Refractor

LOL! Yes, the design of the human eye is sooooo bad!! That's why we have billions of humans that successfully survive and reproduce, having populated and conquered all of the animal kingdom and are currently ruling the planet. Yes, the human eye is so poorly designed that it is simply amazing to see how badly it has harmed human progress and survival. LOL!

I'll tell you what....you create your own flesh and blood human eye in the way that you think is "better designed", and prove through experimental evidence that it does in fact "function better" according to your design ----- THEN feel free to rant. But until then, all you are doing is making unverified speculations of what you postulate would be "better design".

And while you're at it, explain why an intelligent designer's goal has to be maximum energetic efficiency in order for that intelligent designer to be "sane". Antique cars are currently "bad design" compared to modern cars, yet, there are thousands of intelligent designers who enjoy creating antique cars. Perhaps antique car hobbyists are INSANE??? Well, they would be according to your logic.

Doubting Didymus

Refractor:

Is the designer you postulate the christian omnipotent god? If so, how do you deduce this?

Refractor

That is a very large question that would require me to cover massive amounts of philosophical and theological subjects in order to fully explain. But in short, I believe that any intelligent designer that would make something as intelligent, complex, and sentient as humans would not have done so without revealing who he/she/it is, why things were created, and what the purpose of living for is (beyond mere survival). Hell, even the makers of yo-yo's reveal who they are, and include directions for how their product should be used. Would the designer of human beings do anything less??

Obviously, every world religion claims to bear the "true" revelation of the intelligent designer. Which revelation one accepts as being true, or most likely true, is an issue of faith.

Doubting Didymus

Fine, forget about having to prove it for the moment, and tell me who you think the designer is. Then take a quick squizz at DT's link, right at the top of this page, and tell us what your designer had in mind for some of those examples.

HRG

The aolar system is a counterexample. How many bits are necessary to describe every asteroid, every rock in Saturn's belts etc. ?
But we have never seen intelligent designer(s) assemble living systems either. Therefore we have no reason to assume that living systems were assembled by intelligent designers.

In addition, we know that "mindless natural forces" can increase complexity.

Regards,
HRG.

Wounded King

Dear Refractor,

You say

Do you understand the concept of evolution at all? A few billions humans is evolutionary peanuts. We have not populated and conquered the animal kingdom, quite how you propose to populate the animal kingdom I shudder to think, an Aberdonian in every sheep?

We only "Rule the planet" because there arent any other contestants using our criteria, and human criteria for ruling have little if anything to do with evolutionary success. In evolutionary terms we are well down the rankings, considerably below many insects and nematode worms, not to mention unicellular organisms. But maybe you think the human propensity for helping species over the edge into extinction is a good way for us to rise up the ranks?

The argument is not that the design of the human eye is so poorly designed it is an evolutionary disavantage, simply that it could be designed better.

Refractor

It is my faith-belief that the Intelligent Designer is the God of Christianity.

As for the whole "sub-optimal features" argument, it is fallacious because it erroneously assumes "maximum energetic efficiency" has to be the only goal of an intelligent designer. The fact is, Intelligent designers have many different motivations for designing. Just ask a modern artist why they randomly splatter paint on a canvas, and when you hear their answer, you'll see what I mean.

Refractor

But if the living systems contain the same inherent attributes of design/complexity that non-living, intelligently-designed systems possess, then it is inductively supported to assume that the living systems were also intelligently designed.

But no complex systems have ever been demonstrated to arise only by virtue of a series of increases in complexity, and nothing else.

Oolon Colluphid

Oh deary-dear. That whistling sound was the point flying over your head.

It is not that the human eye -- or any other vertebrate eye, they’re all the same basic layout -- is especially bad in its ability to function. Of course it works very well.

But you are postulating a designer, starting with a blank slate for each separate model of organism. So the point is that the eye is a very stupid design from that perspective. No designer worth the name would deliberately reduce the effectiveness of his design by a fundamental blunder in the design: by having the photoreceptors in the retina wired in so that the wiring is in the way of incoming photons. There is a simple way to avoid this: point the photoreceptors towards the light, with their cabling behind.

I remember this vividly from early biology lessons, probably at about age 12. We had to draw an eye in cross-section (this may have been following dissecting one). All of us in the class did the obvious thing, and showed the nerve ‘wires’ collecting up behind the eye. Nobody afaik thought to have the wires on the inner surface and coming out of a gap in the retina.

This gap is the correctly named blind spot. Now, we don’t generally notice this spot in our day-to-day business, because our brains compensate and fill it in for us.

But here’s the crux: why design it that way, and then have to design a brain mechanism to compensate for it? Unnecessarily complicated design is not good design. And a straightforward prediction from the intelligent designer hypothesis is that good designs would be used.

And the clincher: it’s not as if the alleged designer did not know to do it the obvious way, or that there is some good reason for the less obvious design to be used. Because there are creatures that live in the deeps -- note, the dark deeps -- that have eyes rather similar to ours. Since seeing well in dark conditions means an eye ‘as good as possible’ is a good design. And these creatures -- squid -- have retinas without a blind spot and with the photoreceptors pointing at the incoming light. Squid eyes do not have this fundamental flaw.

Mind you, I wonder if they have a tapetum, and if not, why not?

To repeat: it’s not that our eyes are poor. They’re not. But they are good despite an obvious problem. A design flaw. An imperfect design from an intelligent designer.

Got it?
Horsepoo. Notice much conquering of Plasmodium falciparum going on? Where are the victories over trypanosomes, schistosomes, flukes, tapeworms, hookworms, filarial nematodes, bot-flies, sand fleas, mosquitoes or lice (our own personal species)?

We are most certainly populated. Each one of us contains at least one parasite. In the case of Toxoplasma gondii, there are probably millions of them in your brain.

I’m afraid you’re showing the usual creationist ignorance of biology.
Again, nonsense. Bacteria and viruses rule the planet. Imagine an Iraq where everyone is a Fedayim (sp?). Many might go about their business without upsetting -- or even meeting -- any Americans. Many others might fight as guerillas. The Americans -- the humans -- might be able to blast an area to dust. But who is really in control?
It’s already been done. There are squid. Why do we need to make one ourselves? Have you built at car from scratch, from the smelting of the metal to the polishing of the chrome bumper? Yet you can tell a good one from a less good one, can’t you? Your antique car reference would imply so!
The self-evident does not need much verification. Having the nerve wires in the way of the photons inevitably means that some are blocked or deflected, making the vision less good that it could easily have been. Please quit the autoproctology and try thinking.

Because good design by definition means not wasting materials. The energy efficiency need not be maximum, just maximumised given other constraints. Well designed things should work as well as possible. And vertebrate eyes do not work as well as possible, for it is possible to make working eyes that collect more light, as squid show.

I second DD’s suggestion: read the OP in the thread I linked above. And tell me why these are not stupid designs from an intelligent designer. No, really. I insist.

TTFN, DT

Refractor

I meant to say we populated the planet and conquered the animal kingdom, and yes, I do understand the CONCEPT of evolution. Do you understand that the CONCEPT of evolution is inexorably related to the concept of creation? All things that are intelligently created go through an evolutionary process.

Go to a tricycle factory sometime and observe the "evolutionary process" of tricycles, and you'll see what I mean.


Your commentary here is so rife with assuption and speculation that its hardly worth a response. But I am a good sport. The reason we rule the planet is because the "criteria that we have that no other animal has - is advanced intelligence. I guess you think our brains, which make advanced intelligence possible, are not the product of evolutionary success????? Wow, that's quite an interesting sentiment. I wonder how many world-reknown evolutionists share your opinion that the human brain is NOT the product of evolutionary success?? Facinating.


Yes, and without experimental evidence that actually proves that the idea of "better eye design" would actually *function* more efficiently in a real human being, we can dismiss the argument as presumptious rhetoric. It is one thing to claim that a design theoretical might work better, based on an idea, and quite another thing to go out and *prove* that a design actually *works* better by testing it out in a real flesh and blood human being.

Its like the difference between drawing the design of an airplane on paper and rhapsodising about how it will "fly better", and actually going out and *building* the plane, and *demonstrating* that it flies better - by flying it.