Not-So Intelligent Design

Roborant makes a provocative, laugh-out-loud case that if there was a Designer, he or she was none too Intelligent (maybe Richard Lawrence Cohen's "slowest student in the class"?):

Of course, we haven't even covered the silliest stuff. What is that appendix doing there? Nothing, just waiting to become infected and kill its owner. If you were designing a machine that had an oxygen metabolism and needed to take in food, would you plan to use the same passage for both functions? Yeah, that's good design. Would you naturally assume that the organ responsible for hearing would also house the mechanism of balance? If we were "intelligently" designed, why did the designer make our jaws too farking small for all of our teeth? Those "wisdom" teeth certainly don't seem like wise design.

No, the human body is a massive collection of kludges and imperfections. It works, but is subject to an awful lot of failures and chronic problems. Elsewhere in creation, the story isn't any better. Most creatures are full of design flaws. From the panda's thumb, to the vestigial wings of flightless birds, to the hip bones deep inside of whales, to the parthenogenetic lizards of the genus Cnemdophorus, nature is full of kludges, half-measures, make-dos, re-works and downright crazy adaptations.

In fact, these misdesigns are some of the strongest arguments in favor of evolution. Those tails that human embryos have, then lose, are pretty obvious signs, aren't they? What about the fetal teeth of certain whales that form, but never erupt, then get reabsorbed? Sounds like evolution to me. Those flounders that are born with an eye on each side, but then one eye moves over to the other side: evolution or intelligent design? Flightless birds which nevertheless have hollow bones to conserve weight? Maybe God just likes his penguins to have hollow bones! Nearly all of the "design flaws" I have described make perfect sense if we assume evolution as the design mechanism. Evolution finds it much easier to adapt existing structures to new purposes (horses with one hoof still have bones inside to support three toes) than to invent from scratch.

And I didn't even get to the parts about sexual anatomy! Read it and laugh, or you might cry. I don't think this rules out the operation of some kind of intrinsic intelligence on the mutation end of the process. But if so, omniscient and omnipotent it ain't.

- amba

UPDATE: This very apropos joke just arrived in an e-mail full of jokes about engineers:

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections." The last one said, "Actually it must have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Comments

[sleipner]

Yeah, what he said.

Very well stated, and probably one of the most supportable points in the anti-ID evidence. Of course the creationist folks would just say "Just because we don't understand why it's there doesn't mean God didn't have a purpose for it"

Regarding the initial origin of life, there is simply too little evidence to fully support any theory (it is almost all lost to antiquity) - but imho if the crazy and complicated quilt of evolution is possible without ID (refuting the ridiculous "watch" analogy), there's no particular reason why the inherently more simple chemical reactions necessary to form self-perpetuating chemical copy reactions could not also have occurred without ID.

We know the chemicals were all there, we know that conditions on the Earth were more favorable to chemical reactions, and we know that complex sugars are formed in the extrasolar clouds where comets come from.

Once it gets to this point - after science or logic has repeatedly beaten down every one of ID's other assertions - why should we assume that ID is correct in this area, just because we have less evidence? Especially since we know the exact reason for that dearth of evidence.

In the end, I believe that the only people who truly believe in ID are the ones who already had their minds made up about it - irrespective of the science.

The only way we'll ever know for certain is to visit another planet similar to early Earth with incipient life - which will likely not occur in my lifetime, unless Titan or some other intrasolar planet gives us an exciting surprise.

[michael reynolds]

Why be limited to the familiar materials? God doesn't know how to make titanium for bones and joints? Teflon for teeth?

And He couldn't come up with a process for generating energy that didn't involve belching, farting, urinating and defecating? (I hope you appreciate that I went with the big words there.) Some reason God can't do nuclear fusion?

[amba]

Oh, he does nuclear fusion. Just not here.

(Which reminds me of my favorite quote - "There is infinite hope, but not for us." Kafka.

[sleipner]

Actually natural nuclear fission has occurred right here on earth - I read a science news article stating that a few million years back some uranium deposits reached critical mass and reacted for a few thousand years.

And of course every star is a fusion reactor.

[sleipner]

Ha! I heard that joke in college...back in 1988. Some humor is timeless.

[karen]

Love the joke. My ex-husband is a civil engineer. As to the rest of the debate, I humbly acknowledge that *God is science* and since I'm no scientist, I opt out of the issue. Or copped- out. :)

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