Charles Darwin

I'm afraid there is religion involved here. But first, you nor anyone else has ever built a living cell, much less human being. So arguments about the coccyx, appendix, or whatever else, not being designed quite right ring hollow. Think of all the different considerations; that the adult human must develop from the zygote, that the body assumes many different positions, that it is subject to a variety of stresses, etc. I doubt you've done (or even could do) a full-blown, accurate and comprehensive design analysis to come to your conclusions. But even if you are right about this, we have :

Second, you beg the question. Evolution is based on the idea of the survival of the fittest. Hence, the performance of biological designs, with respect to survival and reproduction, are important concepts in evolution. Unfortunately, evolutionists seem unable to understand that creationism has no such presupposition. God may design things for completely different reasons. Of course, species do survive and reproduce. Obviously the designs do work. But beyond that, He may have all kinds of other purposes in mind (and Scripture indeed tells us this). You beg the question when you use survival and reproduction (or that structures must not be over-designed, or whatever) as the universal design criteria.

Now you say:

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You can't make an argument from design based on the appearance of design, unless you also allow for the appearance of non-design to serve as counter-evidence.
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My point was that evolution obviously fails. If you construct a strawman alternative; namely, that the only alternative is that all designs must meet with your approval of being good designs, in some sense (not overdesigned, just right for survival and reproduction, no pain, no parasites, whatever), then you are making a religious claim. Religious because it is a claim about the universal truth. The species were either evolved, or designed according to your rule.

lpetrich

"Charles Darwin":
... Now the return echo is like a tiny whisper compared to the chirp which is like thunder in comparison. So the bat has to have come fancy logic to hear the echo.

That's incredibly silly. Bats can listen during pauses between chirps -- and bats even have special muscles in their ears that dampen their hearing when the make their chirps.

Also, depending on the range of the mosquito the echo may return after the next chirp, so the bat has to have a way to handle that.

I don't see how such aliasing is a disaster, because there are simple ways to get around it, like pausing a few seconds and then resuming chirping.

And of course there are other bats flying around to their chirps need to be filtered.

There are easy ways to do that.

If evolution is true then this system arose via random biological variation. .... What we have from evolutionists are vague explanations of how "selection pressures" influenced random change, because after all, echolocating, even crudely, is better than not echolocating at all.

Do you disagree with that? "Selection pressure" is simply the fact that some features are better for an organism's survival than others. It's just like selective breeding.

Well that is all well and good, but just how did the crude system come about.

Three ingredients:

1. Noisemaking ability
2. Good ears
3. A brain that is good at recognizing patterns

And how did it evolve into the more advanced system?

By simple improvements on the original system.

lpetrich

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Wait a minute. Evolution says the most complicated things we know of arose by themselves in their environment. Now highly complex things don't just come together in our world.

What makes you so sure of that?

So we need to have some explanation for how the thousands of complexities in biology were supposed to have evolved.

And do you honestly think that evolutionary biologists have ignored this question? Seriously.

They have indeed addressed this question; consider the great interest in Hox genes and gene duplication and stuff like that.

Now homologies are supposed to reveal the history of evolution. But the argument loses its force when we find them arising from different development processes. So why is this a non issue?

"Charles Darwin", you have refused to provide us with even one example of this alleged skin-depth of homology. So unless you provide us with an example, we must conclude that it only exists in your imagination. And trying to weasel out of doing so will only confirm our assessment.

Am I serious about questioning the blind fish as evidence for evolution (or common descent)? Yes, I am.

"Charles Darwin", what do you prefer to believe? That blind cave fish were simply "poofed" into existence, poorly-developed eyes and all?

And what would falsify the "poof" hypothesis that you seem to prefer to believe?

lpetrich

"Charles Darwin":
But first, you nor anyone else has ever built a living cell, much less human being.

To me, that's like saying that there is no such thing as gravity because nobody has build a planetary system. So why is it a relevant issue?

Furthermore, we have had experience with a variety of technologies -- technologies which often outperform biological systems in several ways. Compare a car and a horse. A car can travel much faster than a horse can, and a car never gets tired or in need of sleep. A downside is that cars must be produced in big factories; they cannot reproduce themselves the way that horses can.

So arguments about the coccyx, appendix, or whatever else, not being designed quite right ring hollow. Think of all the different considerations; that the adult human must develop from the zygote, that the body assumes many different positions, that it is subject to a variety of stresses, etc. I doubt you've done (or even could do) a full-blown, accurate and comprehensive design analysis to come to your conclusions.

Except that biomechanics is a reasonably well-understood field. In fact, it's well-understood enough so that one can have some confidence in reconstructing the habits of dinosaurs.

Evolution is based on the idea of the survival of the fittest. ... Unfortunately, evolutionists seem unable to understand that creationism has no such presupposition. God may design things for completely different reasons.

There goes falsifiability; special creation could resemble any other process, it would seem.

But beyond that, He may have all kinds of other purposes in mind (and Scripture indeed tells us this). ...

A book that states:

Plants were created before the Sun
Flying animals were created before land animals
The first woman was created from the first man
There was once a talking snake
Snakes eat dust
Rabbits chew the cud
Bats are birds
Grasshoppers have four legs

is supposed to be the ultimate biology textbook?

Worldtraveller

I've been trying to stay outta this thread, and just lurk (and laugh), but I have to step in with a little armchair psychoanalysis here, and maybe if someone here is a little more well versed in the field, we can start another thread on this.

It seems to me, from watching the patterns of denial, ad hoc hand waving ad just plain wrong assertions, that fundamental xianity requires something akin to codependance in its adherents.

Saying things like " Evolution is based on the idea of the survival of the fittest. ... Unfortunately, evolutionists seem unable to understand that creationism has no such presupposition. God may design things for completely different reasons," and "But beyond that, He may have all kinds of other purposes in mind (and Scripture indeed tells us this). ..." is right up there, with the beaten wife codependant saying "yes, but he only beats me because he loves me. He has a good reason. "

All the evidence be damned, I have made up my mind, don't confuse me with the facts.

Carry on.

And my hats off to all of you. I have learned more about biology reading this thread than I ever really wanted to know.

Cheers,
Lane

Muad'Dib

I'm sorry to interrupt again, but I have to ask: what does "likely" mean? What is the cutoff threshold for whether something counts as "likely" or not? 1 in 10^6? 1 in 10^100? 1 in 10^1000? 1 in 10^n for what value of n? Can you quantify how likely common descent is?

Let me ask you this: given all the forces involved in shaping the earth's crust--gravity, volcanic activity, movement of tectonic plates, asteroid collisions, weather erosion, etc.--how likely is it that the continents just happen to have the shapes they have today? Should we also reject our models of the earth's formation on the basis that our actual geographic configuration is exceedingly unlikely to have happened by natural forces alone, given all the continental shapes that are possible?

The reason I'm asking these questions is that I'm still trying to figure out if, of all the claims made by science, it's just common descent that you object to, or if there is a larger set of claims that you find unconvincing (perhaps united by a common methodology).

Thanks for sticking around, I know you're probably busy.

Regards,
Muad'Dib

NottyImp

Except that we are now capable of re-attaching severed limbs through surgery, with those limbs achieving some part of their previous function. Or we can replace them with prosthetic limbs and organs that work nearly as well (and may in the future work better) than the originals.

Our knowledge of the design of the human body, from the genes up is not only vast, but increasing at a fanatstic rate. And from whence does that knowledge come, Charles? The bible?

NottyImp

To an extent I understand your point here, but it is nonetheless a little disingenuous. You know very well, Charles, that the assumptions that underpin this idea come from your own book, the bible.

In it, we are told that God is omnipotent, omniscient and many other "oms" (including, critically, omnibenevolent). From this, evolutionists infer what special creation would look like if it were true (you know "testable hypotheses" and all that), and a Christian God as described in the bible had invoked it.

Now, if you disagree with this then you can either tell us one of two things:

1) Our assumptions about God are incorrect, and he ain't all those "oms", or that we have misunderstood them in some way.

or:

2) We can never know the will of God and can have no objective criteria for judging his creation.

If it's 1), please enlighten us as to what he is really like so we can scientifically test special creation. If on the other hand it is 2), then we may as well all pack up and go home, as you're clearly saying special creation is beyond the realm of science and is a metaphysical quantity.

So which is it, Charles?

Oolon Colluphid

Well said, Notty. I'd like to add that if the answer is 2), then you have no basis for using apparent good design as an argument. How do you know it is good design, other than by reference to what seems to us to be good design?

Think about it. It seems odd at first, because it is 'obvious' that wings are well designed. But it is equally 'obvious' that bat respiration is a poor design. That is, it is poorer than one used in other flying creatures, and it is measurably, demonstrably inferior than the bird one.

You have to take the bad with the good, or reject both.

TTFN, Oolon

DMB

So you accept macroevolution? So how come you have a problem with common descent?
Ha, ha! Your cloven hooves are showing, CD. If you were really arguing about the scientific possibility of intelligent design, you wouldn't muddy the water by dragging in "scripture" or "God". Why should that have the slightest connection with the arguments of this thread? Do you believe you can make a respectable case for intelligent design that has nothing to do with the "scripture" of any particular religion?