FR Debate: Intelligent Design vs. Birth Defects, Can They Be Reconciled?

Discovery Health & Multiple Medical Sites ^ | 11/11/05

[Wolfstar]

Not one perfect specimen of anything.

Might be, what what about efficient? Isn't a design which is intelligent also efficient?

[From many - one.]

Evolution has no direction.

[zeeba neighba]

Why do species go extinct? How does that jive with evolution?

[Wolfstar]

I also think the design can be corrupted by external forces,such as chemicals in the food chain,background radiation,and who knows what else.

Yes, that's true, but why?

[cornelis]

Good question. But some basic starting points here:

From the Darwinian p.o.v.: Fitness doesn't mean the unfit should survive. Nature absolves its own inefficiencies.

From the logical / existential p.o.v.: Evidence of an opposite is not proof that one or the other doesn't or can't exist. It does not follow that evidence of hot water means there is no cold water, or that evidence of death means there is no life.

From the ancient p.o.v. there are two principles that are fundamental (they still hold this view that chaos and complexity are complementary universal principles

From the monotheistic p.o.v. evil is not a divine principle; evidence of evil points to other causes. There is also a distinction between moral and nature evil.

And finally, no matter which is preferred, evil still there exists. To be human, we are designed to struggle against it.

[xzins]

This shakes your faith in religion.

I'm not sure it has anything to say about ID other than that, like a car running down with age, natural processes have an impact on design.

Why does it shake your faith?

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Sounds to me like you just want to launch another 500-post thread of visceral attacks between two fundamentalist-type religions.

Why is this on breaking news? Go to a smoky corner to start your bar fights.

[Tom Bombadil]

My understanding is that intelligent design theory pivots on the principle of irreducible complexity at the molecular level. To proponents of ID, IC describes molecular processes and systems that fail when any element of the process or system is defective or missing. It seems to me that birth defects could be potential illustrations of such failure.

Does the existence of birth defects prove that any potential designer wasn't very intelligent? Good question. Does the existence of death do the same thing?

[zeeba neighba]

Also like saying Picasso's cubist period can't be art if Grant Wood's American Gothic is?

[lonestar67]

I often start my arguments backwards to draw attention to flawed assumptions. Assumptions are the predicates of arguments. So by starting backwards, I was hoping to draw your attention to this assumption-- not to be unfair to you.

In any case, the deformities of children are based upon human preconceptions of what is "normal" and appropriate.

This reminds me of a debate I had with an atheist who said, "How can you believe in Christianity when its evidence comes principally from a prostitute?"

The nature of the evidence may be very much the point. Our rationality has problems. Our sense of "normalcy" has problems. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. I strongly believe this is a transcendent purpose within the intelligent design. This means that deformities (as we see them) are part of that ironic process whereby we recognize our limits of judgment.

We would do well to withhold our judgments against any human being-- no matter the degree of discrepancy with out own expectations.

I also suspect that the grisly mutilation of Christ in the crucifixion process was very much a reminder of our shallow habits of judgment and a deep reminder of what makes a being human.

[TN4Liberty]

I agree, but am interested in philosophical underpinnings of those who believe in intelligent design.

No you aren't.

[heartwood]

I'm not sure Wolfstar was ridiculing - they are tragedies that disturb one's faith. You don't even need ugliness or deformity to haunt you - I miscarried two children who died of genetic defects - and on ultrasound they were exquisite, the most finely made things I have ever seen. Why were they created to die so soon?

It's not just defects in design - it's design carried out perfectly. Tigers. Tapeworms.

God send the day when the lion lies down with the lamb and there is no more weeping.

[Wolfstar]

Well, "Intelligent Design" is nonsense, but your illustration above is just another variation on the 'Problem of Evil' (i.e., how can God be all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good and yet permit evil to exist).

I don't see it in terms of good and evil. If the word "intelligent" is paired with the word "design," then that conjures in my mind ideas of efficiency. It's that which I am trying to get to, not religious connotations.

If intelligent design is to be taught in schools as a an alternative scientific theory, I want to understand its underpinnings

[RightWhale]

Everything is efficient if it moves, and everything moves. In physics, mechanics, efficiency is a number that can range considerably between zero and one. It is a measure of work done versus energy that is used, with some energy always being wasted. Even Congressional energy results in something eventually being moved.

[AntiGuv]

Why doesn't the designer design his design so that natural processes do not have an impact on the design like a car running down with age?

[From many - one.]

First of all I do not buy into the ID argument at all.

Nevertheless, if we look at human designed items we find flaws, despite the fact that we fancy ourselves intelligent.

It is the concept of a benevolent God that is challenged by unwarrented suffering. The two Christian perspectives that I am aware of are:

1. God's ways are not man's ways..in my view a non-answer

2. It's all Adam's fault.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

We will never understand everything He allows.

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?

[NVD]

This article obviously is referring to genetic mutations. But, what is a mutation? Since each gene is a code of instructions, a mutation is akin to a typing error a changed letter here, a spelling error there. But, this poses a problem for the evolutionary philosophy; if you introduce a missing phrase or spelling errors into a report, it is unlikely to make the report more understandable. As we can see in your post, most mutations are harmful, and sometimes lethal, so if the mutations were to accumulate, wouldn't the result be devolution?

[From many - one.]

Down's syndrome kids are not suffering. Wolfstar is referring to children who are.

[Wolfstar]

Allright. Now we have the stated reason for the thread.

Actually, no. I've made my point several times. If intelligent design is going to be taught in the schools as an alternative scientific theory, then what are it's underpinnings? How does the theory reconcile defects in the world around us?

The theory, as I understand it, posits that the design of the universe -- well, I think it's best of those who espouse the theory and understand it better than I do would define it.