Mageth

I see what you're saying, and it's a good point. Though I think the "factor of a hundred" is way too high.

Female deer have either one or two fawns a year (or none, of course). There is one mating season (in the Fall). The mating season is a huge energy demand on the males. Bucks generally pursue individual does, guarding them against rivals while waiting for them to come into heat (which they do but once a year), sometimes for days. I doubt if one male deer could handle mating with more than a handful of females in one mating season.

kingzfan2000

Its no more ridiculous than saying that deer were head butting in mating rituals even though they werent built for it and as a result, antlers sprouted from their heads. Seems like once again design is the most logical answer, but I know youre not concerned with whats logical. Do you honestly think that head butting caused antlers to form on deers head (over tens-hundreds of thousands of years of course)? I certainly hope not. As has already been pointed out, the antlers arent an extension of the skull but rather attach to the pedicles that come out of the creatures head. Seems like quite an evolutionary conundrum, but of course microbes to life as we know it evolution is a fact, so it doesnt matter that there is no logical explanation for how deer came to have antlers, just like theres no logical explanation for how most organisms got to be the way they are. Just say mutations did it and leave it at that.

The evidence of design is all around us

Mageth

Well, no one says that. Except, apparently, you.

No one I've heard says that "antlers sprouted from deer's heads as a result of head butting in mating rituals."

Where do people get this stuff?

Design is simply not necessary as an answer.

No one here thinks that "head butting caused antlers to form on deers' heads", and no one has even hinted at that (except you). :huh:

Same song, second verse. No one here says "mutations did it" and leaves it at that. :huh:

Is it? Or is it rather the case that you are interpreting the evidence as indicating design? And doing so because you have presupposed the existence of a "designer"?

kingzfan2000

Im sorry. I didnt realize "shoving" heads and butting heads were two distinct activities. How exactly do you "shove" heads? You arent saying head butting is the reason and you arent saying that mutations are the reason, so what exactly are you saying is the reason?

Umm...duuuh!!

Jet Black

actually saying that is completely rediculous. Why do you persist in these strawmen?
where is the actual logic that suggests "design"? your claim that design is the logical conclusion is empty.
no, it is blatantly obvious that nobody has suggested as such, so why do you persist in bringing up things that nobody is suggesting.

premjan

It could just be sexual selection. Does were more impressed by bucks that could grow huge antlers.

kingzfan2000

Because I was responding to this: Once again:As you can see, someone did indeed suggest it.

kingzfan2000

I fail to see how does being impressed by bucks that could grow huge antlers explains how antlers originated in the first place.

Sven

Just a short comment: I fail to understand how exactly things which are not explained (exactly) by evolution (yet) automatically mean that design is a better explanation.
Look at quantum chemistry for comparison. We are actually far from explaining every reaction theoretically, why these molecules act together to that molecule and not to something else. Sure, we have some rules of thumb, but that's about it. But for some strange reason I don't see king-whatever (or other creationists) running around, crying: "Quantum chemistry can not explain why this reaction occurs this way, that someone designed it to happen this way is a much better answer!"

[for people more interested in this: With ab initio methods (that is, only constants and laws of nature as input), we can describe reactions with at most three (perhaps four) atoms! Using density functional theory (DFT), we can describe reactions of much larger molecules (I think up to several dozen atoms), but at the cost that these functionals first have to be fitted to a large number of known molecules/reactions, it's no longer ab initio.]

Mageth

I said:

kingsfanz2000 responded:

Well, that's pretty much a "case closed".

You've got things ass-backwards as far as an "argument from design" goes, if that's the case.

You said, "The evidence of design is all around us." Now, tell me, how do you come to the conclusion that some piece of "evidence" indicates design? And without presupposing the existence of a designer? For example, where is the supposed evidence for "design" in a deer's antlers? What makes you think that some "designer" sat down at a drawing board and "designed" a deer's antlers?