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Thanks for responding Gumlegs, here is my response:

I was responding to the "exceptions, not the rule" statement. That they're exceptions makes it all better, I suppose. As long as you're not one of the exceptions.

I am a little confused what you mean here. How does making it the exception all the better? Let me sort of repeat myself by saying that given all the babies ever conceived (not necessarily born) sometimes the building process can go wrong. It doesn't mean they were designed that way but it means that the building process went wrong. Can you clarify your statement of "That they're exceptions makes it all better"?

What's makes you think they're not by design; how do you know?

I was responding to the pictures where none of these babies lived. I do not know if they were designed to be this way or not but my guess is they were not. Do not get me wrong. I am not attempting to belittle people who do live but who are... let's say "conjoined twins" or they are born with birth defects that either make them blind, mentally retarded, or whatever. But up until recently (last 200 years) many children with severe birth defects did not live. Even "small" birth defects by today's standards would have made life difficult before modern medicine. A baby born blind in a mudhut in ancient Europe or Asia would not have lived very long would they?

So that is my only clue that these defects were not by design... because if they were they would have lived much longer.

All true, but beside the point. Unless you're asserting that humans were designed by humans.

No I am not asserting that they were designed by humans. To put it in cold... callous, industrialized terms, humans were the manufacturers, not the designers or engineers. When two humans make a baby they do not sit around and decide which nucleic acid comes first in a chain of DNA. "Gee Betsy, you sure the adenosine should go before the guanine?". Nope that doesn't happen... Humans do the building (ok... women do 99.999%). Now sometimes the manufacturing process goes wrong correct?

The jury is still out on the effects of "external environmental issues," but "recessive genetic traits" are part of the design by definition, aren't they?

When I say "external environmental issues" I don't just mean mercury in the water. It could be a large number of factors such as the stress factor on the mother. Still how can you say the jury is still out? How many medications do you read that says "Do not take if you are pregnant"? Do I have to post the millions of cases where pollution and stress caused many birth defects? With all due respect your proverbial jury has decided this a long long time ago.

You are correct about genetic recessive traits being "part of the design". But autosomal recessive disorders, where the baby has a disorder because both mother and father have the recessive gene and passes it on, can be quite fatal. Take for example the very terrible disease of Tay Sachs. There is no cure and fatal for children.
I cannot say if this is by design but for something like Tay Sachs to happen, both parents have to have it and then they have to pass it on to their children. About 1 in 30 persons of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry carries the Tay Sachs gene (see:http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/genetics/recessive.html).
For a baby to get Tay Sachs both parents would need to have the recessive gene and then both would need to pass it on. Statistically it ends up as being the exception that the baby suffers from it, not the rule.

Given how complex human life forms are it is amazing it doesn't happen more often...

Why?

Because the process of creating a baby (or any life) is very, very complex. There are many, many places in the building of a baby where things can go completely wrong. Not to mention that the DNA sequence is quite long and if a mistake is made in even a small place in the sequence during replication(depending on where it is) the baby may not live.

G: I was responding to the "exceptions, not the rule" statement. That they're exceptions makes it all better, I suppose. As long as you're not one of the exceptions.

I am a little confused what you mean here. How does making it the exception all the better?

You seem to be unconcerned about birth defects because they're exceptions rather than the rule. It struck me as sounding rather callous.

Let me sort of repeat myself by saying that given all the babies ever conceived (not necessarily born) sometimes the building process can go wrong. It doesn't mean they were designed that way but it means that the building process went wrong. Can you clarify your statement of "That they're exceptions makes it all better"?

I think I did above. But if the "building process" went wrong, wouldn't that demonstrate bad design ... the bad design of the building process, in this case.

G: What's makes you think they're not by design; how do you know?

So that is my only clue that these defects were not by design... because if they were they would have lived much longer.

So you're attempting to infer design by relative lifespan?

G: All true, but beside the point. Unless you're asserting that humans were designed by humans.

My assumption, if I were also assuming design, would be that the designer who came up with the design for humans (a wretched job, in my opinion, but that's another discussion), also came up with the manufacturing plans, approved the design and built the plant. You've got a lot of different elements, but they're all the work of the same culprit.

G: The jury is still out on the effects of "external environmental issues," but "recessive genetic traits" are part of the design by definition, aren't they?

Some of these have been demonstrated to have deleterious effects on unborn children (like specific medications as you say), and some have not, power lines, for instance. That's what I was getting at with the "jury's still out" comment.

I cannot say if this is by design but for something like Tay Sachs to happen, both parents have to have it and then they have to pass it on to their children. About 1 in 30 persons of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry carries the Tay Sachs gene (see:http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/genetics/recessive.html).

For a baby to get Tay Sachs both parents would need to have the recessive gene and then both would need to pass it on. Statistically it ends up as being the exception that the baby suffers from it, not the rule.

But if you postulate that humans were designed, the gene wouldn't be there at all unless it had been by design, right? It doesn't matter how rarely this all happens, it's that it happens at all that points to a middling, at best, designer.

What was it that killed Woody Guthrie ... Huntington's Disease? It doesn't manifest itself until the sufferer is past the usual childbearing years, thereby allowing itself to continue among an unsuspecting population (at least until recently. I think there's a test now). But if you say there's a designer, then he/she/ must be responsible. If it was on purpose, it was malicious. If it wasn't on purpose, it was incompetence. Some choice.

Given how complex human life forms are it is amazing it doesn't happen more often...

G: Why?

One would expect that humans would have been designed more simply, then.