RE: Does intelligent design explain why...
June 2, 2014 at 12:29 am
(This post was last modified: June 2, 2014 at 12:31 am by Chas.)
(June 2, 2014 at 12:03 am)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote:(May 31, 2014 at 10:06 am)Simon Moon Wrote: Exactly.
A more drastic example is rotting meat.
We think rotting meat smells bad. But in actuality, there are various molecules produced by rotting meat that don't smell bad or good until they are perceived by an organism.
We think they smell bad because rotting meat could kill us. So we evolved a survival mechanism to avoid rotting meat by detecting it as smelling bad.
But the exact same molecules that we detect as smelling bad, are detected by vultures or flies as smelling good, and necessary for their survival.
The main reason why humans can't eat rotting meat is that we don't have the proper gut bacteria to digest it. If we had vulture guts we would be fighting over road kill. Since protein is hard to come by for most animals the question should be why don't we have the necessary bacteria to eat rotten meat?
Even if you were provided the gut bacteria, you wouldn't eat it.
Our sensory reaction to the odors of rotting meat evolved to do that because people who ate it didn't fare well.
"The spoilage of meat occurs, if the meat is untreated, in a matter of hours or days and results in the meat becoming unappetizing, poisonous or infectious.
Spoilage is caused by the practically unavoidable infection and subsequent decomposition of meat by bacteria and fungi, which are borne by the animal itself,"
Skepticism is not a position; it is an approach to claims.
Science is not a subject, but a method.
Science is not a subject, but a method.