Fiach

But they don't. No human-designed artifact leaves gazillions of empty space for every relevant solid object, for instance. No human designer would connect the appendix to the colon, so it can get inflamed. No human designer would build the sonar of bats, and simultaneously the anti-sonar devices of moths. Etc.

Exactly. It is obvious that mutational adaptations in predators usually take a toll on the prey, which selects out certain of the prey who have developed superior escape methods or sonar blocking devices. Evolution fosters evolution in other species. It is an interconnected system of earth biology.

IOW, IDists must take the bitter with the sweet.

Yes, they may postulate that mutational changes lead to the selection of a small minority that are better adapted to changes in the environment or predators, or food sources. Either there is ID or there is not. We can put Magical Creation (Gen 1,2) in the rubbish bin. There are some problems in evolution with ID.

Evolution just produces what works, not what is best or perfect. Humans adapted to upright stance with an enlarged brain and a newer motor, coordination system for gait, altered hips but not any improvement in the quadriped spinal column of vertebrae and soft disks. The result is nearly universal low back pain because those disks are "not designed" for bearing weight, only for lateral tilt and rotation of a dog or cat. Disks herniate, paralysing or causing crippling pain. In the neck supporting a rather heavy head, the herniation crushes the spinal cord causing the Christopher Reeves situation, a sadly common result of neck trauma, but very rare in quadriped animals. We evolved communication abilities but so fast that our pharynxes could not adapt. So we breathe and talk through our food channel because our larynx is so high. Humans are about the only animals that choke to death. The sensitive eye spot of Pikaea from the Cambrian 500 million years ago, adapted to an eye so fast that its blood supply (arterioles and venules) ended up in front of the retina instead of safely behind it. Result is that arterial haemorrhages and venous bleeds are infront of the retina causing blindness. I could mention 23 other bad design flaws in humans if I had the time but it would bore you. Lets just say that if ID occurred, then God failed Engineering 101, in God college.

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its evidence of intelligent design for the universe. Theists are simply people who acknowledge these attributes exist in the universe and who make the logical induction that the universe's primary cause was most likely - an intelligent designer.

One can postulate ID for the Big Bang or natural processes. As you may know I am one of the infamous trio on this forum who believe that physical things are the only thing we know. Secondly, if ID occurred, why did the Creator make billions of planets that are too near or too far from their suns to have life. We see no evidence of life in our solar system in the planets inner to us or outer to us. This could be extrapolated to the 40 some other solar systems known so far, and the billions suspected to exist. Why did a creator make so many giant lifeless planets, dark matter, dark energy, comets, asteroids, and haemorrhoids

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Please replace "acknowledge" by "postulate". The fact is that IDists ignore all the myriad ways in which life or the universe are unlike the objects we know are intelligently designed.

Why is there so much disorganised matter, dark matter, and "useless" matter"? Why did the creator make Solar Flares, comets, neutrinos?

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Humans could never be the creators of the universe because humans are physical, and since the universe is "all physical things", humans are *part* of the universe. Humans (just like the universe) cannot be both their own cause and effect.

You're joking of course, eh? Nobody postulates that Humans created the Universe. Humans create nothing. We only rearrange existing matter. We seem to create concepts but that is DEceptive. We merely rearrange info bits of memory into combinations that are new combinations. In mathematics we use learned methods to arrive at new concepts but that is still a reaarrangement of date already in our brains.

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And since we never observed any unphysical things, the natural conclusion is that the universe was not caused.

It means that we are wildly speculating or using imagination to postulate things that are not matter or energy.

BTW, as the universe is not a thing, but a collection of things, it is rather doubtful whether the notion of "cause" can be applied to it.

I am not so sure about that, a rebuttal to a cause. To me the major reason to reject an unnatural cause is that 1. We know of no unnatural things, and 2. we don't need an unnatural cause to explain the universe. That which is unnecessary often is non-existent or at least irrelevent.

Slainte Mhaith, Boyo,

Fiach

Darkblade

(emphasis mine)

Could you please list all those other flaws in humans? I am interested. (If you don’t want to put them here, you could send them to me personally.) Of course, you are not obligated to do so.

(emphases mine (“trio” was not in bold when I first posted it, and the link didn’t exist either))

I know this is silly, a waste of time, and probably vain, but do you mean that trio, Fiach? If so, I am honored, due to the fact that I do not post a lot, unlike you and Jobar. (If not, everyone, please forgive me.) I would be honored to be a part of this {leash/threesome/triad/trio/triplet}/{trinity/triune}/{triumvirate/troika}. (I wish I could have rightly divided these nine words into three equal groups of three, but it doesn’t work (denotationally).) I suppose I am like the holy ghost (or holy spirit) in this group; I haven’t said or done much, I’m not really the equal of either Jobar (God (he gets this by default (unless he swaps with you, under both of your consents) due to being a moderator)) or you (Jesus), and I’m (justly) not nearly as important in the eyes of the believers (atheists) as you or Jobar are, being the spiritual behemoths, deserving of exaltation, you are. Now, when do I get to fill your disciples (which are who?) with myself?

Anyone who read this post probably wishes they hadn’t......
but don't blaspheme against me!!!

Mark 3:29: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

keyser_soze

Can I guess one? I seriously want to know what is up with that pesky appendix. bloody thing kills people every year, but we haven't needed one in about 50,000 years. WTF?

Walross

And while we're at it, I'd like to add a complaint about wisdom teeth, for which most of our jaws are too small to properly accomodate. Ouch!

Wyz_sub10

...or the proximity of the "breathing hole" to the "eating hole", or a birth canal that has difficulty accommodating babies, etc.

Fiach

Darkblade wants some human design flaws. I'll try to recall them.

Human design flaws

1. Female pelvis too small for the human baby's head making birth difficult and prone to perinatal injuries to the baby.

2. Retinal arteries/veins lying on and in front of the retina of the eyes. Many causes of blindness come from this defective design. Putting the vessels behind the sclera in back would be safer.

3. Wisdom teeth (already noted) with secondary abscesses, occasionally dissecting up into the cranium -> brain abscess, meningitis, epidural empyema.

4. Larynx too highly placed, leading to common choking deaths.

5. A bony projection, called the Odontoid Process, an extension of the C2 vertebral body lie a long finger, up to the end of the brainstem. It can easily fracture, especially in rheumatoid arthritis. That leads to death or paralysis of all extremities and inability to breathe without a mechanical ventilator. A simpler rotatory ball-socket joint would be better and safer.

6. Semi-soft disc material between vertebrae and just anterior to the spinal cord, were suited well to quadrupeds. But in humans the upper body weight compresses these and can cause herniations with mild to moderate trauma. There are 6 of these (none at C1-2) in the neck, 12 in the thoracic spine, 5 (rarely 6) in the Lumbar spine. That is 23 flaws or accidents waiting to happen.

7. Hip joints perfectly suited to support human weight if there were four of them or 4 supporting limbs. In a biped, the stress causes extremely common hip degeneration, femoral neck fractures in women and older people. How often do you hear of that in a dog or horse?

8. Knees similarly are not strong enough with the tibial cartilage in two legs for human weight, jumping down, and running. If we had 4 legs it would not be so bad. How often do you see cats with knee problems?

9. Foot and ankle bones are badly designed. Most quadrupeds walk on their toes or the balls of the feet. This puts more weight on flexible tendons, ligaments and several bending joints spreading the stress. In the human food, we are walking on essentially our leg "wrists" and balls of the foot with an arch that is traumatised by walking and standing. When it falls it has an additional problem of severe foot pain. (see 10).

10. In those fallen arches, the plantar nerves are badly placed. Instead of weaving between or over top of bones to their skin sensory receptors, these course "under" the ankle bones, under the arch to the metatarsal joints. When the arch slowly gives way it stretches those nerves and eventually compresses them. This never happens in dogs or cats.

11. Human wrist must extend to provide maximum finger flexion; a major human task is to hold things in our hands. So the wrist flexes a thousand times a day. Problem is that the median nerve runs through a bony trough covered by tough ligaments, the Carpal Tunnel. With every wrist flexion the median nerve is pulled in and out of that canal. The canal is easily narrowed by minor injuries or repetitive use. The nerve is injured causing pain, finger numbness, and weakness in thumb opposition.

12. The Elbow flexes and extends, but an important nerve, the Ulnar Nerve mostly motor to the muscles of the forearm and hand. It unfortunately does not go in front of the elbow in the safer soft tissue. It courses behind the elbow which is fine in horses, but human flex the arm at the elbow that pulls and stretches the ulnar nerve in a long course behind the elbow in an "ulnar groove" and additionally a human sitting often rest elbows on a table, and that compresses the ulnar nerve. Dogs and cats don't do that.

13. The Brachial Plexus is a cluster of the nerves to the arm that travels through a triangle with the first rib being the bottom, the collar bone in front, and the scalene muscles behind. Also in the triangle is the brachial artery to supply blood to the arm. Poor posture, hanging by exercise bars from the hands, or throwing balls, cause the triangle to compress either or both structures. This is Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, the Neuronal form when the plexus is injured and vascular form when the brachial circulation is impaired.

14. Female urinary opening (urethra), vagina, and rectum all located in a close row so that rectal infection of the urethra/bladder/kidneys, or the vagina is risky. The old joke is why is the recreational park located at the sewage outflow pipes?

15. Appendix is a seemingly useless relic of evolution that often gets infected and ruptures in a life threatening peritonitis unless removed quickly. A few postulate that it might have bacterial that make certain vitamins. That is unproven.

16. Large veins in the legs, progressively dilating from standing, walking, run the risk of blood clotting when the human sits for a period of time. These veins send those clots north to the heart's right ventricle and directly into the lungs causing pulmonary emboli (clots and lung infarction) that is often fatal.) Quadruped animals rarely die of this. Many humans do.

17. Venous Cavernous Sinuses at the skull base on left and right are large draining veins from the brain. But inside of the vein there is the carotid artery taking blood into the brain, and several important nerves: III, IV, VI that control all eye movements, pupillary diameter, and lens focusing, and V-1, V-2, and V-3 that supply sensation to the eye and face. This venous structure packed with these important structures is infected by sinus infection or pustules in or on the nose. Infection causes the blood to clot (thrombosis) that injures the nerves, makes the eye bulge and swell, and can cause spreading thrombosis into the brain which can be rapidly fatal.

18. Other cranial sinuses such as the transverse are located next to the middle ear that frequently gets infected in kids. The infection spread to the venous sinus and causes thrombophlebitis, the major effect is increased fluid pressure in the brain, venous strokes, and seizures. If all of those venous drainage pipes were internally situated, there would not be such a risk. (17 and 18).

19. Congenital birth defects caused by structures found only in primitive animals (but still in our genes): gills in our embryonic stage may have some left over at birth and a baby may have a partial gill (technically called a branchial cleft cyst.) These can cause pain as the person grows, or develop abscesses. Another is a chordoma, tumour composed of notochord tissue only otherwise found in ancient animals like Pikaea and Amphioxus. It preceded the evolution of the bony spine. We have one in our early embryo stages but absorb it. Sometime absorption is incomplete and notochord tissue grows (tumour) unfortunately in the clivus at the base of the brain.

20. Our abdomen. It houses our stomach, our liver, our spleen, great vessels (aorta) small bowel, and colon. In quadripeds it is underneath. An attacker cannot easily get to it. The predator has to attack the tougher back and spine. But in the human the belly is sticking out there for some clawed or toothed predator or knife wielding human criminal to take a swipe and eviscerate us.


Will this do for now. If more come to mind I will post them.

Fiach

Darkblade

And, under congenital birth defects, the chitinous exosketon that sometimes forms, mentioned by either you or someone else.

What would the solution for the abdomen problem be? More ribs? Or a plate-like bone? Or?

Fiach: :notworthy

keyser_soze

Even better, if god designed us...Why all the unnecessarily complex structure in the first place. Hey, just make me a ball of energy! Or give me form, but skip the obnoxious organs, and systems...screw the need to always eat and defecate....Come on, I could design better than that. Why the need for such systems. obviously we didn't need the immune system in the garden...or protective features, or hair or fingernails....WTF?

Walross

For that matter, why are there nipples on men?

BTW, thanks for that great list, Fiach.

Walross

Fiach

I left out the chitinous exoskeleton left over in our genes from the Cambrian because the expression of the gene is so rare. However the fact that we still carry this apparently unnecessary gene is another example of sloppy design if there were design.

For the Abdomen the workable solution was quadruple gait so that the abdomen was protected by the back and flank muscles below and ribs up higher.

If we had Lumbar ribs, it might reduce our body flexibility. If they were 5 in number spreading out as they come around in front that would leave room for sitting and bending over.

An ideal bipedal gait is that seen in bipedal dinos. They are not fully upright but almost horizontal (Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus) but balanced on the hind legs by a long fat tail. They could have evolved with already prehensile hands in velociraptors as in humans, with subsequent brain expansion. That might have led to intelligent bipedal raptors, having hands with dextrous fingers if the big extinction had not occurred. They would be fast runners, perhaps rational thinkers, and not have back, neck, or foot problems as we do. The raptors were already social animals. They might be an advanced interstellar civilisation by now if they hadn't gone extinct. We would still be little rats.

I know what happened. Two early Velociraptors, a married couple committed original sin, and Dinosaurs died in an Armageddon 65 million years ago.

After we have our Armageddon, Kangaroos will walk upright instead of hopping. They retain the tail, develop prehensile hands, big brains, and build cities, motor cars, and Moon rockets.

Meanwhile, pigs wait their turn.

Fiach