Why does this creature have legs?

[tas8831]

I thought i did answer?

My response was/is, that seals do not have "legs".

And yet they have all the bones for them.

Sort of like a submarine with a heliport inside it.

 

[tas8831]

Who claims perfect design ?

At best, God said that it was "good".

Creationist OldWiseGuy, for one.

And, as an engineer, due to the species' endurance and capability, I'd have to agree that the design was good.

Other factors to include in a determination of good design are interest, artistry, niche/fit within the natural order, etc.

Quaint.

As an engineer - would YOU have put the bones of a terrestrial quadruped in a creature better adapted to life in the sea?"

 

[A_Thinker]

Creationist OldWiseGuy, for one.

Quaint.

As an engineer - would YOU have put the bones of a terrestrial quadruped in a creature better adapted to life in the sea?"

Depends upon my purpose ... and methodology ...

Bad design doesn't work.

Seals work quite well ...

 

[brinny]

brinny said: ↑
I thought i did answer?

My response was/is, that seals do not have "legs".

And yet they have all the bones for them.

Sort of like a submarine with a heliport inside it.

Their bones are supporting, and are necessary, for their "flippers".

It seems they don't have "feet" either.

 

[akaDaScribe]

Creationist OldWiseGuy, for one.



Quaint.

As an engineer - would YOU have put the bones of a terrestrial quadruped in a creature better adapted to life in the sea?"

Pretty much every machine of value is a knockoff of nature and nature is usually what we study to figure out how to make things. Look more at the animal's overall functionality than what it looks like. If I remember correctly, they can go in ridiculously cold water. Also, remember the its a whole ecosystem that has to be considered.

 

[Hank77]

The unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate hoax. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals: the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans.

How creative can a creator be?

Platypus - Wikipedia

 

[DogmaHunter]

Ummmm....what "legs"?

These legs:

Don't know about you, but I'm seeing knees, ankles, toes,...
I'm seeing every bone I expect to see in a land-dwelling animal.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Seals are par excellence in water...it's almost like they were "made for it".

Yet, looking at their skeleton, their legs look like they were "made for" living on land.
Honestly, when you see this:

Do you expect this to be the legs of a land animal, or a sea animal with things that look more like flippers then legs?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Bad design doesn't work.

That is simply not true.

I can write you horribly designed code, "bad code" by every single rule of the art of coding, yet deliver a working application.

I can also give you a horrible design of cabling in your house, where I take the cable from the modem all the way up to the attic, down again to the cellar, 5x around the house, once accross the street, back to your garden, up to the attic again and then back down to plug it into your pc. HORRIBLE design of cabling. But your pc will work just fine and it will be able to access the internet despite this horrible cabling design.


See? It's not even dificult to come up with such examples. I can give you 50 more in a heartbeat if you want.

 

[DogmaHunter]

The unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate hoax. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals: the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans.

How creative can a creator be?

Platypus - Wikipedia

Does the platypus still "baffle" biologists/geneticists/"naturalists"/... etc?

No? How about that.

 

[tas8831]

Is it hard to be so disappointed with the world that you live in?

I am disappointed that so many of my fellow humans have opted to be 'certain but wrong' rather than 'uncertain and correct', to paraphrase the creationist OldWiseGuy (who thinks creation is perfect). I think Darwin sums up my thoughts quite nicely:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."​

and also:

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”​

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

The unusual appearance of this egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal baffled European naturalists when they first encountered it, with some considering it an elaborate hoax. It is one of the few species of venomous mammals: the male platypus has a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans.

How creative can a creator be?

Platypus - Wikipedia

Indefinitively creative... but what evidence is there of any creator, let alone that anything were created?

 

[tas8831]

They appear to be the necessary bones for their appendages for flippers, that they are expert at using in marvelous ways.

But "legs"?

Have you seen them on land?

Yes. They hobble around like they had their legs tied together.

 

[A_Thinker]

Bad design doesn't work.

I can write you horribly designed code, "bad code" by every single rule of the art of coding, yet deliver a working application.

Of course, you can have outlier examples of bad design.

Perhaps I should say that bad design doesn't endure/prosper in the natural world.

Bad design will, ultimately, be displaced by better design.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Of course, you can have outlier examples of bad design.

It's really not an "outlier" at all.
Bad design doesn't, by any means, imply non-functionality. At all.

Perhaps I should say that bad design doesn't endure/prosper in the natural world.

That's not true either.
For living organisms to endure (that is to say: survive till breeding age and then reproduce) in nature, they need not have "good" design. Instead, they should just be "good enough".

Suppose for a moment that a design flaw in the genetics of humans causes EVERY single human to get terminal cancer at the age of 35.

That wouldn't mean the end of humans at all. In fact, until actually rather recently, the average life expectancy of humans was around that age. For most of human history, only the lucky few managed to become older then 30. If you were one of the lucky ones and became 40, chances were rather big that you would have had grand children, if not grand-grand-children.

So no..... bad design can manage just fine in nature as well.

Looking at software again...
I can make you an app with HORRIBLE user experience and TERRIBLE UI functionality, but with exquisite design which would make every ICT architect drool.

Likewise, I can make you a KILLER app with AMAZING UI functionality, but with such horrible design that it would make ICT architects wanting to revoke my conceptual license to code.

The point is, good/bad design, is NOT measured by functionality of the end product.
Off course good/bad design can have an impact on the end product - but it doesn't need to at all, nore is the end product's functionality the standard against which good/bad design is evaluated.​

Case in point, when I do code reviews of my team members, I don't even run the application. Or the unit tests. The output doesn't interest me. Wheter it works or not at that particular time doesn't interest me. What interests me is the design of the code. The structure. How it is build up. Where which method gets called, how and why.

Half the time, when I do code reviews, I don't even know what part of the application it runs in. On some occasions, I don't even know what the app does or what its main purpose is. I'm just looking at code and evaluating overall architecture and logic. The output is irrelevant.

Bad design will, ultimately, be displaced by better design.

Not necessarily.

If my badly designed killer app is making millions, I'll just leave it untouched in the store, continuing to make millions.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

If my badly designed killer app is making millions, I'll just leave it untouched in the store, continuing to make millions.

<cough>microsoft in the 1990's</cough>

 

[DogmaHunter]

<cough>microsoft in the 1990's</cough>

Hahaha, good point, good point!

And it works both ways as well... now that you mention microsoft.

Take Windows Phone/Mobile. The last iteration of windows 10 mobile was absolutely outstanding! Extremely elegant and lightweight design both in UI as well as under the hood. Truelly a fantastic system, and in many ways lightyears ahead of iOs and Android (for realz....).

It's dead now.

Because the world has chosen the absolutely stinking horrible design of Android.


Prime example of an instance where good design lost the battle against bad design.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

Hahaha, good point, good point!

And it works both ways as well... now that you mention microsoft.

Take Windows Phone/Mobile. The last iteration of windows 10 mobile was absolutely outstanding! Extremely elegant and lightweight design both in UI as well as under the hood. Truelly a fantastic system, and in many ways lightyears ahead of iOs and Android (for realz....).

It's dead now.

Because the world has chosen the absolutely stinking horrible design of Android.


Prime example of an instance where good design lost the battle against bad design.

HEH! Almost like ecosystems and intelligent design are separate non-interlinked things...!

 

[A_Thinker]

That's not true either.

For living organisms to endure (that is to say: survive till breeding age and then reproduce) in nature, they need not have "good" design. Instead, they should just be "good enough".

Good vs. "good enough" ... pretty much determined upon arbitrary preferences ... which may differ from designer to designer.

Once again, it all depends upon what the purpose is for the design. The purpose might be a demonstration of how something which does not conform to what might be considered "obvious design" can still be functional and successful.

Looking at software again...

I can make you an app with HORRIBLE user experience and TERRIBLE UI functionality, but with exquisite design which would make every ICT architect drool.

Likewise, I can make you a KILLER app with AMAZING UI functionality, but with such horrible design that it would make ICT architects wanting to revoke my conceptual license to code.

But again, ... you are depending upon a human definition of good design, ... which can be different for every designer/consumer. Your own point here makes the case that, certainly, it is different for the average end user.

Having designed software as well, I know that one article of good design ... is to design in such a way that future engineers have the easiest/clearest path to making modifications and/or corrections. But if it is anticipated that there will be no others working on the coding ... or future changes to the coding, that purpose is not as relevant.

To effectively critique design, one must know ALL of the intended purposes of the design ... or at least, a good measure of the design intent.

If I'm designing a software patch that is only intended to last until the hotly anticipated next complete software release, it may be foolish to waste resources upon making the design as if it was going to be the next release.

I agree with an earlier sentiment on the thread that it is difficult for any man/woman to critique a design which has been successful for many times longer than anything designed by any men/women to-date ...

 

[A_Thinker]

Because the world has chosen the absolutely stinking horrible design of Android.

Prime example of an instance where good design lost the battle against bad design.

Who, ultimately, gets to determine what is ... and what is not, ... "good design" ?