A fascinating video on the vacuity of Macro Evolution for

gradyll said:

it's an article questioning evolution. ID is off topic. and all ID related posts will be reported. make a new thread please.

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Actually, technically speaking it is an article about biological structures and how their complexity is explicable by design. It's explicitly in the article itself. It does, indeed, question the use of "neo-Darwinian" development to explain these features but the primary hypothesis is...well, you know, you have a PhD in evolutionary biology!

As a PhD scientist in evolutionary biology can you explain Shannon Entropy to me and how it relates to biology?

Thanks again!

I must also point out that the author of the paper itself is a professor of thermodynamics and combustion. Is his PhD in the correct field?

I've been a bit surprised at all the fuss about the feather paper being 'peer reviewed' - all that means is that some of the journal's review panel decided it was worth publishing. Whether that is significant depends on the reviewers available to the journal - which is why the typical criteria in the field for whether a paper is worth a read is 'publication in a respected peer-reviewed journal'.

The journal in question is small, but seems respectable enough (a result of the merger in 2008 of the International Journal of Ecodynamics and the International Journal of Design & Nature).

Looking at the paper, it's significant that the journal editor has prefaced it with a disclaimer:


They clearly published it as an opinion piece to provoke discussion (hoping it will "promote the exchange of ideas in this important topic").

Looking at the paper contents, the author bases his argument on the irreducible complexity of feathers and their 'specified functional complexity', both concepts that have been shown to be fatally flawed in recent years. This may not have been quite so obvious when the paper was written (prior to 2009).

Several plausible models for the evolutionary development of feathers have been proposed (some behavioural stages of which are observable in contemporary birds), and recent fossil discoveries of 'proto-feathers' support these models. Specified functional complexity has been shown to be a flawed mix of ill-defined semantics, circular argument, and incorrectly applied mathematics intended to bolster intelligent design and strike a blow against evolution; it's not taken seriously in the science community.

Just sayin'

DogmaHunter said:

The human eye? If done on purpose, it is very poorly designed indeed. The design itself is ugly: wiring in front of the photoreceptors
The design is inefficient: it requires additional energy to compensate for backwards design. It's exactly what happens in the human eye. The wiring is essentially backwards.

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so you are claiming that the human retina is design backward and therefore it's a bad design. but you are actually wrong:

Here’s Why Your Eyes Seem to Be Wired 'Backward' | Smart News | Smithsonian




Evolution gave flawed eye better vision


so this design is actually a good design, as we can predict under the design model and not at all under the evolution one. once again we can see why evolution is a bad science and the argument from "bad design" is itself a bad argument.

DogmaHunter said:

An octopus, for example, doesn't have this problem.

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are you aware about the fact that octopus is actually a color blind?

AirPo said:

An eye with a blind spot. Seems id means idiot design.

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see above. you where wrong about this.

xianghua said:

see above. you where wrong about this.

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The human eye has a blind spot, that's a fact. You can even see for yourself here.