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Aren't most intelligent designs actually done by sane engineers filled with quirks like this? Spaghetti code at places, leaky abstractions, hard-coded things, r

Aren't most intelligent designs actually done by sane engineers filled with quirks like this? Spaghetti code at places, leaky abstractions, hard-coded things, replicating old bugs to make the program compatible with bad OSes or other old software, etc. etc. This could just as easily be an artifact of the complexity of reality, not an argument for- or against "intelligent design". There might be reasons do doubt intelligent design hypothesis, but this one does not seem like one of them. (Also why would it need to be a "sane" engineer? It could have just as easily be a bad junior engineer, that does not produce "perfect" code - just code that works.)

coldtea 8y ago
>It could have just as easily be a bad engineer from a third-world country, that does not produce "perfect" code - just code that works. Because "first-world" country engineers don't do that?
- Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
  I've seen this being statistically significant in hiring people from different parts of the world. There are exceptions everywhere, but there are also certain trends. But I get your point that this information is irrelevant to the question at hand.
  - Satam 8y ago
    JIAN YANG!!!
    - Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
      "Is one of those racist and the other is not? Please don't hack my browser history.". Great show.
  - KenanSulayman 8y ago
    "Incompetent engineers from other parts of the world" seems to be HN's version of Godwin's law
- kaybe 8y ago
  Sounds like scientists to me, hah.
GlennS 8y ago
Intelligent Design, being a religious theory, usually carries the implication that the designer was infallible and made no mistakes, unless they were deliberate mistakes.
- samuell 8y ago
  Biblical creation theory postulate that a good initial design has had an increasing lot of destructive processes going on after the first man breaking the trust relationship with the Creator. "Genetic Entropy" thus being one of these consequences (there's even a book with that title, by Cornell prof., gene gun inventor and creationist, John Sanford).
  - 79357423 8y ago
    If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13) So this genetic entropy caused people to be born gay, for which we should kill them. That sound sound like an imperfect creator.
Retric 8y ago
Wait what? Are you arguing that 'god(s)' where and or might be incompetent? Anyway, I don't think ID requires that every mutation was designed, rather that an intelegent agent made at least one adjustment to an ongoing process. The problem is it's not a falsifiable theory because it makes no specific testable predictions.
- orf 8y ago
  If there is a god you could hardly call him incompetent after creating life. That doesn't exclude hacks or workarounds
  - Razengan 8y ago
    Why a god? Why not many? Humans have been modifying organisms for thousands of years, through selective breeding and cultivation. Does that not count as a form of intelligent design? Is it detectable? If not, who is to say it hasn’t been done with us?
    - krapp 8y ago
      > Why a god? Why not many? The real answer is that "intelligent design" is a movement by evangelical and conservative Christianity to reframe Biblical literalism as a legitimate scientific framework.
      - tsunamifury 8y ago
        True, but it is also a science fiction concept that is presented in everything from Prometheus to Futurama.
- Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
  > Wait what? Are you arguing that 'god(s)' where and or might be incompetent? I get the humor in your question. Yet I would like to comment for the people who might be more seriously interested in this question, that the most enlightened view seems to be that 'god(s)' are not incompetent, but are simply not done yet, they haven't completed the design. That the design itself is not a finished final product, but rather a continuous form of development. If there is such a development, it would be quite logical that one could take any future (or just further in terms of advancement) iteration of some thing (like human genome), compare it to a previous version and make a claim that it's "inferior" or "incompetent". But this is just an assessment of a logical mind. It could just as easily be called an iteration which is perfectly designed for it's time and place and has an irreplaceable role in the grand scheme of things. > The problem is it's not a falsifiable theory because it makes no specific testable predictions. I so wish that more people would understand this. I was trying to point into exactly this by the original comment, saying basically that no scientific truth can be an argument for or against any spiritual claim, that they simply belong to the different areas of knowledge. People who are proficient in either areas of knowledge, are often ignorant to this incompatibility, trying to prove each other wrong. The solution is to recognize the proper way to fuse the two areas, not choose one of them and pretend that it's enough.

coldtea 8y ago

>It could have just as easily be a bad engineer from a third-world country, that does not produce "perfect" code - just code that works. Because "first-world" country engineers don't do that?

Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
I've seen this being statistically significant in hiring people from different parts of the world. There are exceptions everywhere, but there are also certain trends. But I get your point that this information is irrelevant to the question at hand.
- Satam 8y ago
  JIAN YANG!!!
  - Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
    "Is one of those racist and the other is not? Please don't hack my browser history.". Great show.
- KenanSulayman 8y ago
  "Incompetent engineers from other parts of the world" seems to be HN's version of Godwin's law
kaybe 8y ago
Sounds like scientists to me, hah.

GlennS 8y ago

Intelligent Design, being a religious theory, usually carries the implication that the designer was infallible and made no mistakes, unless they were deliberate mistakes.

samuell 8y ago
Biblical creation theory postulate that a good initial design has had an increasing lot of destructive processes going on after the first man breaking the trust relationship with the Creator. "Genetic Entropy" thus being one of these consequences (there's even a book with that title, by Cornell prof., gene gun inventor and creationist, John Sanford).
- 79357423 8y ago
  If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13) So this genetic entropy caused people to be born gay, for which we should kill them. That sound sound like an imperfect creator.

Retric 8y ago

Wait what? Are you arguing that 'god(s)' where and or might be incompetent? Anyway, I don't think ID requires that every mutation was designed, rather that an intelegent agent made at least one adjustment to an ongoing process. The problem is it's not a falsifiable theory because it makes no specific testable predictions.

orf 8y ago
If there is a god you could hardly call him incompetent after creating life. That doesn't exclude hacks or workarounds
- Razengan 8y ago
  Why a god? Why not many? Humans have been modifying organisms for thousands of years, through selective breeding and cultivation. Does that not count as a form of intelligent design? Is it detectable? If not, who is to say it hasn’t been done with us?
  - krapp 8y ago
    > Why a god? Why not many? The real answer is that "intelligent design" is a movement by evangelical and conservative Christianity to reframe Biblical literalism as a legitimate scientific framework.
    - tsunamifury 8y ago
      True, but it is also a science fiction concept that is presented in everything from Prometheus to Futurama.
Erlich_Bachman 8y ago
> Wait what? Are you arguing that 'god(s)' where and or might be incompetent? I get the humor in your question. Yet I would like to comment for the people who might be more seriously interested in this question, that the most enlightened view seems to be that 'god(s)' are not incompetent, but are simply not done yet, they haven't completed the design. That the design itself is not a finished final product, but rather a continuous form of development. If there is such a development, it would be quite logical that one could take any future (or just further in terms of advancement) iteration of some thing (like human genome), compare it to a previous version and make a claim that it's "inferior" or "incompetent". But this is just an assessment of a logical mind. It could just as easily be called an iteration which is perfectly designed for it's time and place and has an irreplaceable role in the grand scheme of things. > The problem is it's not a falsifiable theory because it makes no specific testable predictions. I so wish that more people would understand this. I was trying to point into exactly this by the original comment, saying basically that no scientific truth can be an argument for or against any spiritual claim, that they simply belong to the different areas of knowledge. People who are proficient in either areas of knowledge, are often ignorant to this incompatibility, trying to prove each other wrong. The solution is to recognize the proper way to fuse the two areas, not choose one of them and pretend that it's enough.