Intelligent design: could we do better?

[Reforged]

Is it possible to genetically engineer a god? and would it be wierd if god then praised us? (the inferior creators)

Hmmm... no. What would happen is that it would destroy the creators then after various cycles of destroying all life for circular reasons one person would get an extremely suspect choice of three colour coded outcomes to resolve the situation.
Then I'd put a gun up to Casey Hudsons temple, pull the trigger, shoot his body a couple more times to be sure. Then I'd spit on him.
Then the credits would roll.

... I think I was thinking of an extremely traumatic event that had occurred in my life when typing that. Sorry.

[System of Solace]

Is it possible to genetically engineer a god? and would it be wierd if god then praised us? (the inferior creators)

It may eventually rebel, like Ralph said.

I think an imperfect and inferior designer cannot create a perfect sentient being.

[Anomalocaris]

Maybe the imperfections are what makes it so perfect. Without the bad you wouldn't appreciate the good.


(Damn I sound like a christard)

It is entertaining to see a person so known to be intelligent as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, co-inventor of calculus, arguably the highest authority of his era on anything he could be bother to issue pronoucement upon, arguing much the same point.

And then see Voltaire skewer him like a bug in a specimen box for it.

[Justtristo]

I believe in intelligent design, just that I believe that without it things like jet engines wont work.

[popeyespappy]

Human design flaws

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1. Female pelvis too small for the human baby's head making birth difficult and prone to perinatal injuries to the baby.

2. Retinal arteries/veins lying on and in front of the retina of the eyes. Many causes of blindness come from this defective design.

3. Wisdom teeth (already noted) with secondary abscesses, occasionally dissecting up into the cranium -> brain abscess, meningitis, epidural empyema.

4. Larynx too highly placed, leading to common choking deaths.

5. A bony projection, called the Odontoid Process, an extension of the C2 vertebral body lie a long finger, up to the end of the brainstem. It can easily fracture, especially in rheumatoid arthritis. That leads to death or paralysis of all extremities and inability to breathe without a mechanical ventilator. A simpler rotatory ball-socket joint would be better and safer.

6. Semi-soft disc material between vertebrae and just anterior to the spinal cord, were suited well to quadrupeds. But in humans the upper body weight compresses these and can cause herniations with mild to moderate trauma. There are 6 of these (none at C1-2) in the neck, 12 in the thoracic spine, 5 (rarely 6) in the Lumbar spine. That is 23 flaws or accidents waiting to happen.

7. Hip joints perfectly suited to support human weight if there were four of them or 4 supporting limbs. In a biped, the stress causes extremely common hip degeneration, femoral neck fractures in women and older people. How often do you hear of that in a dog or horse?

8. Knees similarly are not strong enough with the tibial cartilage in two legs for human weight, jumping down, and running. If we had 4 legs it would not be so bad. How often do you see cats with knee problems?

9. Foot and ankle bones are badly designed. Most quadrupeds walk on their toes or the balls of the feet. This puts more weight on flexible tendons, ligaments and several bending joints spreading the stress. In the human food, we are walking on essentially our leg "wrists" and balls of the foot with an arch that is traumatised by walking and standing. When it falls it has an additional problem of severe foot pain. (see 10).

10. In those fallen arches, the plantar nerves are badly placed. Instead of weaving between or over top of bones to their skin sensory receptors, these course "under" the ankle bones, under the arch to the metatarsal joints. When the arch slowly gives way it stretches those nerves and eventually compresses them. This never happens in dogs or cats.

11. Human wrist must extend to provide maximum finger flexion; a major human task is to hold things in our hands. So the wrist flexes a thousand times a day. Problem is that the median nerve runs through a bony trough covered by tough ligaments, the Carpal Tunnel. With every wrist flexion the median nerve is pulled in and out of that canal. The canal is easily narrowed by minor injuries or repetitive use. The nerve is injured causing pain, finger numbness, and weakness in thumb opposition.

12. The Elbow flexes and extends, but an important nerve, the Ulnar Nerve mostly motor to the muscles of the forearm and hand. It unfortunately does not go in front of the elbow in the safer soft tissue. It courses behind the elbow which is fine in horses, but human flex the arm at the elbow that pulls and stretches the ulnar nerve in a long course behind the elbow in an "ulnar groove" and additionally a human sitting often rest elbows on a table, and that compresses the ulnar nerve. Dogs and cats don't do that.

13. The Brachial Plexus is a cluster of the nerves to the arm that travels through a triangle with the first rib being the bottom, the collar bone in front, and the scalene muscles behind. Also in the triangle is the brachial artery to supply blood to the arm. Poor posture, hanging by exercise bars from the hands, or throwing balls, cause the triangle to compress either or both structures. This is Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, the Neuronal form when the plexus is injured and vascular form when the brachial circulation is impaired.

14. Female urinary opening (urethra), vagina, and rectum all located in a close row so that rectal infection of the urethra/bladder/kidneys, or the vagina is risky. The old joke is why is the recreational park located at the sewage outflow pipes?

15. Appendix is a seemingly useless relic of evolution that often gets infected and ruptures in a life threatening peritonitis unless removed quickly. A few postulate that it might have bacterial that make certain vitamins. That is unproven.

16. Large veins in the legs, progressively dilating from standing, walking, run the risk of blood clotting when the human sits for a period of time. These veins send those clots north to the heart's right ventricle and directly into the lungs causing pulmonary emboli (clots and lung infarction) that is often fatal.) Quadruped animals rarely die of this. Many humans do.

17. Venous Cavernous Sinuses at the skull base on left and right are large draining veins from the brain. But inside of the vein there is the carotid artery taking blood into the brain, and several important nerves: III, IV, VI that control all eye movements, pupillary diameter, and lens focusing, and V-1, V-2, and V-3 that supply sensation to the eye and face. This venous structure packed with these important structures is infected by sinus infection or pustules in or on the nose. Infection causes the blood to clot (thrombosis) that injures the nerves, makes the eye bulge and swell, and can cause spreading thrombosis into the brain which can be rapidly fatal.

18. Other cranial sinuses such as the transverse are located next to the middle ear that frequently gets infected in kids. The infection spread to the venous sinus and causes thrombophlebitis, the major effect is increased fluid pressure in the brain, venous strokes, and seizures. If all of those venous drainage pipes were internally situated, there would not be such a risk. (17 and 18).

19. Congenital birth defects caused by structures found only in primitive animals (but still in our genes): gills in our embryonic stage may have some left over at birth and a baby may have a partial gill (technically called a branchial cleft cyst.) These can cause pain as the person grows, or develop abscesses. Another is a chordoma, tumour composed of notochord tissue only otherwise found in ancient animals like Pikaea and Amphioxus. It preceded the evolution of the bony spine. We have one in our early embryo stages but absorb it. Sometime absorption is incomplete and notochord tissue grows (tumour) unfortunately in the clivus at the base of the brain.

20. Our abdomen. It houses our stomach, our liver, our spleen, great vessels (aorta) small bowel, and colon. In quadripeds it is underneath. An attacker cannot easily get to it. The predator has to attack the tougher back and spine. But in the human the belly is sticking out there for some clawed or toothed predator or knife wielding human criminal to take a swipe and eviscerate us.

FreeAmerican

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They forgot the prostate. In the words of Jerry Coyne, “Only a moron would design a gland prone to swelling surrounding a collapsible pipe.”

[TaraJo]

They forgot the prostate. In the words of Jerry Coyne, “Only a moron would design a gland prone to swelling surrounding a collapsible pipe.”

I always thought it was a pretty significant design flaw that an orifice that expels germs in snot or sneezes is right over the orifice we use for eating and breathing. Wouldn't it be nice if we sneezed from a different part of our body so we don't sneeze on our food or so we don't drip snot on it when we have a cold?

[Godscreated]

Is it just me, or is there anyone else here who thinks, if we had the opportunity, we could design things better than they currently are?

absolutly! I would seperate esophagus and airway entry so both no longer enter the body through mouth and nose, but have seperate entries to the body. Like a dolphine. Why suffercate on food? That`s stupid design!

So, for the smokers out there, you would have to stick the cig in your nose and then blow that smoke out of your nose, this way you do not get throat cancer, you get nose and sinus cancer and will have to have your nose removed, gooooood design.

Exactly how would one cough and get rid of the gunk that builds in the lungs when you get a cold, have pneumonia or anything that would cause congestion. Then that leads to how would one breath when their nose and sinuses are inflamed and stopped up.

Your design would make it difficult to scuba dive and snorkel, and when one drowns it would be impossible to cough up the water to be able to breath again, this would make drowning a death sentence no matter how the water gets into one's lungs and who would want to do mouth to nostril resuscitation, though I did once.

One problem with your design might not be to bad, we would not be able to talk, then we would not have words and we would not have to listen to your stupid idea of separating the esophagus and windpipe.

One could not run or do other strenuous activities, you can not take enough air into the lungs just through the nostrils, unless you want them to take up about half your face, I for one have a nose that is big enough.

I'm sure there are other reasons but I'll stop here.

[Akincana Krishna dasa]

The idea that there is a lot of "bad design" in the universe implies that you already know what the universe is designed it for.

Without knowing that, all of the points that the sun will eventually explode, most places are uninhabitable for human life, and that people get sick, etc. tell us very little about how good the design is. If the world isn't meant to be your personal paradise, for example, but there is a different function the designer had in mind, it may very well be that all of the anomalies we find in the universe are part of plan we just don't know anything about.

[Brian37]

I always seem to think of this when I'm taking some kind of biology class.

Everyone here has heard of intelligent design, right? It's the idea that our bodies or sections of our bodies and the world or universe in general, it's the idea that they're so complicated but perfect that they couldn't possibly have come into being if not for some intelligent designer.

Know what I think of that? Yeah, well, since I think God is nothing more than an invisible friend in the sky, I think intelligent design is garbage. Mainly because I see so many flaws to the universe and, specifically, human beings, fragile creatures that we are. I mean, if this universe were created specifically for us, why are we only able to survive on a very small portion of it? We have to live on a planet with an atmosphere and it has to have a certain temperature range or we freeze or burn up. Even on that planet, we aren't designed to live on the great majority of the planet because we can't survive for very long in the ocean and the north and south poles both fall under that 'too cold' category.

Even within our own bodies, we're filled with ways we kill ourselves! I mean, think about it: How intelligent is it to create an immune system that can actually kill us with fever while it tries to fight off virus? How about allergies, where our immune system finds a mundane substance and interprets it as a foreign invader and sends our immune system into overdrive to try to fight it off? Because, y'know, cat dander, pollen and peanuts are dangerous things.

Is it just me, or is there anyone else here who thinks, if we had the opportunity, we could design things better than they currently are?

I am sorry but I hate the implication of the title of the thread "can we do better", which misses the point of why ID is wrong and ALLOWS their supporters the hollow argument "no you could not".

It doesn't matter what science discovers. Yes we can replicate celss and grow things like skin and clone a sheep.

But that doesn't change how stupid their dead "razor's edge" argument is. They constantly use stupid arguments like "this is pretty" and "it's too complex" to be an accedent.

Their argument has been around for almost a centery by different names and most of this bullshit started around the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Now this is quite easly debunked when you face these morons with the "disign" argument be it about the universe, or life.

"Disign" really? While true our planet is in an orbit with a sun the right size, funny how all the other planets in the solar system cannot support life. Funny how MOST of the universe is HOSTILE to life.

How about life? Men emit sperm from puberty to death, through ejackulation, masturbation, sex, and even when they pee. But most men in their lives only have on average 1-4 kids ON AVERAGE, and for each of those kids that ar born, there was only ONE sperm that made it, all the other millions of sperm in that load DIE and do nothing, and that is not all the sperm that die in the entierty of that one individuals life, multiply that by 7 billion. For the 7 billion that exist there are trillions of sperm that die, and that is not including all the humans prior.

Cockroaches outnumber humans. Bacteria outnumber humans. Eagles have better eyesight.

Ok, most of the universe is hostile to life. and for every attempt at life far more attempts fail.

Now, if one owns a factory, they build it and design it for MAXIMUM OUTPUT. So if everything is "designed" then why such the lousy output? No sane businessman who wants to manufacture any product would want such horrible flaws and production.

The explination for low output is simple, because that is what nature, nto magic does. People get fooled by the "abunance of life" forgetting that or ignorante of the fact that 99% of speices that once lived on this planet are now extinct.

If this fictional god were real and had to explain to Trump all that waste what do you think Trump would say?

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absolutly! I would seperate esophagus and airway entry so both no longer enter the body through mouth and nose, but have seperate entries to the body. Like a dolphine. Why suffercate on food? That`s stupid design!

So, for the smokers out there, you would have to stick the cig in your nose and then blow that smoke out of your nose, this way you do not get throat cancer, you get nose and sinus cancer and will have to have your nose removed, gooooood design.

Exactly how would one cough and get rid of the gunk that builds in the lungs when you get a cold, have pneumonia or anything that would cause congestion. Then that leads to how would one breath when their nose and sinuses are inflamed and stopped up.

Your design would make it difficult to scuba dive and snorkel, and when one drowns it would be impossible to cough up the water to be able to breath again, this would make drowning a death sentence no matter how the water gets into one's lungs and who would want to do mouth to nostril resuscitation, though I did once.

One problem with your design might not be to bad, we would not be able to talk, then we would not have words and we would not have to listen to your stupid idea of separating the esophagus and windpipe.

One could not run or do other strenuous activities, you can not take enough air into the lungs just through the nostrils, unless you want them to take up about half your face, I for one have a nose that is big enough.

I'm sure there are other reasons but I'll stop here.

Yea our bodies are so well designed that the same tube we eat with we can choke with that same food and DIE. And that flap works so well it doesnt always prevent us from choking.

Oh and as Hitchens said in his speeches and in his book about the pathetic design argument "he put an entertainment center in the middle of a sewage system."

But even more rediculous than design is the claim that a non material invisible magical super brain is a posibility.

Both argument from design and invisible friends are nothing more than products of human imagination. Same credulity caused the Egyptions to incert their own god of the gaps by projecting it onto the sun.

[Whateverist]

Intelligent design, as someone above me said, is evident in jet engines and the other technological wonders conceived and produced by human beings.

An intelligent designer for the natural world? Hogwash. Every stray observable fact a deliberate design feature? Sure doesn't look that way.

The universe we observe looks like forces and properties expressing themselves so far as they can before bumping up against different forces and properties which impinge upon them. I see no creator behind that.