ex-robot

I don't know what you mean by degeneration of the coccyx. I searched for post-auricular muscles at yahoo.com and received mostly biology sites with no mention of evolution, etc., so I can't help you there. Same goes for recurrent laryngeal nerve. I didn't find either of these two items at the big three(ICR, AIG, CRS). ICR just posted an article on wisdom teeth here:

<a href="http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-b/btg-159b.htm" target="_blank">Wisdom Teeth</a>

Here is an article from 2001 I found at AIG on "junk" dna:

<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tjv14n3pseudogene_pj.asp" target="_blank">psuedogenes</a>

I do have an old copy of Vestigial Organs are fully functional by Bergman and Howe somewhere. I believe some of the things I couldn't find information on is addressed in this book. I'll relay the info if I can find it.

xr

ex-robot

Hmmmm... I don't have a clue then if it isn't degenerative. Nobody has show that it is truly a flaw. My only thought is still if it applies to real world situations. Are illusions due to bad design? Just a thought.

xr

tronvillain

Ah, thought we were talking about the blind spot again. Still, this appears to be part of the design of the visual system as well. I'd say that illusions are indicative of less than perfect design.

Oolon Colluphid

It has been argued that apparent design flaws in nature are due to the fall. Hence there is some strange variety of degeneration which can construct stuff poorly, and produces things that look like we'd expect if evolution were the answer.

Not very good biology sites then The point being that these are little versions of the muscles that allow many mammals to move their ears towards sounds. But if they were deliberately designed into us, it means that one of god’s less appreciated gifts is the ability to wiggle our ears.

The recurrent laryngeal is the nerve that powers the larynx, the voicebox. It branches from the spinal cord in the neck... but instead of going straight to the larynx, it passes down into the chest, loops under the aorta by the heart, then comes back up again to the larynx. It’s the same in all mammals, which means that in the extreme case of giraffes, up to 15 feet more nerve is needed than if it went directly. Using more materials than necessary is not good design.

Yup, blah blah blah. And it is just coincidence that we see a gradual reduction in the size of hominid jaws as we come forward through time...

That page also says:

Evolution = progress. Hmm. Where does it say in, for instance, Futuyma’s Evolutionary Biology that if a feature isn’t of benefit that it may not become reduced or lost? It’s not like wisdom teeth are our only molars. If they think that wisdom teeth in particular have a use, it’s up to them to demonstrate it. (I expect that the evolutionary answer is that the reduction in jaw size is a side effect of the paedomorphosis (or neoteny) that was a major element in our evolution.)

It does both.

What, like antibiotics?!

ie in those people for whom they do not cause overcrowding and pain and lead to gum infection.

You can argue about pseudogenes if you wish. I was thinking more of satellite DNA, the Alu sequences and the several hundred copies of histone genes. More materials than necessary.

Bwahahaha! I don’t care if they can tapdance while playing the banjo and reciting Shakespeare! It is a question of morphology, not function; a question of taking what creation implies at face value and seeing if it fits. In the case of the coccyx, it doesn’t matter that it has muscles attached. That could be done with any appropriately shaped bone. What matters is that it is in fact made of little vertebrae-shaped bones that start separate, and then fuse into a single piece. The claim that it’s designed does not require it to have these features. Vertebrae that extend beyond the pelvis are found in most other mammals too. In guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) for instance, there is a somewhat bigger ‘coccyx’, but it does not extend outside the animal’s body. Usually these vertebrae are bigger and there’s more of them... and when a coccyx is like that, it’s called a tail.

Thanks, but don’t worry... unless you are promoting this stuff yourself, or want answers to particular items. Hopefully I’ve made the sorts of answers clear above.

Cheers, Oolon

excreationist

Yeah, so natural selection wouldn't have selected it out. I mean evolution can be a bit rough around the edges sometimes. Anyway guess what? This is the real world! This is a real world situation! It just isn't the environment that our ancestors evolved in and it wasn't a matter or life or death whether their limited visual system was flawless or not.

Well every single person seems to have it since I've posted this in many places and no-one has claimed not to see it. This has also been on web-sites and they didn't say that some people don't see the effect. So either all of our ancestors had identical mutations, or Adam and Eve had that problem too. (Which seems much, much more likely)

Yeah - usually hunter-gatherer babies would die a lot and only those with better genes survived - so their gene pool was top notch. Now we do everything we can to save babies with severe genetic defects and often they pass their genes on, so we inherit more and more bad genes.

If they did, then ALL of their descendants would have those problems. So Adam and Eve didn't have those eye problems... unless by chance there were many mutations that undid those flaws.

I agree... that's all the Bible says.

Maybe this was part of the curse...

anyway, for this problem to be universal, Adam and Eve's DNA would need to change so that they'd pass on this problem. If either of them didn't pass on this problem there would be people that don't have it - just like there are people that don't have bad backs or crooked teeth or are short-sighted, etc.

excreationist

Just about degenerations again.... basically it is a randomization of the original DNA. Creationists usually say that this mostly happened after the world-wide flood, to explain why people used to live for many centuries (because of the lack of mutations).

Anyway, according to the <a href="http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wenke/bible/genealogies.htm" target="_blank">Bible genealogies</a>, there were about 10 generations of people before the flood, and the flood happened approximately 4550 years ago - so if each generation took 25 years there would be 182 generations since the flood.

So within 200 generations all of those mutations have developed..... just think of the chances though...

Humans have about <a href="http://www.ultranet.com/~jkimball/BiologyPages/G/GenomeSizes.html" target="_blank">3.3 billion basepairs</a> in their DNA. And let's say this unique problem is caused by the mutation of *one* of the basepairs. And if God didn't change Adam and Eve's DNA deliberately, this change would come by chance. So for each baby that Adam and Eve have, there would be a 1 in 3 billion chance that the egg or the sperm has this mutation. And we'll just assume that this mutation is dominant otherwise both Adam and Eve would have to have had sperm and egg cell mutations - a 1 in 9 billion billion chance. And this would happen for every single child they had. (Well Abel wouldn't have needed to have that problem since he can't be our ancestor since he didn't have any kids)

So basically either God changed all of Adam and Eve's DNA after the fall to include this flaw, or there were mutations for every single one of their children who were our ancestors.

[ April 04, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>

ex-robot

Actually, they were quite good. Why they are not good because they didn't discuss wiggling of ears and its associated implications for evolution is beyond me.
That is interesting that you bring this up. Besides yourself and a few other evolutionists, most evolutionists always bring the function/use of an organ/bodypart into the discussion that I have seen? Is there a place that has the official understanding of what makes something vestigial?
I was mostly interested for myself, but I won't bother looking for it right now if it doesn't interest you. thanks

xr

ex-robot

What I mean by a real world situation is in the natural world with out man-made tests. I highly doubt that are earliest ancestors had diagrams drawn in the sand to see if their visual system was allegedly flawed.
or perhaps it is neither, and this is just due to some man-made deception, trickery, or whatever you want to call it.

maybe there are people who don't have this "situation". If it was due to a mutation, it could have easily arose well after A & E's time. People see just fine(20/20, etc) with this situation, so i'm interested in what the big deal is still and how this correlates with the "natural" world. thanks

xr

excreationist

ex-robot:
Well if you read Genesis, only a couple centuries after Adam and Eve were created, there was farming (Gen 3:17-19, 4:2), sheep-herding (Gen 4:2), cities (Gen 4:17), bronze and iron-working (Gen 4:22). And there was metal-working before Gen 4:22 as well - In Gen 3:24 there was a flaming sword which I guess would be made out of metal.
For some reason after Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, they instantly had to be farmers or herders - rather than hunter-gatherers. In Gen 3:12-14, God says to Cain "If you try to grow crops, the soil will not produce anything; you will be a homeless wanderer of the earth." (i.e. a hunter-gatherer)
Cain replies "This punishment is too hard for me to bear..."
Anyway, originally Adam and Eve were meant to cultivate the land (Gen 2:15). This is more than what proper hunter-gatherers do. Cultivating the garden (horticulture) is almost like agriculture.

So they weren't in a natural hunter-gather environment. According to mainstream science, we've been using stone-age tools to hunt for about 2+ million years. But Adam and Eve are in a different situation since it doesn't appear that they hunted or used stoneage tools. It seems there was no stone age. They might have used wooden tools and soon after that was the iron and bronze ages. What I'm trying to say is that technological development was extremely rapid in early Genesis. And I don't see why the iron age still wouldn't have happened even if there wasn't a fall. They needed to cultivate the garden after all, so there would be a motivation to invent good iron tools. Also, by looking at the <a href="http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wenke/bible/genealogies.htm" target="_blank">Bible's genealogies</a>, it is clear that Adam would have been created approximately 6000 years ago. (You may be assuming that Adam and Eve lived 50,000 years ago or something)
So since they were changing their environment and discovering new technologies, etc, they weren't in the natural world. And if God is omniscient, it would have been obvious to him that highly intelligent people would probably be inventing lots of things.

This picture uses the same principle except it is much less dramatic. The area you focus on appears correctly and those in the periphery have a darkish patch at the intersections. It is probably more likely that that would be found in nature.
Some Christians say that God knew about things from the beginning. He is unchanging and has always had a perfect plan. If that is so, then he would have known that these eye tests would be shown here on this messageboard this year. And he could have avoided that situation by just tweaking things a bit so at least some people don't have that problem. (e.g. many people are short-sighted, but it isn't a universal problem)
So if God is omniscient and he planned everything out from the beginning, then he doesn't care if there is a flaw in his design. Maybe he did this to test the faith of those on the fence in the last days.

What do you mean this is trickery? My Mum did think at first that it was just an animated picture, but if you stare at single dots for a while, they never change. There is a genuine (and major) problem with the accuracy of our visual system when we look at pictures like that.

Well I've posted it on different messageboards and no-one has ever claimed not to be able to see the scintillating grid effect. I've also looked at information about this around the internet and couldn't find any mention of exceptions to the rule either. I think this is like most optical illusions - it is seen by everyone. And if one person in a million could see it accurately, this would suggest that *they* have a mutation, not everyone else, since it is far, far more probable that a small percentage of people would get a highly specific mutation (1 in 3.3 billion basepairs of human DNA) than an overwhelming majority.

Well humans have 3.3 billion basepairs in their DNA. Let's assume that there are 3,300 basepairs that if mutated, cause people to see the scintillating grid effect. So for each mutation, there is a 1 in a million chance that it will result in the scintillating grid effect. And let's say that every baby has 100 new random mutations - most of which are recessive rather than dominant. (They aren't physically expressed)
So if the parents didn't have the scintillating grid problem, there is about a 1 in 10,000 chance that their baby will have the problem. Let's assume that the scintillating grid problem happened with almost all of Adam and Eve's children (since it is much more unlikely that the problem occured later).
So let's assume they had 20 babies and 19 (95%) had the problem. That's about a 1 in 10^(4*19) chance. ^ means to the power of. That's 10^76 or a 1 with 76 zeroes.
Now let's assume that the problem didn't happen until the second generation. We'll assume that they each had 5 kids so there are 100 grandchildren. And 95 (95%) got the scintillating grid mutation. That's a 1 in 10^(4*95) chance. Or a 1 with 380 zeroes.

They see fine in most other situations, but not in this situation. Here they see the wrong colours flashing around.

Well it depends if we evolved to survive as a hunter-gatherer in the natural world, or if we were created as a very intelligent cultivator capable of very rapid technological development by an omniscient creator who knew about the future (such as this thread here) before the fall happened. See Matthew 25:34 - "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world."
I'm not sure if this means that God had knowledge of the future before the fall but it would mean that he planned that people would go to his kingdom when Adam & Eve were only living in the garden.

Coragyps

Another optical illusion, in this case brought about by modern technology, has to do with communication antennas with white strobe lights on them (instead of pleasantly winking red lights such as Zeus and Odin ordained be used....) I'm curious if it is just my suboptimal optical system that sees this, or if you guys do too.

Driving at night through the fairly barren landscape out here, I can be looking at the road when one of these strobes comes into view. With the strobe in my peripheral vision, I find that any eye movement will make the flash of the strobe break up into several flashes, separated in space along (usually) curved tracks. If I look straight at the flash, the effect goes away: if I deliberately shake my head while looking at the flash, it again breaks up into individual, spatially separate flashes. If there are other steady lights, such as streetlights, near the strobe, the effect is much reduced or absent (except the head shaking maneuver will still make it happen.)
I assume that this illusion has to do with the strobe flash actually being a train of flashes - maybe ay 60 Hz - but I don't know for a fact that it is. It would be a very strange illusion if the flash was a single burst of light, though.
Has anyone else seen this? If not, I'll shut up.