Oolon Colluphid

Sorry Theo, but that’s impractical in the extreme. Sure, when we’re not arguing with cretinists, ‘historical constraint’ is exactly what we would call it, because the ‘designer’ was evolution. Historical constraint is precisely what it is. We can see the coccyx, for example, as a greatly reduced tail because we know our ancestors had tails.

But creationists deny there’s any history to be constrained by. (Many also deny there’s more than 10K years of history at all, of course.) That’s their whole point. Things do not have a shared origin; things cannot change into substantially different things over long periods. There were not any tailed human ancestors, so the coccyx is for attaching rectal muscles; the appendix is part of the immune system and so on, and they’re not left-overs of anything. Kinds (whateverthehell they are) were designed separately.

You cannot talk about historical constraint with people who deny there is been history.

Therefore, the only way AFAIK to refer to these things, to talk about them to creationists through their own terms, is as lousy design by a (claimed) omniscient designer. ‘If he could do eyes, why did he put ones that don't work in animals that don't need them?’

This is also just testing their hypothesis. If life were designed by a high intelligence, there should be no obviously poor designs. But there are, so the hypothesis is refuted.

And the only sort of Christianity this takes ‘potshots’ at is the intellectually stunted creationist sort, which most thinking Christians agree is twaddle anyway.

Cheers, Oolon (who agrees that Scigirl is a fine specimen too )

[ August 20, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

Not for most Christians. The vast majority of churches accept evolution.

What design? The human eye is very good. Bat sonar is a great design. Sightless eyes on creatures that live in total darkness is, however, stupid design. But remember: they were not designed!! They were built by cumulative selection of what worked best at each generation. If there were no thought involved, we ought to see what we do see: efficient designs, and some that could be more efficient were it not for historical constraint.

The designer could have made it better, but decided not to...?

Love that “seem not to be”! Yep, that’s ecology!

Yep. That’s why predators are not an example or poor design. However, predators, lacking foresight, are far from averse to wiping out their prey, then dying out themselves. (Anyone got examples? Best I can think of off the top of my head are pathogens such as myxomatosis, which nearly wiped itself out along with the rabbits in australia: it had about a 99% mortality (at first... till it evolved!)

Such things are not poor design. Using more materials than required is poor design. Putting pelvises in legless creatures is poor design. Putting male parts in female flowers is poor design. And so on.

Fine, but a straw man. See the ‘Hey Oolon’ thread for real examples of poor design. To claim there is some unfathomable, ineffable reason behind it is to offer a non-explanation.

I’ve sometimes wondered why they don’t make whole aircraft out of the stuff they use for the black box recorders...

Cheers, Oolon

GeoTheo

I think anyone who looks at a fine example of the female figure and says "Gee, what a poor design." is a nerd. End of story.

Kevin Dorner

Too heavy to fly.

MrDarwin

If you're talking about biology and evolution, yes, that's exactly what we should be talking about.

But once we throw a creator/deity into the mix, and especially when somebody starts making claims about evolution being influenced in any way by this creator/deity, it would appear inescapable that this deity is also constrained by history--or, rather, constrained by an inability to see the future results of evolution. And this does not seem consistent with Christian claims about the nature of God.

hinduwoman

One could argue that God set the ball of evolution rolling and gave them no other direction than "Be fruitful and multiply". Evolution does not contradict God's existence, only biblical litaralism.

Stephen T-B

...off sat at a tangent, I’m afraid, but GeoTheo’s interesting thread made me recall something.
Before god seeped our of my life and completely vanished, I toyed with the idea that he had set the parameters in which all of creation occurred; worked out the basis-of-everything formula, if you like ,and then let it all happen.
He would have known, naturally, that it would have produced mankind - and that might have been his sole intention.
I suppose this is what Christian Evolutionists can believe. Perhaps it is what they MUST believe.
For me, though, reconciling this rather vague “Creative Energy” thing to a deity which had any interest in me as an individual became impossible. And it obviously had absolutely nothing to do with the god envisaged by the Jews.
GeoTheo has a different perspective, but I think it gives him more trouble than mine gives me...

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: Stephen T-B ]</p>

GeoTheo

Actually I think the evolutionary process as a creative force seems more in line with the Christian God. If we were made from clockwork, it would seem that we could only have a completely deterministic future. Where would free will come into play?
The fact is We are adapted properly to our environment. This environment involves chance.
Chance involves indeterminacy. Free will can only act within that principle.How else but through evolution could we be properly adapted to an environment that involves chance?

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: GeoTheo ]</p>