Agreed, but what does that have to do with the concept of intelligent design?
You see, intelligent design is being put forward as an alternative scientific theory to the theory of evolution. So I am trying to explore this question more in a scientific or philosophical sense than in a religious sense.
Why do species go extinct? How does that jive with evolution?
Agreed, but what does that have to do with the concept of intelligent design?
That you (we) aren't intelligent enough to understand the purposes of the designer. Isn't that a given?
I'm a creationist so I can't state exactly the position of IDers but this is what I gather their position is from all that I have read. I haven't heard that ID precludes evolution. From what I understand, ID states that everything was created and set in motion and that it does allow for evolution to be the mechanism by which life came into being on this planet. I can believe that in it's original form, it would have been perfect but as someone else pointed out (post #18), outside influences cause deterioration of the original form and just because there was intelligent design doesn't mean that it remains perfect. Mutations occur in cells, erosion occurs in nature, things just tend to deteriorate in general but it doesn't disprove the concept that it was intelligently designed. Serious defects like you showed are no more evidence against ID than the inconvenient ones that we live with, like nearsightedness. I think that everything has defects in it and that it is just a matter of degree. In some respects, this is like creation. The Bible gives the account of creation and the Fall. Everything was created perfect but when the Fall occurred, deterioration set in and it appears that some of the physical laws of the universe were changed. ID and creation are similar. One can believe in ID without believing in the Creation account as given in the Bible; however, creationists are of necessity, IDers. They just claim to know who the creator was and more detail on how he did it.
I gave some more thought to your question and will try to elaborate on my first response. If an intelligent designer chose to use evolution as the means by which life arose on earth, then changes in genetic material (mutations) would have to be allowed so that evolution could/would occur. A mutation that is favorable in one environment would not be so in another, so there is no way of knowing whether it would be favorable to the creature or not since it would depend on the circumstances. Therefore mutations would have to be *open* so to speak; IOW to allow for anything to happen. So there would be no way to control the mutation process to prevent the unfavorable ones because there would be no way of knowing if and when a mutation would be favorable or not. At this point, I don't think that the examples you give show lack of ID as much as the necessary result of the the means of chosen; ie. genetic mutation. Those are the unfavorable ones that are weeded out in the process of allowing mutation so that favorable ones can happen and be passed down and change can occur. We tend to think of them as *good* or *bad* because we see suffering result from unfavorable mutations.