RE: [Utah-astronomy] What is to be taught in our schools?
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! (Sorry, just beating a dead horse here) WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! Quoted bits are from Canopus56(Kurt). Natural selection asks:
Does the randomly created mutation result in a increased survival benefit to the organism that increases the probability the organism will reproduce?"
One of the main problems I have with the theory of an intelligent agent driving evolution is that if there is designer - he's got to be one of the worst engineers in recorded history. Some examples include:
A) Men have nipples but don't nurse children.
How are male nipples a survival benefit? To me as a software designer, this is evidence of object-oriented design. The designer is obviously re-using a base plan that works and modifying it slightly. :)
B) Women give birth by a uterus and do not lay eggs. Why would a purposeful designer select the mammalian uterus as a design for human reproduction? Without significant medical support the odds of death and/or dehabilitating infection are quite high due to the placenta tearing away form the uterine wall. Wouldn't a purposeful designer have simply stuck with egg - a design that inherently has much lower risks associated with childbirth?
Again, this seems to be an argument against survivability. So it could not possibly have evolved that way, right? This is all mostly tongue-in-cheek, but the case just does not seem to be as open-and-shut to me as it does to others here. I think we all will just have to agree to disagree. There is a lot of data out there that can be interpreted many ways. This question of Kurt's is very good:
1) What are the key components of the theory of intelligent design that proponents want taught in Utah public secondary schools?
We should all probably understand what is actually being proposed before we dismiss or endorse it. I doubt if there are many on this list who have read the curriculum proposed for ID. I know I haven't. I just don't worry about it that much. I have always been fond of Mark Twain's saying, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." If all that a kid learns is from the public school system, he or she has more problems than just science deficiency. :) Aaron
--- "Lambert, Aaron" <Aaron.Lambert@Williams.com> wrote:
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! (Sorry, just beating a dead horse here) WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
LOL! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! < snip >
A) Men have nipples but don't nurse children. How are male nipples a survival benefit? To me as a software designer, this is evidence of object- oriented design. The designer is obviously re-using a base plan that works and modifying it slightly. :)
Natural selection works by modifying pre-existing parts and builds Rube Goldberg amalgamations that work just well enough to perpetuate the species. Intelligent designers of things like airplanes, watches and Blackberrys start from stratch and build the most efficient design, leaving off non-functional parts. I've never seen a 747 with a wooden bi-plane wing sticking out the top. Genetics explains why men have nipples but don't nurse. Sometimes the gene that mutates is a master gene that controls several features of an organism. The acquired characteristic that confers incremental survival benefit is tied to the same gene that drags along a non-functioning redunant part. A tongue-in-cheek example might be that the gene that makes a man's nipple could be tied to the gene that makes big muscles used in thumping mastadons. The point of ID theory is that if the designer is intelligent, in order to see evidence of the existence of the intelligent designer, selections have to be intelligent and distinguishable from random design selections. Otherwise, there is no difference to between intelligent and natural selection that can be measured. To me, redunant parts are one area where ID theory doesn't explain things well - when way "purposeful" "intelligent" design can be reconciled with the Rube Goldberg design of the human body and most other organisms is to start doing what you are doing - speculate about the "personality" of the unseen designer. "Well maybe the intelligent designer was feeling lazy that day and decided to reuse an existing pattern." At that point, ID becomes indistinguishable from religion and isn't science anymore. At that point, ID is indistinguishable from natural selection. To detect intelligent design, we must by necessity limit our inquiry to designs that appear intelligent. By lumping truely intelligent design selections in with those that appear to be randomn or "whimsy" or the result of designer "laziness," ID theory has nothing left to detect.
B) Women give birth by a uterus and do not lay eggs. . . . Again, this seems to be an argument against survivability. So it could not possibly have evolved
that way, right?
The uterus provides many other survival benefits, like the ability to carry your young with you until birth, that may confer an incremental survival benefit above the advantages of an egg and that outweigh the risks of death in childbirth. To offset the drawback of the egg that it has to sit exposed on the ground for several weeks, birds fly continents to find breeding areas that do not have large populations of ground-predators. One of the main drawbacks of mammalian birth in women (that can result in death without medical intervention) is that their birth canals are still too small. A purposeful, intelligent designer would have simply made their hips a little wider. A purposeful designer would make childbirth a pleasant, efficient process. A random designer using natural selection as the driving force would only make women's hips wide enough so the specices could procreate. Design by natural selection simply would make the birthing process work - and not necessarily make it a painless experience.
This question of Kurt's is very good:
1) What are the key components of the theory of intelligent design that proponents want taught in Utah public secondary schools?
More on this later - at least as to what ID theory consists of. As to what the Utah proponents of ID specifically want taught in the schools, I don't know either. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
participants (2)
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Canopus56 -
Lambert, Aaron