Unintelligent Design?

Endbag · Nov 16, 2011

Anyone ever wonder why much of creation seems to be made by a very poor designer?

Take for instance the human body: why would God place a procreation/entertainment system (penis, vagina) with a sewage system (urinary tract)? Why would God not give us different orifices to breath and eat/drink? Just imagine, there would never have been anyone to die of choking.

Papias · Nov 16, 2011

Yes, thinking creatures were designed from the start would really cause problems. Those are good examples from the human body (and what kind of designer would give us muscles to erect our body hairs that serve no function?). Or our appendix. The animal kingdom has too many to count. For instance-

Who would design a fully aquatic creature like a whale and give it lungs instead of gills? Duh - an air breathing thing in the water.

Or make a giraffe with only 7 neck vertebrae so it can't take a drink without practically going through a yoga routine? How about that silly wiring of the nerve in the giraffe's neck, which, instead of simply going from the brain to the throat, goes from the brain, wraps around the heart (with no connections), then goes up to the throat, running 15 feet of unneeded nerve?

How about them sea turtles, that have to flounder onto land to lay their eggs? Why not just have them lay their eggs in the water, like fish?

Or make useless eyes on all those blind cave salamanders and blind cave fish? Gotta love those dodo and ostrich wings! Hey, yeah, let's put useless wings on flightless creatures, that they can just carry around.....

Let's make the kidneys of land vertebrates work to remove water from their system, and then also make them thirsty so they have to make up that water by drinking often, or die of thirst.

Let's make the majority of the DNA of all creatures unneeded, so they can just carry it around like those dodo wings.

Molecular biologists know of many other cases on a molecular level too.

The good thing is that all of this doesn't reflect poorly on our God, unless one subscribes to creationism. God created by using evolution, so all of these happen as a result. If God were the micro-manager described by creationists, then we'd have to conclude God were incompetent, or worse, intentionally cruel. Instead, evolution shows that our God is an awesome God, so powerful a creator, that he can create a creation able to fill in the details on it's own.

Papias

iambeeman · Nov 16, 2011

why would God place a procreation/entertainment system (penis, vagina) with a sewage system (urinary tract)?

Though I'm no expert, I would have to say this assessment is wrong. Urine is a sterile fluid and will actually help keep the reproductive system clean (some of it at least) otherwise one could expect infections in a system that isn't used nearly as often when one has 2 independent systems.

Why would God not give us different orifices to breath and eat/drink?

He would have had to notably increase the size of the neck, or breath out a hole in the chest and have no filtration system, sinuses or anything.

These aren't examples of poor design but rather design compromises that some people want to point so and say "see it was done wrong!" but just because they don't like the design doesn't make it wrong. Besides in things that are known to be intelligently designed (autos for instance) there loads of things that make you realize that though one person designed the system one way a different person would have done it totally different. This of course doesn't mean that either designer is wrong or unintelligent it simply means one designer made different compromises to achieve the end result.

Greg1234 · Nov 16, 2011

Endbag said:
Anyone ever wonder why much of creation seems to be made by a very poor designer?

Take for instance the human body: why would God place a procreation/entertainment system (penis, vagina) with a sewage system (urinary tract)? Why would God not give us different orifices to breath and eat/drink? Just imagine, there would never have been anyone to die of choking.

Regardless of your preferences, likes and dislikes, the Darwinian mechanism is incapable and an intelligent force is required.

Endbag · Nov 16, 2011

IAMBEEMAN - So you are saying that God compromised when he designed the human body? What a decidedly human characteristic to ascribe to the omnipotent, omnipresent, sovereign creator!

grasping the after wind · Nov 16, 2011

Endbag said:
IAMBEEMAN - So you are saying that God compromised when he designed the human body? What a decidedly human characteristic to ascribe to the omnipotent, omnipresent, sovereign creator!

The results are the same whether they were arrived at through a Creator initiated random evolutionary process(if one can even suppose that such a system should not be considered ID anyway) or through intelligent design, therefore criticism based on one's view of the in-adequateness of the results is equally valid for both. Unless you are arguing against a Creator, I can't see how this line of reasoning is more damaging to direct ID than it would be to Creator inititiated random evolution. Either God doesn't have a clue and can't get the design right or God doesn't have any idea what will happen when He starts a process in motion (and maybe really doesn't care what develops). In both scenarios the criticism remains that God is not all that bright or He would have done a better job of it. This is an argument that atheists like to use but I find it strange coming from a Presbyterian.

iambeeman · Nov 16, 2011

Endbag said:
So you are saying that God compromised when he designed the human body? What a decidedly human characteristic to ascribe to the omnipotent, omnipresent, sovereign creator!

God had to compromise to insure salvation for those who want to receive it when he gave us freedom of choice, I see no reason why he wouldn't do it to adhere to the physical laws he set in place at the creation of the universe. And don't forget, omnipotent doesn't mean that God can do anything.

Endbag · Nov 16, 2011

GRASPING AFTER THE WIND

The argument might be strange coming from a Presbyterian, but it is still a valid question, one which I continue to grapple with. I posited it to get feedback and ideas from other Christians about how they might answer.

Papias · Nov 17, 2011

I don't see why anyone finds it strange to hear this realization come from a presbyterian (or Catholic). It's as if Grasping after the wind expected "Christian" to equal "reality denier". It's a plain fact that these and many more "designs" are incompetent, incomplete, or cruel, and my post showed why this means we have an awesome God. To respond to reality by pretending it doesn't exist is hardly what I'd consider a Christian response, though apparently some other Christians here think that is indeed what it means to be Christian.

Papias

Iambeeman - you can see from female anatomy that urine is not needed to "clean out" the reproductive tract. The sinuses can still be connected to the airway, just don't cross the airway and throat (by the way, that's not something that endbag came up with, biologists have recognized that stupid design for years, if not centuries). Designs aren't a matter of taste, some simply work better than others. I hire engineers, and if an engineer came up with some of these designs, he'd be fired. You also didn't address any of the later ones discussed. It sounds more like you'd just rather avoid the question - I personally suspect that God gave us brains so they can be used to consider tough questions.

grasping the after wind · Nov 17, 2011

Papias said:
I don't see why anyone finds it strange to hear this realization come from a presbyterian (or Catholic). It's as if Grasping after the wind expected "Christian" to equal "reality denier". It's a plain fact that these and many more "designs" are incompetent, incomplete, or cruel, and my post showed why this means we have an awesome God. To respond to reality by pretending it doesn't exist is hardly what I'd consider a Christian response, though apparently some other Christians here think that is indeed what it means to be Christian.

Papias

Iambeeman - you can see from female anatomy that urine is not needed to "clean out" the reproductive tract. The sinuses can still be connected to the airway, just don't cross the airway and throat (by the way, that's not something that endbag came up with, biologists have recognized that stupid design for years, if not centuries). Designs aren't a matter of taste, some simply work better than others. I hire engineers, and if an engineer came up with some of these designs, he'd be fired. You also didn't address any of the later ones discussed. It sounds more like you'd just rather avoid the question - I personally suspect that God gave us brains so they can be used to consider tough questions.

You don't find it strange to hear a Christian argue that because there is not perfection ( as defined by human standards) then God must be either incompetent or non existent? I don't see how you came to the conclusion that anyone argues that Christian = reality denier. Reality is what it is but how we view the quality of the engineering is opinion not fact. Your assertion of incompetence is based on your human point of view and your bias toward what a human would consider efficient. Let me quote Isaiah 55:8

New International Version (©1984)
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
New Living Translation (©2007)
"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts," says the LORD. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

The reality is that your engineers could not,in their most brilliant moments, have conceived of the designs that God has put into place. Every single idea that they have ever had has been based upon the work that God has previously preformed and nothing they have ever come up with is not in complete conformity with God's design. You say God is awesome because He is incompetent, I say God is awesome because He knows what He is doing and I am the incompetent one because I can't understand the motivation behind God's designs.

Papias · Nov 17, 2011

Grasping after the Wind wrote:

Reality is what it is but how we view the quality of the engineering is opinion not fact. Your assertion of incompetence is based on your human point of view and your bias toward what a human would consider efficient

.

Wow, I've heard of moral relativism (the idea that we each have the morals that are true for us, and all of these are equally true), and that's bad enough. But to hear relativism extended to basic facts like efficiency and reality is even more extreme.

So, no, I don't agree with you that efficiency is just a matter of opinion. Efficiency can be calculated, and some designs are objectively more functional than others.

I can see GATW walking up to a Titanic survivor:
"Oh, that design to use carbon steel hulls? That's as good as any other design, it's just your opinion that it's worse, and in my opinion, it's fine."

Or GATW standing over a whale calf who drowned after birth before it could reach the surface to breathe (which happens often):
"Oh, that design to make a fully aquatic, live bearing animal unable to breathe water? That's as good as any other design, it's just your opinion that it's worse, and in my opinion, it's fine. See, in my mind you are still alive, and since I subscribe to factual relativism, you are just as alive as you are dead!"

Early submarines had to be diesel powered, because that's all we had at the time, then as soon as we invented power that didn't need to breathe air (nuclear), we made nuclear subs. Subs today are nuclear. We're not stupid. Similarly, it doesn't take a genius to design aquatic creatures with gills, not lungs. Evolution shows why whales are air breathing, while creationism instead makes it look like God is incompetent.

I can just imagine what an engineer may say, after he routed the phosphine degasser through the office space, killing everyone:

"Oh, that design of the phosphine degasser? That's as good as any other design, it's just your opinion that it's worse, and in my opinion, it's fine."

You say God is awesome because He is incompetent,

Please don't misrepresent what I say. I say that God is so incredible a creator that he can create a creation which itself has the ability to fill in the details, so God need not be a micromanager. Thus God is no more to blame for the many incompetent designs we see than God is to blame when I make a mistake. I don't see how acknowledging that some of God's creations, such as evoluiton or such as me, can make mistakes, in any way is calling someone else (God) incompetent.

I say God is awesome because He knows what He is doing and I am the incompetent one because I can't understand the motivation behind God's designs.

So because you ascribe to seeing God as a micro-manager, who fills in every detail of creation, you have to respond to the obvious and undeniable stupid designs in nature by denying not only that they are stupid designs, but that anything is objectively better than anything else. You go past moral relativism even to the point of factual relativism, the idea that we all have our own truth, and that all truths are equally true.

Papias

iambeeman · Nov 17, 2011

You also didn't address any of the later ones discussed. It sounds more like you'd just rather avoid the question

I didn't address them because I was addressing the OP. Also you posted while I was typing my response, and tending our 9 month old boy, and helping my disabled wife, and running a farm, and running a business. I have told you once before that I ignore the rude, please don't make me ignore you again.

you can see from female anatomy that urine is not needed to "clean out" the reproductive tract.

It does however help keep the vaginal opening clean, so my statement stands. (I hope by discussing this we aren't moving into inappropriate areas.)

The sinuses can still be connected to the airway, just don't cross the airway and throat

Please read my post. Your objection was addressed before you made it.

He would have had to notably increase the size of the neck, or breath out a hole in the chest and have no filtration system, sinuses or anything.

Papias, you claim that you hire engineers, may ask in what industry?

grasping the after wind · Nov 17, 2011

Papias said:
Grasping after the Wind wrote:

.

Wow, I've heard of moral relativism (the idea that we each have the morals that are true for us, and all of these are equally true), and that's bad enough. But to hear relativism extended to basic facts like efficiency and reality is even more extreme.

So, no, I don't agree with you that efficiency is just a matter of opinion. Efficiency can be calculated, and some designs are objectively more functional than others.

I can see GATW walking up to a Titanic survivor:
"Oh, that design to use carbon steel hulls? That's as good as any other design, it's just your opinion that it's worse, and in my opinion, it's fine."

Or GATW standing over a whale calf who drowned after birth before it could reach the surface to breathe (which happens often):
"Oh, that design to make a fully aquatic, live bearing animal unable to breathe water? That's as good as any other design, it's just your opinion that it's worse, and in my opinion, it's fine. See, in my mind you are still alive, and since I subscribe to factual relativism, you are just as alive as you are dead!"

Early submarines had to be diesel powered, because that's all we had at the time, then as soon as we invented power that didn't need to breathe air (nuclear), we made nuclear subs. Subs today are nuclear. We're not stupid. Similarly, it doesn't take a genius to design aquatic creatures with gills, not lungs. Evolution shows why whales are air breathing, while creationism instead makes it look like God is incompetent.

I can just imagine what an engineer may say, after he routed the phosphine degasser through the office space, killing everyone:

"Oh, that design of the phosphine degasser? That's as good as any other design, it's just your opinion that it's worse, and in my opinion, it's fine."

Please don't misrepresent what I say. I say that God is so incredible a creator that he can create a creation which itself has the ability to fill in the details, so God need not be a micromanager. Thus God is no more to blame for the many incompetent designs we see than God is to blame when I make a mistake. I don't see how acknowledging that some of God's creations, such as evoluiton or such as me, can make mistakes, in any way is calling someone else (God) incompetent.

So because you ascribe to seeing God as a micro-manager, who fills in every detail of creation, you have to respond to the obvious and undeniable stupid designs in nature by denying not only that they are stupid designs, but that anything is objectively better than anything else. You go past moral relativism even to the point of factual relativism, the idea that we all have our own truth, and that all truths are equally true.

Papias

I now have seen more Strawmen in one post than I have ever encountered before. I suggest you might try a reading comprehension class .

Papias · Nov 18, 2011

Iambeeman wrote:

I didn't address them because I was addressing the OP. Also you posted while I was typing my response, and tending our 9 month old boy, and helping my disabled wife, and running a farm, and running a business. I have told you once before that I ignore the rude, please don't make me ignore you again.

I'm not sure why which post it was in mattered, but yep, we all have lives. We can come back to all those other bad designs after we discuss these, if you like.

It does however help keep the vaginal opening clean, so my statement stands. (I hope by discussing this we aren't moving into inappropriate areas.)

First, because your "urine cleaining hypothesis" doesn't apply to all of it, then it clearly isn't needed. Secondly, many creationists claim that there was no disease bacteria before the fall (when the designing supposedly happened), so that too invalidates your response. Thirdly, we can see that if that really were the plan, then the urethra would have been made sufficiently long - as it is now, women get UTIs all the time because the urethra is designed to be too short.

Please read my post. Your objection was addressed before you made it.

He would have had to notably increase the size of the neck, or breath out a hole in the chest and have no filtration system, sinuses or anything.

Except that your "neck size" approach is based on a lack of understand on basic anatomy. In the neck, the esophagus and larynx are already two different pipes, so making them two different pipes would not add any neck size.

Papias, you claim that you hire engineers, may ask in what industry?

Sure. Electronics industry.

***********************************************

GATW wrote:

I now have seen more Strawmen in one post than I have ever encountered before. I suggest you might try a reading comprehension class .

Grasping after the wind, you might want to look back and check your post. You may have accidentally posted before finishing it or such, because your post is just an insult without addressing any of the logical points made in the post you were going to respond to.

Papias

shernren · Nov 18, 2011

I still disagree with the "inefficient design" argument, for the simple reason that efficiency is specified completely by one's design goals. A car is a relatively inefficient way to produce motive power from the burning of fossil fuels, because it's made out of so much metal which is very heavy. But the metal is necessary if a car is seen as a way to transport people. The two goals are related, and yet what is an inefficiency according to one goal is a required feature according to another goal.

Similarly, are Rube Goldberg designs inefficient? Of course! And yet they are singularly efficient at making us laugh. Rube Goldberg wasn't unintelligent, he just had a different design goal.

Is it inefficient for the giraffe to have a nerve that loops around through its neck? Not if God, designing the giraffe, was actually saying to Himself: Hmm, I wonder how long I can make this nerve? From that point of view, the design is pretty darn near to optimal.

Of course, one could take issue with God's supposed design criteria in that case. One could (rightly) ask if God is being capricious, whimsical or just plain immoral in choosing His design criteria. But that is quite different from saying God doesn't know how to design.

iambeeman · Nov 19, 2011

First, because your "urine cleaining hypothesis" doesn't apply to all of it, then it clearly isn't needed.

So a system that that uses more than one approach is invalid? I think most people would call that a system with a better chance of working (redundancy factors).

Secondly, many creationists claim that there was no disease bacteria before the fall (when the designing supposedly happened), so that too invalidates your response.

That is a gross over simplification. Besides "All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain." Rev 13:8, God knew what we where going to need after the fall and the flood of Noah so he equipped us with what we would need.

Thirdly, we can see that if that really were the plan, then the urethra would have been made sufficiently long - as it is now, women get UTIs all the time because the urethra is designed to be too short.

This to is over simplified. Diet plays a huge part in UTIs. With the right diet the majority of women find that their UTIs are on par with their husbands. Hog farmers as well know that pigs (sows in particular) have urinary tract problems but if they are able to give them water with high iron bacteria counts they virtually eliminate all the problems.

Except that your "neck size" approach is based on a lack of understand on basic anatomy. In the neck, the esophagus and larynx are already two different pipes, so making them two different pipes would not add any neck size.

Sorry! I have no idea where that picture in my head came from! I've seen enough necks cut open that I should have known better. But the design we have does allow excess mucus to be swallowed rather than being expelled and causing disease to be spread much more efficiently.

Sure. Electronics industry.

Are you familiar with the "Y" and delta wound alternating generators?

juvenissun · Nov 20, 2011

Endbag said:
Anyone ever wonder why much of creation seems to be made by a very poor designer?

Take for instance the human body: why would God place a procreation/entertainment system (penis, vagina) with a sewage system (urinary tract)? Why would God not give us different orifices to breath and eat/drink? Just imagine, there would never have been anyone to die of choking.

I am sure they are big mistakes caused by the evolution processes.
They prove that evolution is wrong.

ng4760 · Nov 20, 2011

Endbag said:
Anyone ever wonder why much of creation seems to be made by a very poor designer?

Take for instance the human body: why would God place a procreation/entertainment system (penis, vagina) with a sewage system (urinary tract)? Why would God not give us different orifices to breath and eat/drink? Just imagine, there would never have been anyone to die of choking.

I heard this on a Howard Stern show when I use to listen to his garbage.

My answer is that our human brains can not understand the mind of God.

Either he is real and in control or he is not.

Assyrian · Nov 21, 2011

ng4760 said:
I heard this on a Howard Stern show when I use to listen to his garbage.

My answer is that our human brains can not understand the mind of God.

Either he is real and in control or he is not.

Then you pull the ground out from under any attempt to see God as a human designer too.

Papias · Nov 21, 2011

Iambeeman wrote:

So a system that that uses more than one approach is invalid? I think most people would call that a system with a better chance of working (redundancy factors).

No, but your proposal that urine is set up to clean the reproductive area, when it only covers a small fraction of it, shows that it is not needed (because the area without it works fine). Redundancy is fine, but a redundant system would need to apply to more of the system to be relevant. Besides, if God were to micromange that, then many other solutions are easy to imagine, such as an antibiotic secretion that keeps the whole system bacteria free, and for redundancy, 5 other compounds produced that way, and many other much better designs.

That is a gross over simplification. Besides "All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain." Rev 13:8, God knew what we where going to need after the fall and the flood of Noah so he equipped us with what we would need.

First, could you explain the relevance of the Rev verse? I don't see it yet - sorry.

Next, the idea that God designed everything with the plan of the fall happening raises so many problems that it's hard to know where to start. For one thing, the fact that there is so much disease, medical problems, and so on show that if God did intend to "equip us with what we would need", then he's abysmally failed in that too, again making the creationist approach end up calling God incompetent. The other problems are off topic, I think for this forum, so I'll stop there.

This to is over simplified. Diet plays a huge part in UTIs. With the right diet the majority of women find that their UTIs are on par with their husbands. Hog farmers as well know that pigs (sows in particular) have urinary tract problems but if they are able to give them water with high iron bacteria counts they virtually eliminate all the problems.

So are you saying that it was God's plan for diet and other things to solve the UTI's that he planned, yet he didn't tell us what that diet was? It also seems odd that it's a medically accepted fact that women are more prone to UTI's - so if the diet thing really did solve that issue, then why would it still be common medical knowledge? I don't dispute that diet can play a role (it must with practically every aspect of health), but I don't see any evidence for your assertion that the gender difference is erased by proper diet. Do you have evidence for that?

Sorry! I have no idea where that picture in my head came from! I've seen enough necks cut open that I should have known better.

That's understandable. We all make mistakes like that.

But the design we have does allow excess mucus to be swallowed rather than being expelled and causing disease to be spread much more efficiently.

Yes, but several thoughts come to mind. For one, if the epiglottis were higher, say in the sinuses, then mucus could still be swallowed and choking would be eliminated. Secondly, swallowing mucus is not needed anyway as it is, since mucus is also produced in the larynx and lungs, and it is absorbed from those with no problem. Thirdly, if God were to micromanage this then even if the first two points above weren't true, then wouldn't it be trivially easy for an omnipotent God to give us a system that didnt' require mucus to drain (by providing a different thing for "mucus", or many other solutions).

Are you familiar with the "Y" and delta wound alternating generators?

I am not. I'm in silicon chip type electronics industry, not in the electrical industry.

Papias

Unintelligent Design?

Newbie

Listening to TW4

Newbie

In the beginning was El

Newbie

That's grasping after the wind

Newbie

Newbie

Listening to TW4

That's grasping after the wind

Listening to TW4

Newbie

That's grasping after the wind

Listening to TW4

you are not reading this.

Newbie

... and God saw that it was good.

Newbie

Basically pulling an Obama (Thanks Calminian!)

Listening to TW4

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