Intelligent Design isn’t intelligent

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

im not sure i understand miller (because of the english i guess). if this "backward structure" improve vision then its a good design.

His point is that the simplest sensors-at-the-back arrangement would be inferior to the equivalent sensors-at-the-front arrangement, but that evolution has honed the 'plumbing' at the front so that it turns a disadvantage into an advantage.

so an octopus see better than human?

Probably not, by human standards - it has been selected according a different set of priorities. Likewise, a human eye wouldn't be as effective for an octopus.

 

[DogmaHunter]

who said its a problem for evolution? funny.

You?
Isn't that the point of every post you make on this topic? To attack the solid science of biology?

 

[xianghua]

His point is that the simplest sensors-at-the-back arrangement would be inferior to the equivalent sensors-at-the-front arrangement, but that evolution has honed the 'plumbing' at the front so that it turns a disadvantage into an advantage.

im still not sure what he wnat to say. bottom line- is this kind of design improve vision or not? according to scientists the retina is actually an optimal structure:

Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 158102 (2010) - Retinal Glial Cells Enhance Human Vision Acuity

The retina is revealed as an optimal structure designed for improving the sharpness of images

so miller is wrong about that.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

im still not sure what he wnat to say. bottom line- is this kind of design improve vision or not? according to scientists the retina is actually an optimal structure:

Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 158102 (2010) - Retinal Glial Cells Enhance Human Vision Acuity

The retina is revealed as an optimal structure designed for improving the sharpness of images

so miller is wrong about that.

What he suggests is very simple - evolution has made the best of what would otherwise be a poor arrangement - by modifying the intervening layers so that the arrangement now outperforms an unmodified sensors-at-top layout (although we can't know what improvements evolution might have made to such a layout had it occurred in mammalian eyes).

 

[tas8831]

I hope that you remember sin is in the equation.

What is Sin, and how does it affect genomes?

 

[Ophiolite]

I hope that you remember sin is in the equation.

It is whimsical, and no more than that, to find that in "the equation" are the words "quote in hate".

 

[xianghua]

What he suggests is very simple - evolution has made the best of what would otherwise be a poor arrangement - by modifying the intervening layers so that the arrangement now outperforms an unmodified sensors-at-top layout (although we can't know what improvements evolution might have made to such a layout had it occurred in mammalian eyes).

im still not sure. anyway- since miller cant prove that if it was in the opposite direction it will improve vision- then its just his belief. unless he can create a better eye. but he cant.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

His point is that the simplest sensors-at-the-back arrangement would be inferior to the equivalent sensors-at-the-front arrangement, but that evolution has honed the 'plumbing' at the front so that it turns a disadvantage into an advantage.

Probably not, by human standards - it has been selected according a different set of priorities. Likewise, a human eye wouldn't be as effective for an octopus.

It was never a disadvantage. It keeps man from going blind in direct sunlight, which is exactly what would occur if the sensors were at the front and not turned around according to you all - i.e., sub-optimal. The octopus on the other hand needs eyes designed for low light sensitivity and refraction.

Poor eye design? Tell that to an eagle that can see a rabbit at 3.2 kilometers away or a fish under the surface of the water. Now put that eagle underwater and its vision would be useless, not enough light gathering power. Likewise stick an octopus in a tree and it wouldn't see anything but go blind......

Each eye has been perfectly designed for the function it was needed for.....

 

[Justatruthseeker]

im still not sure. anyway- since miller cant prove that if it was in the opposite direction it will improve vision- then its just his belief. unless he can create a better eye. but he cant.

because each eye was designed for a specific purpose. Take an eagle which can see rabbits at 3.2 km or fish under the surface. But that same binocular power on man and he would never be able to function. Take an octapus eye, sees great in water under low light conditions and refraction and diffusion. put it in a tree and it would go blind, too much unfiltered light.

its not poor eye design, it is perfect eye design for the situation.....

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It was never a disadvantage. It keeps man from going blind in direct sunlight, which is exactly what would occur if the sensors were at the front and not turned around according to you all - i.e., sub-optimal. The octopus on the other hand needs eyes designed for low light sensitivity and refraction.

Please try to grasp that what is sub-optimal is the initial layout, not the evolutionary implementation.

As for direct sunlight, the most significant moderator of intensity is the iris. It is the iris that facilitates sensitivity through a wide range of intensities. Superficial sensors can function perfectly well in direct sunlight, given appropriate sensitivity and decent irises. With suitable (evolutionary) modifications, both arrangements cope well with low light sensitivity and refraction; e.g. nocturnal owls and archerfish, respectively.

Each eye has been perfectly designed for the function it was needed for.....

Not exactly. Each eye has evolved according to how effective it was in a given environment.

But both layouts are capable of excellent performance - given a few hundred thousand years of evolutionary refinement.

 

[tas8831]

It was never a disadvantage. It keeps man from going blind in direct sunlight, which is exactly what would occur if the sensors were at the front and not turned around according to you all - i.e., sub-optimal.

Are you claiming that because of the few-nanometers-thick axons and such that are in front of the photoreceptors in the retina - axons that are, for all intents and purposes transparent at this level, we can look directly at the sun with no problems?

 

[Erik Nelson]

arguments in favor of ID

https://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2019/03/averick-takes-on-the-god-of-the-gaps-objection/

 

[Jimmy D]

arguments in favor of ID

https://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2019/03/averick-takes-on-the-god-of-the-gaps-objection/

What is the thrust of his argument? (I can't listen to it).

Thanks.

 

[Erik Nelson]

What is the thrust of his argument? (I can't listen to it).

Thanks.

are you sure? It takes a while to load...and try long pressing on the player bar to unfurl a popup context menu...then choose play from those menu options

 

[Jimmy D]

are you sure? It takes a while to load...and try long pressing on the player bar to unfurl a popup context menu...then choose play from those menu options

Pretty sure, I've got no speakers!

No problem though, I'll give it a listen when I get home tonight.

 

[Erik Nelson]

Pretty sure, I've got no speakers!

No problem though, I'll give it a listen when I get home tonight.

basic argument is that even a single cell is too complex to have gradually evolved, instead suggesting design

 

[The Barbarian]

Well, there's the question of whether a biblical account of reality is consistent with evolution. My concerns are specifically related to how Abrahamic religions approach the question of suffering. If suffering is and has always been built into the natural order of things and was not a result of the Fall, then the whole notion of divine providence seems to collapse, unless propped up by a novel conception of how evolution fits in with Christian theology and divine goodness.

It's a problem if you assume that God decided to get even with all living things because He was upset that man had sinned. It's not a problem if you realize the "death" and suffering He told Adam he would experience was a spiritual death and suffering because he was man. Notice the pains God talks about are because we are human, not something other living things endure.

This is probably the wrong part of the forum for these particular questions, though. I just don't like to see theistic evolutionists focus exclusively on the scientific issues, both because theistic evolution tends to just get wrapped into atheistic evolution

"Atheistic evolution" is a sort of boogeyman. It doesn't really exist, but it's used to scare children. You might as well speak of "atheistic gravity."

and because there are genuine theological issues involved. There's certainly an argument to be made that evolution is too cruel to be reconciled with Christian theism, which may be an underlying issue for some Creationists.

I notice that those who make that argument usually eat meat produced in conditions vastly worse than we see in nature. So I'm less inclined to take the argument seriously.

(Though I don't see how ID would help them here.)

Dr. Pangloss would have loved it.

 

[The Barbarian]

basic argument is that even a single cell is too complex to have gradually evolved, instead suggesting design

Two gaping holes in that argument:
1. If God just magically poofed the first living things into existence, as Darwin assumed, evolution would act and look exactly the way it does now.

2. The Philip Johnson objective; "Gee, I can't figure out how it happened, and I'm a really smart lawyer, so it must be impossible", is merely argument from ignorance.

There's an important clue in the fact that the first organelle absolutely essential for cellular life is the simplest organelle in structure and chemical makeup. And yet, it's chemically self-organizing and spontaneously assembles into a functional organelle.

So the argument isn't taken very seriously by anyone with any familiarity with biology and biochemistry. Probably seems like an impossible thing to some incurious lawyers, though.

 

[NBB]

So, you are saying that the design of animals, in large intelligent is no intelligent because a few 'defects'.

 

[NBB]

Nature can teach you a thing or two about design, so good that is not easy to understand, look at us people, we think, have intelligence, what is more intelligent, what was capable of making intelligence, or the intelligent part?? eh??