NOT_SO_INTELLIGENT DESIGN, A Tally

You're at it again fm.

A bit more subtlety I'll admit but it's still the subtext familiaris.

Where does the idea come from that I might wish to see mining engineers and economic geologists going about with divining rods or crystal balls. (Voodoo is black magic anyway and to suggest otherwise is just another elementary smear practiced under other names in ancient Rome and down the years since by flawed rhetoricians of all types. Using the word is elementary bdelygma in the service of diasyrmus. Shite in plain English and caused, once again, by underestimation of others. Goebells was an expert at it if you wish to start a pissing contest at smearing.)

Obviously, where large amounts of investment capital are on the line and with the possibility that people could get hurt or killed I am fully in favour of a rational approach as no doubt are most people. Why point out such a simple thing as if it is some special feature of your ideas. Nobody needs reminders on that score least of all me. I have investments in both fields.

If undergraduate recruitment consists of 75% ID-iots then it must be a social fact that ID-iocy is a significant factor in American life which must be taken into account. One would think that ID-iocy would be even more common in those who don't make it to undergraduate level. It must be difficult to connect to students when their religious views are thought of as voodoo.

If figures are being bandied about then "considerably" is much to weak a word to employ in such a context.

I have never seen a DeVito movie so I don't know what the reference is supposed to mean.

If you don't think a liberal arts education is scientific you obviously know nothing about such things. If you have had spats with the liberal arts people in your vicinity it has nothing to do with anybody else. Are you in departmental battles with them and bringing your self-interested prejudices to the thread as a result. How can I answer for them? They may be completely barmy for all I know. There's plenty of that in most places.

Legacy enrollment is quickly exposed if no merit exists. Here at least. If not in your little corner of the world so much the worse for you.



None of those things exist. They are products of your imagination. The sentence looks nonsensical to me. What "made it possible for life to exist on this planet" must have been a perfectly efficient process by definition unless one takes the view, as some do, that it would be better had it never happened. (I use "perfectly" not in the sense of "perfectly lovely" of course. I wouldn't normally point that out but needs must.)

Your list has one entry. Human reason. The only imperfect thing on the planet.

One isn't an "academic" by assertion. The fingerprints of an academic attitude, however trained, are easily seen in the modes of literary and verbal expression and in the physiognomies of lifestyles. If Americans wish to define academics by using assertions that is their affair but they can hardly expect proper academics to not laugh. If they do expect that they can whistle for it. Absurdity is always hilarious and never more so than when thrumming indignation plays a part and when overblown titles are paraded for what, stood in its underpants, is basically a pillock.

Re: NOT_SO_INTELLIGENT DESIGN, A Tally


Dandelions reproduce without fertilization (a condition known as apomixis), yet they retain flowers and produce pollen (both are sexual organs normally used for sexual fertilization). Flowers and pollen are thus useless characters for dandelions in terms of sexual reproduction.

ros wrote-



That ought to read, under the exigensies of academic integrity-

In what is known as the Circe episode in Ulysses one of Joyce's main concerns is with the symbolism of clothes in the context of magic.

Clothes, or rather dress as Veblen prefers, are what we mainly see of a person and judge them by which is why nakedness is so shocking to us. They represent an illusion or as some have said a "secondary body". Such magic can dramatically alter the external form as imagining, say, Barbara Carland naked rather than in her well known get-ups will easily demonstrate.

"Even the President of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked." is a line which always gets a big cheer at Dylan concerts the world over.

As most clothes (dress actually) serve the purpose of making invidious comparisons with others, i.e. harming them, they can thus be classed as "voodoo".

Religious beliefs are designed to make everybody feel the same and equal in the eyes of the Deity (except the priests of course) and are thus not voodoo because voodoo, being black magic, is, like dress, designed to harm others.

Wouldn't it be good academic practice to restrict a word like "voodoo" to those areas it applies to (the fashion and cosmetic industries including such things as dentures) rather than those it doesn't and to those people who use magically altered appearences to harm their fellows or does the need to remain popular or complacently self-satisfied over-ride such a self-evident academic principle?

Apparel is a better word to cover both clothes and dress. Clothes are for protection and warmth and any items of apparel not for such functional purposes are dress.

Same ecological niches that are found oceans apart, are filled by totally unrelated organisms, provideng that such organisms were split apart in their adaptation AFTER a particular land mass split from the paleo"mainland" For example, an entire series of niches are exploited by placentals in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. These same niches are exploited by marsupials in Australia. For example are the anteaters of S America and theMyrocobiuan anteaters of Australia. Theye ven look alike.. Flying squirrels in the US and the flying phalanger of Australia.(They both look like Rocky the Squirrel)
Wolves (Canids) in the rest of the world and the now extinct Thylacines of Australia.
Convergent Evolution is the phenom that illustrates this feture of natural selection. Given enough time and a solution, each niche will be similarly exploited.

Not exactly a "not -so-intelligent design" butgood evidence of opportunity driven adaptation.

Are you changing tack fm?

If you were originally looking for examples of the "not so intelligently designed "(which implies a designer), does that example, besides being off topic by your own lights, imply that the designer you conjure up may be more intelligent than you originally postulated and that possibly a foundation principle of the design is an instinct to be opportunity driven?

Yes, I agree. Our list of 'imperfections' as well as examples of environmental relationships are going to be endless.

Virtually everything about biological 'design' is 'imperfect' in a way which both belittles an implied intelligent designer, while at the same time demonstrating evolution in action.

Much of what is redundant in biological structure is actually beneficial to the process of evolution. All the little stray extra's in the populations are fuel for variation as well as protection against homogeny.

The only 'design' aspect of living things with isn't obviously related to the process of evolution is the process itself. In order to find something which is working virtually perfectly, you have to go all the way back to replicative molecules, and DNA.

ros wrote-



And that is what I said when I first entered wande's thread.

And that the process you mention is beyond human comprehension (irreducible) and that that was the zone of the knowledge asymptote into which political factors (social consequences) have room to exploit and that it follows automatically that the social consequences considerations are the only ones which matter for purposes other that specialised evolution studies which have nothing to say about ethical matters.

I wouldn't have included "virtually". The process was "perfect".

I fully accept the science of evolution and have all along.

Congratulations ros.

Now you can get down to brass tacks.

Do we, or don't we, want a veil of dignity, flimsy though it is, provided by religious belief and ceremonial to cover the baseness and meaninglessness of human animality and as a tool for social organisation.

Answer yes, as I do, doesn't imply that we don't know it is a veil.

Are you ready to rip the veil away for the whole population and if not you are where I started.

NEuman, an anatomist who served as an expert witness in the SCopes trial, noted that there were approximately 80 vestigial features in human anatomy . Since that time , that number has grown to over 160, with many of them in the molecular level.

So if we don't know or understand the function of something , it must be vestigial, right?

About 90%+ of the human genome's function is unknown to us. Must be vestigial.

Dr.NEuman, an anatomist who served as an expert witness in the SCopes trial, noted that there were approximately 80 vestigial features in human anatomy . Since that time , that number has grown to over 160, with many of them in the molecular level. Many of them are "goofy" work arounds similar to the eurethra and the prostate or the appendix or the relict nictating membrane in the eye.

An aside, this weekend I read Charles Kingsley's "water Babies" a thinly veiled testimonial to Darwin, and a childre'ns book that was responsible for actual riots among the devout of England who were outraged at how A clergyman could espouse the heresy of Natural Selection. Kingsley was a corresponding confident of Darwin, similar to Hooker and Huxley. Darwin, always the wus, was reluctant to discuss his "theory " with anyone because it caused him fits of nausea, carried out a long series of correspondence with a number of individuals with whom he shared his results and unfolded his theory since about 1841.

RL, the vestigial fetures within the genome, were found to be vestigial because they have been deciphered. There are quite a few genes that eg, control the processing of vegetable matter that are not presently being "turned on" to allow papillae in the stomach to absorb plant nutrients. Weve given up complete vegetarianism about 3+ million years ago. Also, a gene responsible for "frizzing out" an animals hair to make it appear more threatening is responsible for us getting "goose bumps" ID have to look up others but many are listed in Watson's book DNA

We have muscles that have allowed our ears to move about like a chimps or a marmoset. These are now vestigial since very few people can actually wag their ears.

Id be willing to listen to an alternative theory should you have one.

fm-

I agree with rl on this.

I don't think any of the items are truly vestigial. Only human arrogance would call them that.

One item that might be classed as vestigial under our specific modern circumstances is our desire to ingest fat. It might be classed as an addiction.

Fat is a very valuable foodstuff. In the course of human history it was a rare commodity. It is mentioned in The Bible in relation to animal sacrifice where the priest retained the fat for himself.

As it was rare and valuable we presumably evolved to seek it out when we could.

What has changed in our specific circumstances is that we have discovered how to supply copious quantities of fat economically by alterations to the environment but we have not lost the urge to eat it. ( A useful urge in a fat famine.)

We thus eat it in quantities we were not evolved to cope with and you see the results regularly paraded.

But even that is not a true vestigial because our circumstances may change and fat again become rare and thus the urge to eat it would be valuable again and provide those with some access to it an advantage in the struggle for existence.

The same might well apply to certain drugs such as nicotine or kinnikinic which only become a problem when they are easily available for non-shamanistic use. Incense in religious ceremonial is probably a cultural relic. Most priesthoods and shamans utilise narcotics in some way for their more advanced procedures as they do other methods of mind alteration such as askesis, light patterns and chantings.

Fundamentally the anti-IDer believes that religion is a vestigial urge so I think they will have as much, if not more, difficulty eradicating it as the eradication of excessive fat use is proving to be.

In the latter case the self-preservation instinct can be called up but I don't think that is the case with the urge for a belief.

One presumes that the urge to a belief has had a major role in human evolution of community and that it is only a vestigial subjectively for some who, if this is accepted, are thus neurotic.

A vestigial organ or component is one that is either a degenerate, atrophied or rudimentary organ that had served a purpose earlier. We can see the vestigial components of those parts of the genome that we have already decoded. (eg the ability to survive principally as vegetarians). These arent even open for your ..."I agree with RL on this" . Sorry but science has gone way beyond the debate. You either understand or not.RL has an agenda that you either accept or reject (sometime you like to appear on both sides of an argument but need to be much better armed)

As far as the appendix and the ear muscles , the reduced hyoid, the coccyx, wisdom teeth, non lordosing sections of the spine etc. These had served purposes in another time. They now reside as mere reminders of the day that we were more comfortable in trees than standing upright.

fm-

I am in a constant state of trying to be better armed.

There must be billions, effectively an infinity, of parts and processes within the bodies in the animal and plant worlds.

You are just picking a few out which seem to you convenient to hang your ideas on.

Even if something could be said to be vestigial it proves nothing that I can see. Not only are you choosing a few examples but you are also choosing a minute fraction of the timescale. Comic book depictions of societies which are highly motorised used to show the legs as vestigial and the head twice the size it is now. None of it has anything to say about a designer intelligent or otherwise.

Wait. You're using comic books as a supporting document? Seriously?

Now I know that you are more intelligent than that. Lets look at apython, it has the vestiges of a hip and fused legs. If we look into the fossil record, do we find examples of that type of reptilian that had legs? the answer is yes, in the Jurassic are examples of elapid, crotalid and non oisonous pre-snakes that had full rear legs and vestigial front ones.

As rl says, its in the interpretation. Science arrives at no other possible interpretation to vestigial organs than as remnants of a past time. Vestigial organs do indeed consider the total structure and , via the fossil record , the timescale. Its a nice clustering of the evidence that leaves the Creationists and IDers , a bit lost for their own interpretation. If you notice, RL is always busy trying to critique science but, except for once or twice, hes never come out with a treatise on his interpretation of any evidence.

Not really Drew.

But comic books are written by people who are someway above average.

I just tossed it in.

I've seen the vestigial legs and arms idea in some commercials as well.

The natural strength of the Arabian horse breed's fetlocks have undergone a weakening in the breeding of racehorses in order to make the feet lighter in certain types of races. I saw one breakdown in a race just the other day.

One could hardly say that the remnants in the bones of the fetlock are useless vestigials and thus unintelligently designed but if the only horses left on the planet at some stage were racehorses some might then claim they were.

The coccyx is an interesting one because it serves no apprent anatomical function, but failure of its development is generally coincident with mild to severe physiological and anatomical dysfunction (e.g., the incontinence observed in Manx cats with especially reduced tails or spina bifida).

Thus, we don't need the coccyx itself, but the developmental process that gives us the coccyx also gives us an intact posterior spinal cord and proper lower motor neuron function. (I've been told by a couple of chiropractors that mild spina bifida also is associated with underdeveloped flexor muscles in the legs, for what its worth.) This situation is perfectly consistent with a creature that has descended from tailed ancestors, but is more difficult to reconcile with the de novo design of a tailless animal.

Even if we accept your list of vestigial structures, we are no closer to proving, or providing support for evolution.

At best, vestigial structures only offer proof that organisms can lose[/u] genetic information and thus lose function.

They do not and cannot prove that organisms can gain[/u] additional genetic information that would build a previously non-existent organ or biological system.