The Complexity of the Human Body Indicates Intelligent Design

[lucaspa]

I think there is a misconception of "poor design" in the human body. I think (notice think, I obviously don't have any science to back this claim, although I'm not sure it really needs it) that the human body is perfect for the plan that God has for us.

Now you are begging the question with the ad hoc hypothesis of "God's plan".

The analogy of Jesus does not work because that depends on a human misunderstanding of something God told them about: the Messiah.

We are not misunderstanding that the design is stupid for what it is intended to do. WE could design better. God, being smarter than us, could also design better.

So now you have to postulate that it is God's plan for us to suffer because of the bad design. When you come up with that, let us know.

 

[lucaspa]

It involves many engineering tradeoffs

What tradeoffs? What tradeoff could there possibly be in putting the nerves behind the retina instead of in front? After all, God did so in octopi and they work just fine, don't they? Is God suffering from Alzheimer's and forgot He designed octopi eyes better than human ones?

God institutes a repair system for bone, but forgets to put one in for the intervertebral discs? So we all suffer from degenerative discs as we get older and many of us are in pain? It's part of God's "perfect" plan that He makes a design that guarantees some of us are in pain? Most of us. Not all. Where is the justice in that?

Sorry, but no matter how you slice it, having God directly make humans insults God's character.

Having humans made by natural selection, OTOH, gets God off the hook creationism put Him on.

 

[lucaspa]

What's to say we aren't perfect for what we were designed to do?

Simple. We were designed to walk upright. BUT, our intervertebral discs aren't strong enough to withstand the wear and tear of that. Bone has a repair mechanism to compensate. Discs do not.

So, all we have to do is compare what God did in part of us and what God did in the rest of us. IOW, use special creation to compare God's designs to God's designs. If God is smart enough and capable enough to do a good design in one place, you have to wonder why He wasnt smart enough or capable enough to do it in another.

Instead, you have to invoke the Argument from Ignorance (we don't know what God's plan is) to try to rescue God from being either incompetent or a sadist.

If God created us by evolution, the problem is solved. Natural selection designed us.

You are working too hard on preserving your idea of how God should create instead of protecting God. IOW, you are placing the welfare of your ideas above the welfare of God. Is that a good idea?

There's a lot of compensation in our body that has to be there for it ALL to work. I think once we start to envision our idea of a perfect human it falls apart very quickly.

No. A couple of scientists did some speculation on what humans would look like if we were designed to live a long time (like before the "Fall"). No problem, but a lot different from what we do look like.

SJ Olshansky, BA Carnes, RN Butler If we were built to last. Scientific American 284: 50-55, March 2001.