There is a huge contradiction. If God's will and intentions are ultimately
unknowable, then the question of His existence will forever be beyond
the boundaries of scientific investigation. And this provides an easy
tool for Creationists to deal with any inconsistencies in their theory
by saying, "well, God works in mysterious ways!" This is what leads to
bad science.
>>GG>"I'm wondering with Mr. Jones how a flaw can be deduced in a
>>creature. It seems perfectly reasonable to ask someone who
>>postulates that an organism is flawed from what perspective they are
>>judging the flaw: aesthetics? ("It's ugly, I don't like it.")
>>utility? ("It would be more efficient if it killed its food with a
>>stinger") It sounds like a bogus critique to me--the sort of
>>handwaving that would be called out of court in any refereed journal.
>>The critic must assume *he* knows a lot more than he can possibly
>>know. Perhaps the explanation is easy because the argument is
>>silly."
>
SJ>I personally have no problem even if it is a "flaw" from the
>standpoint of ideal engineering design. There is no requirement
>that a designer who is capable of perfect design, must always and in
>every case employ it:
No, but if you are arguing that imperfect designs are deliberate, then
you should be able to back up that argument by providing some good
reasons why an imperfect design was employed when a perfect one would
have been just as easy.
SJ>The argument from imperfection assumes incorrectly that the Designer
>has only one motive - engineering excellence:
No, it assumes that the person arguing intelligent design should be
able to provide a good argument for it.
SJ>An Intelligent Designer may have reasons for sub-optimal design. For
>example, He may not want any one creature to have an overwhelming
>advantage over another, because that would contradict His design
>goals for the whole system:
How would it give us an "overwhelming advantage" over squids if we
were to have the same anti-blindspot retinal design that they do?
Besides, if God's goal has been to prevent any species from achieving
an overwhelming advantage over another, then He has failed numerous times,
according to both the fossil record and many direct observations.
[Quoting Behe]
>"...we are far from understanding the complexity of individual
>organisms, let alone the entire ecosystem in which that organism
>lives. What appears to be less than optimal design to us with our
>limited knowledge may actually be an optimal design when the entire
>system is considered."
"may be" does not constitute a strong scientific argument.
>"Consider the thickness of armor plating on the
>side of a warship. Since the purpose of such plating is to protect
>the ship from the puncture of an incoming warhead, it is advantageous
>to make the plating as thick as possible. Yet the plating on actual
>warships is much thinner than it could be made. The reason is, of
>course, that an increase in plating thickness makes the ship heavier,
>and thus slower. A less mobile ship is more likely to get hit more
>often and less likely to get to where it is needed when it is needed.
>The actual thickness of the armor on a warship is a tradeoff-not so
>thin as to make the ship too easily sinkable, and not so thick as to
>make the ship too slow."
An interesting example, but I fail to see how it applies to, say, the
placement of blood vessels on a mammalian retina, or the pathway of the
human urethra, or any of the other examples that I've read about.
>"We know too little about the complexity of
>organisms and the environment in which they live to conclude that any
>one particular feature is actually less than optimal." (Wise K.P.,
>in Moreland J.P. ed., "The Creation Hypothesis", 1994, pp221-222)
We know when a feature causes an inherent disadvantage (such as the
blindspot in mammals, or the dangerous layout of the human urethra,
which makes it prone to blockage when the prostate swells), and many
of these features cannot possibly be seen as an advantage. However,
if Behe, Stephen Jones, or anybody else has examples of how such
features might prove advantageous in "the big picture", they are welcome
to present that evidence.
SJ>In fact, the argument from imperfection assumes without warrant that
>we would infallibly know what was in the mind of the Designer:
It only assumes a certain level of common sense. Surely an omnipotent
being would be capable of that.
SJ>But archaeology has major problems in understanding why *human*
>minds did what they did, as no less than Daniel Dennett points out:
And even we fallible, imperfect humans can see ways that life could
have been designed better.
_____________________________________________________________
| Russell Stewart |
| http://www.rt66.com/diamond/ |
|_____________________________________________________________|
| Albuquerque, New Mexico | diamond@rt66.com |
|_____________________________|_______________________________|
If Rush is Right, then I'll take what's Left.