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The fascination with “intelligent design” is cherry-picking. The is no shortage of “unintelligent design” in the natural world. Take humans, for example. You c

by nkrisc 2y ago

The fascination with “intelligent design” is cherry-picking. The is no shortage of “unintelligent design” in the natural world. Take humans, for example. You can block your trachea and die through the simple act of eating. An intelligent (and omniscient) designer could have avoided that by better designing our overall our overall structure. Or take the fact or ear bones are modified jaw bones. Or if you believe in intelligent design, ask why our intelligent designer thought it wise to link our jaw to our ears so that it’s hard to hear things when you’re chewing.

lpat 2y ago
That's pretty weak argument against intelligent design. 1. The designer does not have to be "omniscient" only intelligent. Some people believe in it's omniscience but I don't think it's a requirement. 2. How do you know that our trachea is not an optimal design when you take into account all the tradeoffs? 3. You're surrounded by items created by intelligent design (us) and all of them have flaws, reused parts and tend to break. Obviously you wouldn't argue based on this that they weren't designed by intelligent beings.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  > How do you know that our trachea is not an optimal design when you take into account all the tradeoffs? Because if we were designed from scratch we could have been designed in any optimal shape or form. > You're surrounded by items created by intelligent design (us) and all of them have flaws, reused parts and tend to break. Obviously you wouldn't argue based on this that they weren't designed by intelligent beings. Show me an intelligent designer who can literally design the universe, but is still not intelligent enough to avoid these flaws even we can recognize. I don’t think we are intelligent enough to design a completely novel life form, let alone as many as exist on earth in all their forms. This is all beside the point that there’s no evidence of any kind for intelligent design, only supposition based on nothing more than intuition and feelings.
  - smusamashah 2y ago
    Flaws is a wrong way to put these things you notice. Would a perfectly and optimally designed being get no diseases? won't die? won't fall?
    - fellowniusmonk 2y ago
      I think a perfectly designed being would not require killing to live, would run on sunlight or other direct power sources and be steady state or mostly steady state. If we ever make silicone man that runs on sunlight then I'll say, "ah, this looks like a being created by a moral intelligent designer". It's going to be pretty revealing when a creature with such "lowborne morals" as ourselves creates a being that can function and operate without the explicit need to kill something every ~7 days to survive.
      - mrguyorama 2y ago
        I would argue human beings don't need to kill to live right this moment. But yes, there are a million ways in which the human biology is imperfect. If our bodies are temples, then whoever made us is probably Nurgle. Nothing else really explains the reproductive organs sharing space with the waste removal ports.
  - lpat 2y ago
    > Because if we were designed from scratch we could have been designed in any optimal shape or form Only if you assume the designer had infinite time, knowledge and resources. But life on Earth did not have to be created by some omnipotent god who created universe. It only requires more advanced intelligence than us. Although theoretically even we may reach this level in the future with advances in bioengineering. > This is all beside the point that there’s no evidence of any kind for intelligent design, only supposition based on nothing more than intuition and feelings. Depending on what you consider "evidence" the same sentence could be said for evolution. There are many arguments in favor of intelligent design like for example no viable mechanism of randomly evolving genetic code. I wouldn't say it's as open and shut case as you make it seem.
delichon 2y ago
I consider myself an intelligent designer but have to make compromises in design all the time. The only kind of designers that don't are ones with cartoonish super powers like deities.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  That’s the marketing trick behind “intelligent design”. Now it sounds so reasonable!
smusamashah 2y ago
When you notice these flaws you are seeing it in very very short term. What we are today is what eventually worked for a million years. The design you see today is the way it is because it had to be robust enough (including those problems) to survive to this day. The examples you quote do look like a problem today, but I think they must have worked to some benefit to bring us here.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  Yes, you’re describing evolution.
  - smusamashah 2y ago
    I am. I am also saying you can not design us any better than what we are today. You can't look into next billion years. Whatever becomes of us at the point will the best design at that point. The optimal design you are suggesting has zero guarantees to keep working. If anything, your optimal design is just another mutation that may or may not survive time.
    - nkrisc 2y ago
      You could if you were an intelligent designer designing humans completely from scratch a mere 10,000 years ago after you created the universe. Which is the absurdity I’m pointing out.
    - albedoa 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - latexr 2y ago
      > I am also saying you can not design us any better than what we are today. Of course you can. We could regenerate limbs like a lizard’s tail, keep growing teeth like a shark, not require so many different types of foods to survive healthily… The list goes on and on.
    - lioeters 2y ago
ssener2001 2y ago
Where has our mind shown the capacity to be an engineer of the universe? With this limited intellect, we cannot encompass the beauty of the whole. Even if it were beneath a forearm-length nose, if only attention were paid to it, beauty could still be found!"
erfgh 2y ago
Well I can crash my bicycle going downhill and neglecting to use the brakes, this doesn't mean it wasn't intelligently designed. Design is all about tradeoffs.
hackeraccount 2y ago
My favorite version of this argument is from Catch-22. It starts with a discussion about the miseries people suffer and if they have any utility at all. Is pain a useful warning of problems or could that information be gotten across in a better way? It ends with the two characters agreeing that neither believes in God, with one not believing in a good and kind God and the other not believing in an evil malevolent God. https://risingentropy.com/catch-22/ https://risingentropy.com/catch-22/

by nkrisc 2y ago

lpat 2y ago

That's pretty weak argument against intelligent design. 1. The designer does not have to be "omniscient" only intelligent. Some people believe in it's omniscience but I don't think it's a requirement. 2. How do you know that our trachea is not an optimal design when you take into account all the tradeoffs? 3. You're surrounded by items created by intelligent design (us) and all of them have flaws, reused parts and tend to break. Obviously you wouldn't argue based on this that they weren't designed by intelligent beings.

nkrisc 2y ago
> How do you know that our trachea is not an optimal design when you take into account all the tradeoffs? Because if we were designed from scratch we could have been designed in any optimal shape or form. > You're surrounded by items created by intelligent design (us) and all of them have flaws, reused parts and tend to break. Obviously you wouldn't argue based on this that they weren't designed by intelligent beings. Show me an intelligent designer who can literally design the universe, but is still not intelligent enough to avoid these flaws even we can recognize. I don’t think we are intelligent enough to design a completely novel life form, let alone as many as exist on earth in all their forms. This is all beside the point that there’s no evidence of any kind for intelligent design, only supposition based on nothing more than intuition and feelings.
- smusamashah 2y ago
  Flaws is a wrong way to put these things you notice. Would a perfectly and optimally designed being get no diseases? won't die? won't fall?
  - fellowniusmonk 2y ago
    I think a perfectly designed being would not require killing to live, would run on sunlight or other direct power sources and be steady state or mostly steady state. If we ever make silicone man that runs on sunlight then I'll say, "ah, this looks like a being created by a moral intelligent designer". It's going to be pretty revealing when a creature with such "lowborne morals" as ourselves creates a being that can function and operate without the explicit need to kill something every ~7 days to survive.
    - mrguyorama 2y ago
      I would argue human beings don't need to kill to live right this moment. But yes, there are a million ways in which the human biology is imperfect. If our bodies are temples, then whoever made us is probably Nurgle. Nothing else really explains the reproductive organs sharing space with the waste removal ports.
- lpat 2y ago
  > Because if we were designed from scratch we could have been designed in any optimal shape or form Only if you assume the designer had infinite time, knowledge and resources. But life on Earth did not have to be created by some omnipotent god who created universe. It only requires more advanced intelligence than us. Although theoretically even we may reach this level in the future with advances in bioengineering. > This is all beside the point that there’s no evidence of any kind for intelligent design, only supposition based on nothing more than intuition and feelings. Depending on what you consider "evidence" the same sentence could be said for evolution. There are many arguments in favor of intelligent design like for example no viable mechanism of randomly evolving genetic code. I wouldn't say it's as open and shut case as you make it seem.

delichon 2y ago

I consider myself an intelligent designer but have to make compromises in design all the time. The only kind of designers that don't are ones with cartoonish super powers like deities.

nkrisc 2y ago
That’s the marketing trick behind “intelligent design”. Now it sounds so reasonable!

smusamashah 2y ago

When you notice these flaws you are seeing it in very very short term. What we are today is what eventually worked for a million years. The design you see today is the way it is because it had to be robust enough (including those problems) to survive to this day. The examples you quote do look like a problem today, but I think they must have worked to some benefit to bring us here.

nkrisc 2y ago
Yes, you’re describing evolution.
- smusamashah 2y ago
  I am. I am also saying you can not design us any better than what we are today. You can't look into next billion years. Whatever becomes of us at the point will the best design at that point. The optimal design you are suggesting has zero guarantees to keep working. If anything, your optimal design is just another mutation that may or may not survive time.
  - nkrisc 2y ago
    You could if you were an intelligent designer designing humans completely from scratch a mere 10,000 years ago after you created the universe. Which is the absurdity I’m pointing out.
  - albedoa 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - latexr 2y ago
    > I am also saying you can not design us any better than what we are today. Of course you can. We could regenerate limbs like a lizard’s tail, keep growing teeth like a shark, not require so many different types of foods to survive healthily… The list goes on and on.
  - lioeters 2y ago

ssener2001 2y ago

Where has our mind shown the capacity to be an engineer of the universe? With this limited intellect, we cannot encompass the beauty of the whole. Even if it were beneath a forearm-length nose, if only attention were paid to it, beauty could still be found!"

erfgh 2y ago

Well I can crash my bicycle going downhill and neglecting to use the brakes, this doesn't mean it wasn't intelligently designed. Design is all about tradeoffs.

hackeraccount 2y ago

My favorite version of this argument is from Catch-22. It starts with a discussion about the miseries people suffer and if they have any utility at all. Is pain a useful warning of problems or could that information be gotten across in a better way? It ends with the two characters agreeing that neither believes in God, with one not believing in a good and kind God and the other not believing in an evil malevolent God. https://risingentropy.com/catch-22/ https://risingentropy.com/catch-22/