Why does this creature have legs?

akaDaScribe · Apr 27, 2018

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

View attachment 227250

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?

When you go to a website, or if you ever watched cartoons, or if you ever went into a best buy, do you notice how they all have themes? The style matches? Even in video games, most of the creatures that people make up are variations of the same basic skeleton and have a similar style. So you could look at it like evolution and/or like oh yeah, that's clearly the same artist.

DogmaHunter · Apr 27, 2018

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

No, not arbitrary at all, actually.

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.

I think I went enough out of my way to explain how good/bad design is NOT evaluated based on functionality of the end product...

But again, ... you are depending upon a human definition of good design,

Human designs, are the only ones we have actual examples off. So it's the only one I can talk about.

... which can be different for every designer/consumer.

Not really. Any software engineer worthy of the name will agree on what is good and bad design of software applications.

Your own point here makes the case that, certainly, it is different for the average end user.

It seems my point went over your head, because one of my points, was that the end product (or consumer) is not the standard against which good/bad design is evaluated.

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.

That is indeed one of the parameters, yes.
Note that this parameter is all about the BUILD UP of the code, and NOT of the functionality of the end product! An ugly 1000 line method can have the exact same output as an elegantly refactored collection of 10-line methods.

In fact.... in some cases, "good design" (according to the best practice rules of coding) might even result in a performance hit!
And again, we come to that point where "good design" and "usability of the end product" are two different things.

But if it is anticipated that there will be no others working on the coding, that purpose is not as relevant.

False. If there are bugs that you need to fix several months later, you might want to have a clear and neatly design codebase instead of a spaghetti, to find that line where it messes up.

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.

Not necessarily.

Take the laryngual nerve. I have NO CLUE what it does. But I DO know that it is absurd that it goes from the back of the brain, all the way down into the chest, loops around the aorta, only to go back up again to end up 2 inches from where it left.

It doesn't matter what the purpose of the nerve is. The fact is that it needs to go from point A to B and that it takes a ridiculously long detour. This is a waste of resources.

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.

So let's just hope that nothing goes wrong with the patch then.

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 ...

Organisms were designed by the blind process of evolution.

DogmaHunter · Apr 27, 2018

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

I guess all of us can do that.

There's just a right and wrong way to go about it.

And if you're going to evaluate the quality of a design, based only on the end product's functionality, then you're doing it wrong.

I gave enoughe examples already about how both good and bad design can produce the exact same end result.

DogmaHunter · Apr 27, 2018

akaDaScribe said:
When you go to a website, or if you ever watched cartoons, or if you ever went into a best buy, do you notice how they all have themes? The style matches? Even in video games, most of the creatures that people make up are variations of the same basic skeleton and have a similar style. So you could look at it like evolution and/or like oh yeah, that's clearly the same artist.

That makes no sense.

If I would design an aquatic creature, I'm wouldn't give it the legs of a land dwelling animal.

Furthermore, your point completely fails on the count that only a select few of sea dwelling creatures have skeletons that match skeletons found in land animals.

Unsurprisingly, only sea dwelling creatures that evolved from land animals, have such skeletons.

In evolution, that is exactly what we would expect.
In creationism, the only "explanation" you can give is shrugging your shoulders and saying "well, that's how the designer made it..."

There's no such "theme" in sea creatures at all. Your argument makes no sense.

A_Thinker · Apr 27, 2018

DogmaHunter said:
There's just a right and wrong way to go about it.

That's a judgment ... that not everyone agrees to ...

DogmaHunter said:
And if you're going to evaluate the quality of a design, based only on the end product's functionality, then you're doing it wrong.

Another, obviously, non-universal judgment ...

akaDaScribe · Apr 27, 2018

DogmaHunter said:
That makes no sense.

If I would design an aquatic creature, I'm wouldn't give it the legs of a land dwelling animal.

Furthermore, your point completely fails on the count that only a select few of sea dwelling creatures have skeletons that match skeletons found in land animals.

Unsurprisingly, only sea dwelling creatures that evolved from land animals, have such skeletons.

In evolution, that is exactly what we would expect.
In creationism, the only "explanation" you can give is shrugging your shoulders and saying "well, that's how the designer made it..."

There's no such "theme" in sea creatures at all. Your argument makes no sense.

Have you ever worked on the artwork for games? That's what you do for different creatures whenever possible, you just modify the skeleton proportions. Why? Well for starters it means you can use the same animations for the different creatures. You might vary the animations a little, but it saves a lot of work to not have to do animations for each character from scratch. Maybe that's a better way explaining what I'm trying to say.

Actually even in other applications, you would modify code that is solid and functioning properly if you had tasks with similar functions rather than trying to come up with a completely new set of code just to make it different.

A_Thinker · Apr 27, 2018

DogmaHunter said:
Take the laryngual nerve. I have NO CLUE what it does. But I DO know that it is absurd that it goes from the back of the brain, all the way down into the chest, loops around the aorta, only to go back up again to end up 2 inches from where it left.

It doesn't matter what the purpose of the nerve is. The fact is that it needs to go from point A to B and that it takes a ridiculously long detour. This is a waste of resources.

As far as we think we know now ... which as has been proven by changes in scientific thought time again ... is always subject to change ...

A_Thinker · Apr 27, 2018

DogmaHunter said:
Organisms were designed by the blind process of evolution.

I not arguing that evolution played no role at all in creation.

brinny · Apr 27, 2018

tas8831 said:
Yes. They hobble around like they had their legs tied together.

They "hobble around) because they do NOT have legs, my friend.

They have "flippers".

That's why they "hobble".

(Interesting thread though, thank you for posting it)

Bugeyedcreepy · Apr 27, 2018

brinny said:
They "hobble around) because they do NOT have legs, my friend.

They have "flippers".

That's why they "hobble".

(Interesting thread though, thank you for posting it)

..."flippers" that have leg and foot bones analogous to those found in pretty much every other mammal...

Hank77 · Apr 27, 2018

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

My evidence cannot be observed by anyone else, therefore, my evidence isn't useful to you.
I sure love that duck-billed platypus though; makes me laugh.

Hank77 · Apr 27, 2018

akaDaScribe said:
When you go to a website, or if you ever watched cartoons, or if you ever went into a best buy, do you notice how they all have themes? The style matches? Even in video games, most of the creatures that people make up are variations of the same basic skeleton and have a similar style. So you could look at it like evolution and/or like oh yeah, that's clearly the same artist.

Experts can usually identify an artist by the style and composition of a piece of art aside from the subject of the piece.

Bugeyedcreepy · Apr 27, 2018

Hank77 said:
My evidence cannot be observed by anyone else, therefore, my evidence isn't useful to you.
I sure love that duck-billed platypus though; makes me laugh.

They're so cute too! I'd pet the one that lives in the top pond at our zoo every day, except the zookeepers won't let me...

-_-

...such spoilsports, they are...

tas8831 · Apr 27, 2018

akaDaScribe said:
Have you ever worked on the artwork for games?

Wow - talk about distractions!

tas8831 · Apr 27, 2018

Hank77 said:
My evidence cannot be observed by anyone else, therefore, my evidence isn't useful to you.

IOW - you have just so stories, and those are not evidence.

tas8831 · Apr 27, 2018

brinny said:
They "hobble around) because they do NOT have legs, my friend.

They have "flippers".

That's why they "hobble".

(Interesting thread though, thank you for posting it)

Interesting - yes, they do not have 'legs' like you and I (because ours are not fused together), and yet.. they possess the same bones that creatures that DO have legs do!

But thanks for admitting that they hobble.

Despite having 'legs'.

The 'flippers' of seals 'work' despite being effectively 'legs.'

Just like a wrench will work well enough as a hammer.

But regarding the usual 'if it works, it was well Designed' sort of non-argument, I doubt that if a human designed a wrench but sold it as a hammer, he would be considered a great engineer.

Hank77 · Apr 27, 2018

akaDaScribe said:
Have you ever worked on the artwork for games? That's what you do for different creatures whenever possible, you just modify the skeleton proportions. Why? Well for starters it means you can use the same animations for the different creatures. You might vary the animations a little, but it saves a lot of work to not have to do animations for each character from scratch. Maybe that's a better way explaining what I'm trying to say.

Actually even in other applications, you would modify code that is solid and functioning properly if you had tasks with similar functions rather than trying to come up with a completely new set of code just to make it different.

It's the same in animated for movies. Can you imagine individually designing each person in a crowd or each individual flower without having basic design elements.

tas8831 · Apr 27, 2018

A_Thinker said:
As far as we think we know now ... which as has been proven by changes in scientific thought time again ... is always subject to change ...

I like these arguments - they rely on an unwarranted extrapolation - this assumption that ALL science is basically wrong and will be 'changed' or rejected at some point.

But is this really the case?

We can look at, say, phrenology, and say that it was 'rejected' and 'false' and proof that science is not always right.

Or, we can look at it and draw more reasonable conclusions - that the advocates of phrenology took a kernel of fact and made unwarranted extrapolations, and those extrapolations turned out to be false (the kernels of truth being that the 'bumps' on the INSIDE of the skull do in fact relate in part to brain structures - for example, we can tell that extinct hominins had the same basic brain structure as we do. What these bumps do not necessarily indicate is the extent to which these brain structures functioned - and the 'bumps' found inside the skull do not translate into bumps on the surface for the most part).

It is interesting though, that scientific concepts that were at least consistent with biblical lore, if not inspired by it, are the 'science' claims that generally turn out not to be true at all. The geocentric solar system, for example.

Regarding the innervation of the larynx - no, that is not going to change.

Hank77 · Apr 27, 2018

tas8831 said:
IOW - you have just so stories, and those are not evidence.

What? Sorry I don't understand what you are referring to?

brinny · Apr 27, 2018

tas8831 said:
Interesting - yes, they do not have 'legs' like you and I (because ours are not fused together), and yet.. they possess the same bones that creatures that DO have legs do!

But thanks for admitting that they hobble.

Despite having 'legs'.

The 'flippers' of seals 'work' despite being effectively 'legs.'

Just like a wrench will work well enough as a hammer.

But regarding the usual 'if it works, it was well Designed' sort of non-argument, I doubt that if a human designed a wrench but sold it as a hammer, he would be considered a great engineer.

Thank you for your response. However, the bones for flippers are not legs. They were never meant to walk. Their body is formed for what they do best, and that is to torpedo, etc. through the water like a missile, amongst other things.

And they do not have "feet" either.

Flippers are flippers.

They just are.

It is what it is.

Still an interesting thread, however.

Thank you.

Why does this creature have legs?

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