Sunday, January 01, 2006
The theory of "Incompetent Design".
From today's Toronto Star, a good piece on why Intelligent Design is anything but by Conestoga College journalism professor David Smillie.
AFTERSNARK: Smillie's piece is annoyingly timely since I was planning on writing something along the same lines -- just how badly designed is the human form.
As one example, I'm pretty sure that, if I was in charge, I could have come up with a better idea than to have the same orifice do double duty as both the airway and as the method by which we ingest food and water. As we all know, when those two functions get a bit mixed, things can get unpleasant.
And, as a guy, I can assure you that I would have put those family jewels in a safer place, if you know what I mean. Oh, yes, there's no end to bad design in the human body. And don't even get me started on the lower back.
I'm sure you all have other examples.
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3 comments:
Wait a minute, you talk about the family jewels and an orifice that does double duty which, when mixed, can get unpleasant, and these are two seperate things?
There's likely quite a list of body parts we do just fine without. At least, we don't seem to be harmed if we don't have them: wisdom teeth. The appendix. The foreskin. Fingernails. Underarm hair. The gall bladder . . .
Intelligent design is not an argument about individals it is an argument about everything. By saying there is one flaw you refuse to look at the "larger picture." Why is it that we eat an breath through the same hole? There is no other place to put our mouths, we'd have to reorganize the rest of our system. Our whole body works in an orderly fashion, given the model of our body it is the most efficient self-sustaining way to have our mouth have a double function. Other double functions can be explained in a similar way.
Intelligent design dictates that everything is ordered in a certain way on purpose. Our universe has laws of how it operates. By saying these laws happen by "accident" is to admit that they are capable of changing (since they became as opposed to always have been). Thus there is no standard to base anything off of. To say that they always have been is no different from the immortality of an outside god looking in on reality and having started a universe with preset laws.
Very few scientific doctrines are incompatible with the idea of intelligent design. Even a concept like "evolution" has been included into what is called "theological evolution."
Your argument falls flat because it does not outline what kind of "intelligent design" argument you are combating and second whether or not intelligent design is salvagable on other grounds. I don't believe in intelligent design and yet I see that your logic is lacking in covering all intelligent design arguments.
If you truly want to get into the modern debate on intelligent design you are going to have to look outside of the Toronto Star and look at Journals. The modern debate is on the nature of "belief" and when a person should and should not believe something.
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