A Bad "Design"

[Papias]

Did you read LM's point about the nerves?

 

[PsychoSarah]

PS wrote:



Right. Whenever the incompetent design of animals comes up, this is probably the biggest flaw in everyone's points - to forget that we are talking about an omnipotent deity who is supposed to be able to make anything.

In fact, you and I have both made this mistake in the past few posts.




An omnipotent deity could certainly make each sense able to turned off at will, or make our brains able to handle more sensory information - hence, no sensory overload. With 4,400 people being injured (and hundreds dying) in the US alone every year due to electrocution (and obviously much higher the world over), these are certainly needed. Similarly for all the other hazards I listed and the much greater number I didn't list (or think of yet).

To boot, we should be designed to be unelectrocutable (the voltage sense would still be useful, and fun, so keep that).

LM wrote:


Good point. And so it is my turn to have forgotten that we are talking about an omnipotent deity. Mea Culpa

: )

Papias

For the last time, to not have certain senses isn't a flaw, no matter how useful those senses would be. I am concerned with traits humans or other living things actually have and are flawed, not all the other possible things that could have been shoved in there.

So everyone, focus on body parts that actual exist within the species you are talking about, not how great it would be for everything to be capable of breathing both water and air, etc.

 

[keith99]

Did you read LM's point about the nerves?

The one with faster nerves?

If that is it the problem is that it solves nothing! Well unless man and only man has the faster nerves. If the wolf who wants to make you dinner has the faster nerves it ends up pretty much a wash.

That does raise a question however. If man is the apple of God's eye then why not make man's and only man's nerves faster? Why not the best design for his favorite.

 

[keith99]

For the last time, to not have certain senses isn't a flaw, no matter how useful those senses would be. I am concerned with traits humans or other living things actually have and are flawed, not all the other possible things that could have been shoved in there.

So everyone, focus on body parts that actual exist within the species you are talking about, not how great it would be for everything to be capable of breathing both water and air, etc.

Well the prostate does not seem very well designed.

Now if Scripture said a mans time was 2 score years or even 2 score and 10 it wouldn't be so glaring.

 

[Papias]

PS wrote:

So everyone, focus on body parts that actual exist within the species you are talking about, not how great it would be for everything to be capable of breathing both water and air, etc.

OK, then, how about a C-section opening? What kind of idiot would design a birth canal through a solid bone opening that is too small to fit the designed baby's skull? While we are at it, how about putting the vagina someplace farther from the anus, and separating out the urination from the sex organs in both sexes?

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Keith wrote:

The one with faster nerves?

Yes. You were saying that the longer nerve path from the two brain locations was a problem. It's not, if nerves are faster. It's not anyway, since the chest location shortens the limb nerve paths - allowing the human to run away faster than with a head brain.

If that is it the problem is that it solves nothing! Well unless man and only man has the faster nerves. If the wolf who wants to make you dinner has the faster nerves it ends up pretty much a wash.

not a wash, since the wolf still has to run, etc, which are limited by inertia and muscle speed, not nerve speed. Same goes for other threats, like projectiles, etc. Unless we are talking about a psionic attack, in which case I invoke my tower of iron will.

If man is the apple of God's eye then why not make man's and only man's nerves faster? Why not the best design for his favorite.

True dat. It suggests that God is as poorly designed as we are, since we are n his image. So I guess God's designer is incompetent too. Yep, bad theology.

Papias

 

[ChetSinger]

The one with faster nerves?

If that is it the problem is that it solves nothing! Well unless man and only man has the faster nerves. If the wolf who wants to make you dinner has the faster nerves it ends up pretty much a wash.

That does raise a question however. If man is the apple of God's eye then why not make man's and only man's nerves faster? Why not the best design for his favorite.

Well, when I step back and ponder how our design fits into the biosphere, I think it fits in with God's original intention: He made us to rule the place, and we do rule the place. We're not the strongest, or the fastest, or the best-seeing or best-hearing. Nevertheless, we're somehow on the top of the heap.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Well, when I step back and ponder how our design fits into the biosphere, I think it fits in with God's original intention: He made us to rule the place, and we do rule the place. We're not the strongest, or the fastest, or the best-seeing or best-hearing. Nevertheless, we're somehow on the top of the heap.

That is, again, not what this is about. Many people argue that the human body is a PERFECT design, that all life on earth was made PERFECT by god. The fact that there are very blatant imperfections in how the bodies of humans and other living things work, even in just the most basic of structures, contradicts that arguement.

 

[ChetSinger]

That is, again, not what this is about. Many people argue that the human body is a PERFECT design, that all life on earth was made PERFECT by god. The fact that there are very blatant imperfections in how the bodies of humans and other living things work, even in just the most basic of structures, contradicts that arguement.

OK. Fwiw, when describing the physical creation the Bible itself uses טֹוב מְאֹד, which is typically translated "very good!".

 

[PsychoSarah]

OK. Fwiw, when describing the physical creation the Bible itself uses טֹוב מְאֹד, which is typically translated "very good!".

Some of it doesn't even qualify as that, but this is more a statement for those who claim that observing life's "perfect design" is evidence for god.

 

[SkyWriting]

I can't make a person, but if I were an omnipotent deity, I sure wouldn't have to design an immune system that could have deadly responses without having to reduce its efficiency.

My point isn't about what people can do, but what a hypothetical deity could do.

In the garden....or heaven....death is not possible.

The system you are describing is one of give and take
and compromise.

The world's strongest engineered fiber, that you might use to tether
the moon to the earth, hypothetically, has a problem.

The fiber must support the weight of fiber.

So, when you engineer anything for any purpose
the limitations of the system, require compromises.

In this world, compromise is a given.

Sorry to pop your God-bubble, but this cosmos is not heaven.
Nothing here can be made perfect.

But God did expertly design life, upon which we can not improve.

 

[SkyWriting]

That is, again, not what this is about. Many people argue that the human body is a PERFECT design, that all life on earth was made PERFECT by god. The fact that there are very blatant imperfections in how the bodies of humans and other living things work, even in just the most basic of structures, contradicts that arguement.

There are compromises, but they are perfectly conceived
and no person has ever made a good case for improvement.

Check in with any of the worlds 1,600 Billionaires and get back to us
with any common improvement they've found to the human body,
outside of disease or aging.

 

[SkyWriting]

I am concerned with traits humans or other living things actually have and are flawed....

There ARE some happy go lucky mutants that have throat problems.
Blame Darwin.
No one in my family history died from choking.
Mutants will die....that is their lot in evolution.
That is to your advantage, they die, you don't.

 

[rush1169]

If I were a deity, I would be ashamed if I designed humans. Here are some awful "design" flaws which are easily explainable with evolution, but make no sense if the human body was designed from scratch.

How would you have designed the atom such that once you released the correct quantity "into the wild" that you'd end up with humans and everything else such that those humans and everything else would be better?

 

[Papias]

rush wrote

How would you have designed the atom such that once you released the correct quantity "into the wild" that you'd end up with humans and everything else such that those humans and everything else would be better?

Rush, you are correct that this defuses the objection that animals like humans are poorly "designed". It does this by taking a theistic evolution stance (what you said is not quite the usual TE stance, but that's a tangent we need not get into).

This thread is about the common evolution denier's claim that God intervened to design each creature's features, then created them separately from that design, instead of their being a result of evolution (whether guided by God or not).

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Loudmouth]

The one with faster nerves?

If that is it the problem is that it solves nothing! Well unless man and only man has the faster nerves. If the wolf who wants to make you dinner has the faster nerves it ends up pretty much a wash.

I don't see how that is true. In order for it to be a wash, the actual speed of the wolf has to be increased, and only then over short distances. Baseball is a good example. One of the biggest dangers is a pitch that strikes a batter in the head. Faster nerves would allow the batter to recognize the trajectory of the ball and react faster, and it is independent of how fast the nerves are in the pitcher. The speed of the pitch is determined by strength, not the velocity of nerve impulses.

 

[Loudmouth]

Well, when I step back and ponder how our design fits into the biosphere, I think it fits in with God's original intention: He made us to rule the place, and we do rule the place.

When all else fails, say whatever you want and pretend they are the words of God.

 

[Loudmouth]

The system you are describing is one of give and take
and compromise.

Why would God have to compromise?

The world's strongest engineered fiber, that you might use to tether
the moon to the earth, hypothetically, has a problem.

The fiber must support the weight of fiber.

God couldn't make a fiber without these problems?

But God did expertly design life, upon which we can not improve.

The problem for you is that the human design IS improved on in other lineages. For example, the cephalopod has a better eye design than humans. So why don't we have that improved design?

 

[Loudmouth]

How would you have designed the atom such that once you released the correct quantity "into the wild" that you'd end up with humans and everything else such that those humans and everything else would be better?

Why couldn't we have the forward facing retina found in squid and octopus instead of a backwards facing retina that loses resolution and light gathering due to passing light through nerve cells?

 

[rush1169]

Why couldn't we have the forward facing retina found in squid and octopus instead of a backwards facing retina that loses resolution and light gathering due to passing light through nerve cells?

I suppose you'd need to do a "what if" exercise and maybe make a list of implications assuming our retina was like that of a squid and see where that ends up. Maybe you'd find we would be yet another degree superior or maybe you'd find humans would never have come to be or maybe your study would be inconclusive. I look forward to what you come up with.

 

[Loudmouth]

I suppose you'd need to do a "what if" exercise and maybe make a list of implications assuming our retina was like that of a squid and see where that ends up.

If light didn't have to pass through other cells before hitting our photoreceptors, we would have increased resolution and light sensitivity. We would have a better eye in every way.