Is it a “defect” in our genes that we can’t grow wings and fly or change color to match our environment? Or how about the “defective” armor on attack helicopters, it’s not nearly as effective as the armor on a M-1 tank. Or to put it into your world RFC, you can build more security into a network by reducing freedom. If your network is penetrated, is it because it is “defective”. When designing networks, don’t you duplicate the good designs of other networks into new ones? All designs have trade-offs, we don’t understand enough about the “source code” of life to know what the trade offs are for not producing our own vitamin C. Are scientists going to miss important things, based on the assumption that x is defective and we don’t need to look further into the matter?
(In my best Fred Thomson imitation). What does all this information mean in the grand design of things. Hmm…grand design… Hmmm design. Naaa…whats the point, its all settled science anyway, just ask Galileo.
Cheers
So now scurvy is a good thing?
You never did answer the question.
we don’t understand enough about the “source code” of life to know what the trade offs are for not producing our own vitamin C.
The trade off is we get scurvy.
The source code for the vitamin C gene is very well known, and the copy in humans and apes is broken in an identical way. That fits evolution theory, because a critter that eats fruits doesn't need to manufacture vitamin C.
This common defect proves evolution in two ways. First, it demonstrates (along with several thousand other retro-virus genes that have been inserted into the common ape/human genome) that humans and apes are indeed related genetically. The technique is not unlike using DNA to test for parentage, except it requires a much deeper analysis of the sequences. Which has been done.
The second way this demonstrates evolution is what I mentioned above, that humans and apes don't require the gene, so individuals that inherit the defect don't die. Genes that are required for the survival of an individual don't have errors, because when they occur the individual doesn't survive to reproduce. But genes that aren't strictly required can accumulate errors, and so we find them.
I have thalessemia, an inherited blood disorder that won't kill me, but results in my inability to exercise for long time periods, such as distance running. It is known that this disorder occurs in people with a Mediterranean heritage, an area with relatively mild climate, and a history of civilization that could have supported individuals that had the gene. I can guess that it doesn't occur in more extreme climates because the likelihood of someone surviving in those places with this gene is much smaller. Again, in one more way out of millions, the evidence for evolution is in front of our faces.
As for theology, I think it's an insult to claim that God could not have designed evolution. As for a literal Bible, there are innumerable claims (the flood, for one) in the Bible that are not only physically impossible, but if they had happened would have left evidence that just cannot be found, even after Christian scientists spent careers looking for them.
The Bible is not a scientific text. Christians that insist that it is are what prevents me from accepting Jesus as my personal savior. Christians should leave science to scientists, and keep religion in their church, because it damages the faith in ways they will never know when they fail to do this.