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Post by gwiz on Sept 7, 2006 6:48:05 GMT -4
This sort of thing is all rather good evidence for evolution. In terms of engineering design optimisation methods, a local optimum in the "design space" has been reached. There exists a better design, a global optimum, but it can only be reached from the local optimum by travelling through a region of poorer performance (think of climbing in a mountain range, you've reached one peak, but you cannot get to the higher peak you can see without going downhill first). Some optimisation methods can cope with this, typically by varying the size of the change it makes at each step or choosing lots of different starting points and hoping that at least one will be near enough to the global optimum to converge on it rather than a local optimum. However, there is no way that a "genetic algorithm" method, one that mimics the process of natural selection, can move off a local optimum once it has reached one.
You can think of natural selection as a one-way method for going towards an optimum in design space, without any guarantee that the optimum in question is the global one, the best design. Richard Dawkins summed it up in his book title "Climbing Mount Improbable".
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Sept 7, 2006 11:37:46 GMT -4
You misunderstand me. Again. No, I understood you - I was just poking fun. See the smiley? Ships did not evolve - they were intelligently designed.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Sept 7, 2006 11:47:43 GMT -4
It's not just that features are shared, or that there are "similarities", it's that many of these similarities would have to be regarded as design faults by any objective standard. So, is that an argument that God did not create life because he included what appear to be design errors?
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Post by Data Cable on Sept 7, 2006 12:50:57 GMT -4
So, is that an argument that God did not create life because he included what appear to be design errors? It is not the inclusion of design errors which is significant, it's is the grouping in which those design errors appear.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
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Post by Al Johnston on Sept 7, 2006 16:59:26 GMT -4
Yes; the simplest explanation for the exact same design error being present across multiple species is that they inherited them from a common ancestor.
(It may not even be until a long way down the chain of descent that an inherited feature turns out to be a design flaw: the crossing of the airway and foodway in land-dwelling vertebrates is a case in point. For most animals it's never a problem, but with the adaptations in H sapiens to facilitate speech, sometimes ingested food ends up in the airway, occasionally to terminal effect.)
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Post by gillianren on Sept 7, 2006 17:02:56 GMT -4
It's not just that features are shared, or that there are "similarities", it's that many of these similarities would have to be regarded as design faults by any objective standard. So, is that an argument that God did not create life because he included what appear to be design errors? It certainly does a lot against Intelligent Design, anyway. If human design were intelligent, for example, the vaginal opening would be out the front, where there are no bones to limit its size.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
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Post by Al Johnston on Sept 7, 2006 17:11:40 GMT -4
As Jack Cohen put it: "What sort of Great Architect puts the playground between two open sewers?"
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Post by gillianren on Sept 7, 2006 19:42:58 GMT -4
As Jack Cohen put it: "What sort of Great Architect puts the playground between two open sewers?" Speaking as someone who's given birth, that's only a very small part of my concern. The risk to both child and mother in the current configuration is enormous, hence the need for the concept of a C-section at all. Most babies' head go all pointy during birth (my daughter's did not; I have pictures), which means their bones are softer and therefore of less protective value when they're most vulnerable. Angela Bowie, David Bowie's first wife, has such slim hips that she actually cracked her pelvis during childbirth. What's more, a woman's hips never go back to their original size after the spreading they undergo prior to childbirth. Now, I know the Almighty's highest concern is not a woman's wardrobe, but it's pretty much inevitable that women need a new one after their first child, because what expands in pregnancy generally does not go back--and I don't mean baby weight; I mean bits that you can't diet back into shape.
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Sept 8, 2006 2:42:20 GMT -4
That would be one good reason why all the "intelligent design" proponents I've encountered are men
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Post by lionking on Sept 8, 2006 9:14:55 GMT -4
I am convinced that if there was evolution, then this is the best way it can be for humans. There are things that you view as unappropriate that have other appropriate functons. For example, the female sex organs are a lot inwards to protect them from bacterial infections, since they are more prone that the mans' sex organs.
"Angela Bowie, David Bowie's first wife, has such slim hips that she actually cracked her pelvis during childbirth" but you rarely hear of such cases. Most women who can't deliver normally, do C-section. The evolution in the science and human intelligence from one hand is palying a role in saving women from many dangers. We are discussing here general normal situations and not rare ones. There is the concept of natural selection also. If the Solmon fish don't die after giving birth, for example, their numbers will become too much for nature. You can put this with the women's difficulties in birth.
I don't think that God's wisdom in the natural laws should be understood by us fully for them to be wise. I think we should get humbled enough to look at things we do understand, such as the human brain and how it works, the blood distribution, and everything that amazes us in its accuracy. We can't just look at the "empty" cup and try to fit our beliefs as we want them to be.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Sept 8, 2006 11:08:04 GMT -4
The question, I suppose is two-part. "Would a perfect God design imperfect creatures?" And "Are these in fact design flaws?"
With regards to the second question, do we have any way to prove that an octopus' eye is a better design? Do we have any way to prove that having the girl thingy on the front of the abdomen would solve a lot of problems without introducing many more? And should efficiency of design be the only concern when designing life forms?
With regards to the first, religious philosophers have always acknowledged that humans are imperfect.
Edit: I can't believe the list chose to edit my post to "girl thingy". Oh well.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Sept 8, 2006 11:15:09 GMT -4
Well, I guess I could change the forum's censor...
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Sept 8, 2006 14:31:24 GMT -4
An octopus' eye has no blind spot and, for a given amount of light-sensitive chemical, is more sensitive to incoming light.
That would seem to be "better" by any reasonable definition of the term.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Sept 8, 2006 15:06:48 GMT -4
I don't ever notice my blind spot. Admittedly being able to see better in the dark would be nice, but does the octopus loose anything in return? Color sensitivity, resolution, speed? Are you certain the human eye has no advantages at all over those of an octopus?
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Post by gillianren on Sept 8, 2006 16:09:43 GMT -4
I am convinced that if there was evolution, then this is the best way it can be for humans. There are things that you view as unappropriate that have other appropriate functons. For example, the female sex organs are a lot inwards to protect them from bacterial infections, since they are more prone that the mans' sex organs. Actually, its current location leaves it very open to infection, given--as has been pointed out--its location between the waste pipes. Hence the interminable commercials for yeast infection cures. They are where they are because that's where every other mammal has 'em. But having to have a C-section proves the inadequacy of human "design." After all, women died in childbirth for centuries because their hips were too slim. My mother, who's not a small-boned woman, has a pelvic opening that's too narrow for the three of us to be born naturally. (Of course, my older sister was breach and would've been C-section anyway.) Problems in childbirth due to hip size are not as rare as you seem to believe. Salmon. And humans have had exactly the opposite problem before, and there were still slim-hipped women dying in childbirth. Mostly before the C-section, which has only been a successful operation for both mother and child for a few hundred years. I don't think God had anything to do with it, and I have just as much evidence as you. And no, we don't understand the human brain. There's a ton about it that we're clueless about it. If we understood it, I wouldn't be about to start my fourth attempt at finding a medication that helps my manic depression, because we would understand how to handle it on the first go--in fact, we'd be able to cure it.
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