design but the implementation can be flawed. So rather than blame God for a bad design, blame those who tried to implement the perfect design but introduced bugs into the "software".

God is downright lousy at perfection. That's what he gets for using cheap foreign labor.[/QUOTE]
Nachmanides translated "mostly perfect" not perfect. ("Commentary on the Torah ")

 

[Skwim]

Let me ask about a more meta-design issue with the Human Race.
Why are there men?
I realize that sexual reproduction has a huge advantage over asexual. By sharing DNA amongst mothers, any little genetic advantage can be leveraged into a more reproductively fit population. Sexual reproduction makes evolution possible. But the way it works is to have half the population effectively barren, serving only to transfer DNA between individuals who can actually reproduce. Suppose, instead, everyone had both a reproductive system like women do, and also testes to produce sharable gametes. No more need for the inefficient male of the species, consuming all those resources but never giving birth to a new human.

The male, as a concept, strikes me as a far bigger design flaw than our throats.
Tom

How do you see this sharing DNA amongst mothers taking place? And, seeing how the female psyche works, wouldn't having half the population effectively barren create enormous jealousy issues? Nope, I think it's far better that such barren/DNA sharing creatures be so utterly different from the female spawners that neither would be jealous of the other, but, in fact, find pleasure in their unique couplings.

.

 

[sealchan]

To escape the onus that has accrued to plain old creationism (it's been banned as a legitimate subject in public school science classes) some Biblical creationists have tried to disencumber themselves from this millstone by claiming life was created pretty much as is by an intelligent designer. To arrive at such a conclusion they had to disavow any reliance on religion; however, in their efforts through "scientific" investigation they found their evidence happens to point to just such a religious figure, *Surprise!*Surprise!*Surprise!* And guess who best fits the description. Yup, god. And, of course, the god best fitting all the scientific evidence is almost always the god of Abraham. WOW! Who would have thought. Life was created by an intelligent designer who happens to be the god of Abraham.

. . . .

It really is all an elaborate self-deception.

At the base of it all is a unprovable belief that the ID researcher knows how to determine whether something is designed or not. This assumes the following:

• The ID researcher knows what any level of intelligence can and can not accomplish
• Anything specific and complex must be created by an intelligence
• A creator intelligence is a living being like ourselves only greater

Probably the biggest thing in legitimate science that I am aware of that will completely blow away the cover of this pretense to scientific theory is complexity science. Emerging from ideas in systems theory and related to chaos theory, a science of complex adaptive systems shows how order at one level can give rise to an "emergent" order at another without a reductionistic understanding that makes the emergent behavior explainable by the properties of the isolated parts of the lower level system. Such a perspective should completely muddy the waters of the idea that complex and clever in nature means that a complex and clever sentient being made it. Very simple systems can easily give rise to very complex behavior and do so all the time.

Of course once you buy into the idea that a supreme complex and clever sentient being made the Universe, then you must believe that anything and everything was created by that creator. Then there is nothing that is not created and the meaning of the claim becomes non-existent. The vast incalculable diversity of activity itself escapes even the ability of the best imaginable computer simulation technologies but complex emergent behavior from the modelling of simple systems is possible and has been accomplished. But given the extreme sensitivity to initial conditions of such systems, it may take time before we can see these simulations as "proof" of how the Universe actually works.

We can attempt to evaluate the qualities of our Universe and thereby estimate the intelligence and intent of an original act behind the creation of that Universe. But in doing so we are forgetting that until such a time when we can say what a Universe would look like with and without a creator, this is all merely speculation...and nothing too particularly scientific will result.

If you want to prove that a creator exists...show us the bill for His/Her services? If you think that Biblical prophecy about an end time IS the bill...then how can we be 2000 years late in paying it? This is a mistaking of an "as if" for a literal, historic truth. In the end the literal belief IS precisely the most dangerous possibility behind the coming to reality of apocalyptic events. It will be the real betrayers of Christ, who think they are closest to Christ and thus justified, who would bring such things about.

 

[Windwalker]

Good grief, talk about apologetics.

My god is perfect but sin is the problem; it sounds like that game I used to play, "Top Trumps"

I'm sorry I didn't add emoticons. I thought the humor of it was obvious. Obviously not.

 

[SinSaber]

These defects are the shortening of the genetic pool caused by the downfall of Man. You also can’t ignore that the Miller experiment proves amino acids would dissolve before becoming a cell

 

[sun rise]

Personally, if I bought into the god of Abraham I'd be very inclined to believe he created the universe and mankind out of boredom.

Personally this is what I believe about the "God of Abraham" as expressed in a Jewish tradition:

“Aren’t all religions equally true? No, all religions are equally false. The relationship of religion to truth is like that of a menu to a meal. The menu describes the meal as best it can. It points to something beyond itself. As long as we use the menu as a guide we do it honor. When we mistake the menu for the meal, we do it and ourselves a grave injustice.” Rabbi Rami Shapiro

The Creator - Come and See

Various religions depict the Creator as something outside of us. But Kabbalah explains that it is forbidden to imagine the Creator as an image of any kind, that the Creator is a quality that exists within each of us.

The Creator is the quality of love and bestowal. The meaning of the word “Creator” (Borre in Hebrew) is “Come and See” (Bo u Re’e), meaning come and discover this quality within you.

There is no external, foreign element for whom we work! We work on correcting ourselves, on attaining the qualities of love and giving, the Creator.

Around two thousand years ago, we lost the feeling of the Creator—we were exiled and lost the true picture of the world. We began to think that the Creator was someone who existed separately from us, rather than a quality that appeared within us.

Instead of depicting the Creator as the primary and foremost quality of Creation, which clothes within us, we began to think of Him as a separate and foreign entity. Rav Michael Laitman

 

[Subduction Zone]

These defects are the shortening of the genetic pool caused by the downfall of Man. You also can’t ignore that the Miller experiment proves amino acids would dissolve before becoming a cell

Nope, the Miller/Urey experiment proved no such thing. In fact they showed that the opposite was true. Where did you get that idea from anyway?

And the flaws that we can observe are not due to "shortening of the genetic pool". We know the cause of those. The answer will not be found by appealing to an intelligent designer.

 

[osgart]

Intelligent design does not support any religion. It merely asserts that there is purpose and intention in the formation of living creatures.

Specificity and complexity alone don't prove that there is intelligence behind the existence of life. Yet complexity with specific function leads toward some sort of intelligence being responsible for life; even if that intelligence is prone to making many errors it's still there somehow. The human body does have some remarkable performance features given the extreme situation it was created in.

I understand the assertion that life and intelligence has emerged from mindless rules going from simple to complex. But the assertion that intelligence is responsible for the creation of life, is still very valid.

I have ruled out God and perfection in design, because it is obvious. But to rule out an intelligent creator, you have to prove that life itself can come from mindless rules, that build in complexity and somehow become functional. No one has yet done that.

The human body is intelligent on some level, and logical in many ways. It only makes sense that some flawed intelligence is behind it all. If you saw the alphabet written out in the sand you'd say an intelligence is behind this; the human body is the equivalent of such intelligence, and probably more intelligent then that.

I'd say life is a trial and error creation, and that is a reasonable assertion.

 

[sealchan]

Intelligent design does not support any religion. It merely asserts that there is purpose and intention in the formation of living creatures.

Specificity and complexity alone don't prove that there is intelligence behind the existence of life. Yet complexity with specific function leads toward some sort of intelligence being responsible for life; even if that intelligence is prone to making many errors it's still there somehow. The human body does have some remarkable performance features given the extreme situation it was created in.

I understand the assertion that life and intelligence has emerged from mindless rules going from simple to complex. But the assertion that intelligence is responsible for the creation of life, is still very valid.

I have ruled out God and perfection in design, because it is obvious. But to rule out an intelligent creator, you have to prove that life itself can come from mindless rules, that build in complexity and somehow become functional. No one has yet done that.

The human body is intelligent on some level, and logical in many ways. It only makes sense that some flawed intelligence is behind it all. If you saw the alphabet written out in the sand you'd say an intelligence is behind this; the human body is the equivalent of such intelligence, and probably more intelligent then that.

I'd say life is a trial and error creation, and that is a reasonable assertion.

So what would a Universe look like that was created by mindless rules? Or does the question beg the answer?

That is my first gripe with this whole discussion...what is the discoverable/testable difference? Or are we all just throwing around our subjective sensibilities? Is it self evident like "I think, therefore, I am" or is there any objective meat on the bone of this question?

And how do we objectively identify a purpose for something? Systems of parts working together continually show evidence of re-purposing suggesting that purpose is a fluid quality of a system in dynamic change. As human beings we seem endlessly able to creatively develop purpose and agency to any number of mindless objects. How can we say, "Ah but this purpose is the true purpose of ____"?

 

[SinSaber]

Nope, the Miller/Urey experiment proved no such thing. In fact they showed that the opposite was true. Where did you get that idea from anyway?

And the flaws that we can observe are not due to "shortening of the genetic pool". We know the cause of those. The answer will not be found by appealing to an intelligent designer.

Miller created a trap to catch them because he knew the would dissolve if they went through the process. If the aminos acids can’t survive with more amino acids being made, they can’t become a cell.

Also, he didn’t make new enough to create a cellular sequence and some of them were right handed. All organic life is left handed

 

[Subduction Zone]

Intelligent design does not support any religion. It merely asserts that there is purpose and intention in the formation of living creatures.

Specificity and complexity alone don't prove that there is intelligence behind the existence of life. Yet complexity with specific function leads toward some sort of intelligence being responsible for life; even if that intelligence is prone to making many errors it's still there somehow. The human body does have some remarkable performance features given the extreme situation it was created in.

I understand the assertion that life and intelligence has emerged from mindless rules going from simple to complex. But the assertion that intelligence is responsible for the creation of life, is still very valid.

I have ruled out God and perfection in design, because it is obvious. But to rule out an intelligent creator, you have to prove that life itself can come from mindless rules, that build in complexity and somehow become functional. No one has yet done that.

The human body is intelligent on some level, and logical in many ways. It only makes sense that some flawed intelligence is behind it all. If you saw the alphabet written out in the sand you'd say an intelligence is behind this; the human body is the equivalent of such intelligence, and probably more intelligent then that.

I'd say life is a trial and error creation, and that is a reasonable assertion.

This is merely a long rambling argument from ignorance with some unsupported, and false claims thrown into the mix.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Miller created a trap to catch them because he knew the would dissolve if they went through the process. If the aminos acids can’t survive with more amino acids being made, they can’t become a cell.

Also, he didn’t make new enough to create a cellular sequence and some of them were right handed. All organic life is left handed

He built a trap that mimicked nature, and it showed your claim to be false.

Also it appears that you are quite unaware of the purpose of the experiment. It was quite successful though we have moved miles past that now.