"Agreed. After reading Paul Nelson's NTSE paper, in which he quoted
extensively from Gould's and others' arguments about how a wise designer
would not have used the same limb structure for such a wide variety of
creatures, my reaction was that if God had desired to optimize the
adaptability a single mechanism, he succeeded. The point is that Gould and
others who use the argument from imperfection have no way of knowing what
the designer had in mind."
True, which is why appeal to a supernatural force has little scientific
value.
Because any flaw can be explained as "we do not understand what the
designer
had in mind". Perhaps he/she was sadistic or just playfull in having eyes
of the flaunder move all over the body or route the urinary tract through
the prostate gland of men ?
If anything else Gould's arguments and your response show perfectly the
enormous chasm between scientific approach and religious faith.
Regards
Pim