Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Not Just Intelligently Designed, Intelligently Engineered

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Those of us who are ID proponents often hear the following from ID deniers (hey, if it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander): “You mindless, science-destroying, knuckle-dragging, religiously fanatical ID clowns keep talking about complexity. What’s the big deal about complexity? Complex stuff happens all the time by chance and necessity. Get a life, and stop trying to impose a theocracy on those of us who have it all figured out. The science is settled.”

So goes the highly persuasive, ever-logical, empirically validated, ideologically neutral argumentation of the ID denier.

The problem is that living systems are not just transparently intelligently designed; they are intelligently engineered. It’s not just ID; it’s IE.

Those of us who design and engineer functionally integrated systems, especially information-processing systems, know what is required. Design is just the first step. We do mathematical and proof-of-concept studies. Often it is concluded, early on, that the concept is fundamentally flawed and cannot be engineered. When it is concluded that a solution is possible, we build and test prototypes. Trial and error do play a role, but the trials are always planned in advance, based on what has been learned so far, so as to minimize wasted effort. Mindless, unplanned trials are never considered, because their number is essentially infinite, and the probability of success as a result of such an approach is obviously zero.

Once a proof-of-concept study has been completed and validated, and initial prototype engineering has shown promise, a team of engineers with specialized expertise (in our case, electrical, mechanical, aeronautical, and software engineers) pursue the final goal with much teamwork, thought, planning, and dogged determination.

A living cell is not just a marvel of intelligent design. It’s a marvel of intelligent engineering that far surpasses anything we have yet to dream about.

Comments
Toronto, I don't know exactly what you mea by that... but that would be the first time that I have turned an argument around with any confessed success in a setting such as this. So I really don't know if I deserve any credit. I think that it is logic and truth that turns things in each of us as we think for ourselves. And being a Christian, I take those to be qualities of the Holy Spirit. So I would say that God turns things. Afterall it is His story not mine. Even if I did, you are the one who really turned it around. And that takes alot of honesty. If you are only applauding me for being clever... well, that is another matter. Keep thinkingLock
February 19, 2010
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Thanks SCheesman, you and the others could not have explained yourselves better. Repeatedly. And in so many different ways. In my mind, the issue was never about a supposed Deities capacity. Rather, it is at once, a question of His purpose. To me, the foul crying of 'bad design' is an obviously poor defense against omnipotence. Its worth noting, that its a terrific defense against nature being a good designer. Assuming evolution in the truest NeoDarwinist sense, I feel no compulsion to worship her in a Sagan-like Euphoria. A God on the other hand is a different matter. I must shift my question to wondering why. Assuming the deity, of course He could have done it this way or that. He chose not to. We must shift the perspective from one of blind matter to living, thinking, being. I guess when we are in the habit of seeign things through a certain prism, we are bound to ask questions not even relevant through a different one. I suppose it's easier to see the opposition doing it. Nonetheless, materialists are doing so here. When questioning with God in the equation, I want to know why... Why God? Why? And in light of history, that can be asked with much weeping and sincerity. Personally, once I got over my anger toward God, I found I could just ask Him. Turns out He was more than willing to answer. If you'll pardon the mundane analogy, I found out He has some very good reason for not wanting me to eat Ice Cream 24/7, or be a superman. And His model of humility and servanthood did not just give me theory, but embodied it. That redifined my entire field of vision. A whole new prism. My eyes are still very much adjusting. And the view keeps getting better. The thread is worn and stretched. I for one have said all I believe I can as well.Lock
February 17, 2010
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Lock @83, I have never had an analogy of mine turned around on me the way you managed to do it. I am humbly going to give you a standing ovation right after I hit "Submit Comment".Toronto
February 17, 2010
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Thanks, Lock. I see both the humour and the deeper implication of your comment. I'll keep my answer short, too, because I think this thread is pretty well played out. I would grant that it would be possible to improve one, two, even a number of performance characteristics of the eye; it is my contention, however, that you would discover that other, equally important characteristics would necessarily suffer, (and these might not even be directly concerned with the eye, but issues such as total blood flow available in the head) and in the eyes of the original designer at least, the sum of the total would be less, just as you can improve fuel economy in a car at the expense of performance. I'd say it's time to move on - thanks Seversky, Nakashima and Toronto for an entertaining exchange.SCheesman
February 17, 2010
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Seversky, TO REITERATE WHAT HAS BEEN SAID NUMEROUS TIMES before, The bad design argument is a Theologically based argument at its foundation and you have left the field of empirical science to speculate that the eye may have been designed better. Are you now admitting that design is present in the eye and are just complaining that the design is not up to your particular taste or presumed eye designing skills? ? If not please present the detailed molecular pathway for the origination of just one of the many electrochemical molecular machines involved in the pathway for sight. But if you want to admit design is present, and want to argue theology, then basically your argument boils down to the fact that your position is that you will not be satisfied until the eye is "all-seeing", which is an attribute that only God can possess. Are you saying that God is imperfect in His creation because He has not made you as equally great as He is? If instead you want to argue for "I just want a little better eyesight" then you must consider what purpose God would have for setting a limit. This limit for eyesight could very well be because God wants to teach us, in a very intimate fashion, that there is much more to seeing than just the light we can see with our eyes.bornagain77
February 17, 2010
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Real simple Seversky (and I partly jest to make the point) because men would use them to see through women's clothes. We cannot handle the power we have.Lock
February 17, 2010
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Both SCheesman and bornagain77 have marveled at the complexity and performance of the human eye. I feel the same but that does not make me blind to the possibility of improvement. SCheesman has pointed out that expanding the fovea to cover the whole retina would impose an additional burden on the systems which supply nutrients and oxygen and carry away waste products including heat. But is that an insuperable barrier to improvement or just a minor hurdle for any competent designer to overcome? Bornagain77 quotes from an article on The Miracle of Eyesight which includes snippets of information such as:
The eye is so sensitive it can detect a candle one mile away.
That is indeed impressive. But so is the fact that if we had the night vision of an owl we could read a newspaper in pitch darkness by the light of that one candle set a mile away. If we had the visual acuity of the hawk we could spot a mouse at a range of one mile. And if we had a fourth type of cone cell to give us the tetrachromatic vision of the zebrafish or the mantis shrimp we might see a much wider range of colors than our trichromatic eyes can detect. Given that all these modifications and improvements have been field-tested and proven on other platforms why have they not been incorporated into our eyes?Seversky
February 17, 2010
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Toronto: "While the play is being performed, that is all there is. If you step out of character during the performance, you have gone against the desires of the writer, producer and everyone else associated with the performance. After the show, everyone gets to take their bows, but while the performance is on, the producer expects you to stay in character." Well that is just the curious thing. He appearenlty does not want us to stay on script. In fact, He insists we have taken it upon ourselves to change it. Rather than look to Him for our next line, to find our way based on what is left only in the play itself. There is one problem. The play is not a perfect anology for 'the world'. It is only a play. Stage blood is not real blood. I suppose you could carry your line of reasoning to the bitter end, and very logically make the case that everything that goes on in the show is the producers responsibility. That, I would not disagree with. That is frankly undeniable for the sake of true justice and the legitimacy of reason itself. I suppose then, that a true 'real world producer' as it were, would bleed His real blood, and not demand ours before the credits are rolled. THAT is a producer I can believe in, and study, and safely consider trusting to answer my sincere questions. But that is MY choice. People can throw tomatoes at me all they want. Not you (of course), but some will. I know the show is coming to an end, and I patiently await the encore. Those caught up and enamored with only 'part' of the show, are missing out tremedously on the incredible studying and learning about 'the whole' show -especially the cameo appearence of the producer, who made Himself the very center of the show and smashed all our grand illusions about what the show is about to glorious sniveling bits.Lock
February 17, 2010
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Mr SCheesman, Certainly an omniscient, omnipotent Designer is not constrained to design so that the result "looks natural", neither is the intelligent but limited material designer. We regularly design in ways not seen in nature - wheels, multi-element lenses, lasers embedded in the foreheads of sharks... ok, scratch that last one. But you get the basic idea.Nakashima
February 17, 2010
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Nakashima:
One of the big questions for design detection, I think, is why the designer would design as if constrained in this way when that is not in fact the case. I haven’t seen “designed to look natural” as an argument from the ID community … yet!
If it in fact it were not true, that would be more a theological or philosophical question, but still, why do you think its not the case?SCheesman
February 17, 2010
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Mr SCheesman, Still, what it indicates in the end I’m not sure of myself, except that, if it is still impossible to improve things then perhaps the eye is already “optimized”. Yes, the eye is optimized within certain constraints, historical contingency being one of them. One of the big questions for design detection, I think, is why the designer would design as if constrained in this way when that is not in fact the case. I haven't seen "designed to look natural" as an argument from the ID community ... yet!Nakashima
February 17, 2010
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Nakashima:
That is not a particularly relevant challenge. An evolutionist accepts that the vertebrate eye, all eyes in fact, are compromises between historical contingency and selection pressures.
BA's challenge is actually a bit more subtle; a laboratory might be able to faithfully reproduce the random mutation part (in fact could reduce the randomness through some targeted mutations), but can apply different "intelligent" selection pressures. In fact this is what animal and plant breeders have done for centuries. Certainly, intelligent input can produce results unavailable to natural selection; it can think ahead and combine a number of results which by themselves might not confer an advantage. Still, what it indicates in the end I'm not sure of myself, except that, if it is still impossible to improve things then perhaps the eye is already "optimized".SCheesman
February 17, 2010
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Mr BA^77, And all this begs the question for the evolutionists; Can you go into your laboratory and design a better eye by random mutations? That is not a particularly relevant challenge. An evolutionist accepts that the vertebrate eye, all eyes in fact, are compromises between historical contingency and selection pressures.Nakashima
February 17, 2010
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bornagain77
Can you go into your laboratory and design a better eye by random mutations?
They can't even design a better eye on purpose. The silliness about the blind spot is a good indication of them not even being able to figure out what is important.SCheesman
February 17, 2010
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Lock @71,
Who wrote the script?
Regardless of the identity of the writer, he would expect that you stay in character for the duration of the show.
The play does not exist on its own. Yet you demand the character pretend bilindly that the stage is the whole show. What about accolades for the producer?
While the play is being performed, that is all there is. If you step out of character during the performance, you have gone against the desires of the writer, producer and everyone else associated with the performance. After the show, everyone gets to take their bows, but while the performance is on, the producer expects you to stay in character.Toronto
February 17, 2010
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Mr BA^77, To actually simulate 10 milliseconds of the complete processing of even a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution of about 500 simultaneous nonlinear differential equations 100 times and would take at least several minutes of processing time on a Cray supercomputer. Keeping in mind that there are 10 million or more such cells interacting with each other in complex ways, it would take a minimum of 100 years of Cray time to simulate what takes place in your eye many times every second. I googled around to follow this claim through the apologetics literature, and find it is basically the opinion of one guy expressed in Byte magazine in 1985. Oops. Fast forward 25 years. The Blue Brain project is trying to simulate thousands of neurons in real time. But I have to say that quoting a Byte article from 1985 fits in with the rest of that section, which quotes an apologetics piece originally published 1987, which itself quotes a compendium of Readers Digest articles and a Time-Life science book from 1964 as its sources. Still, it is amazing that we need a room size computer to simulate a small fraction of what is in our heads, right? Yes, but how many brains would it take to run the weather simulation you can run on the same computer hardware? More than a roomful.Nakashima
February 17, 2010
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Mr SCheesman, It is a case study in optimization of multiple parameters, and excellent design. I'm sorry but you are just shifting the location of the constraints that the Designer of the eye could not violate. What about multi-element, wide angle lenses? What about an optic nerve that uses fiber optics and lasers? No bandwith problems now... ;)Nakashima
February 17, 2010
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This following video, and study, highlights the profound mystery the question of exactly what in our "brains" is receiving the sight from our eyes: Blind Woman Can See During Near Death Experience - Pim Lommel - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994599/blind_woman_can_see_during_near_death_experience_pim_lommel_nde/ Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997) conducted a study of 31 blind people, many of who reported vision during their NDEs. 21 of these people had had an NDE while the remaining 10 had had an out-of-body experience (OBE), but no NDE. It was found that in the NDE sample, about half had been blind from birth. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_1_64/ai_65076875/bornagain77
February 17, 2010
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You've probably hear it before Toronto, and few of us are new to these discussions, but it bears re-referencing in my opinion. "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." -Robert JastrowLock
February 16, 2010
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Toronto: "If you are in a stage play and forget your next line, you can’t simply pull out your cell phone and call the understudy. You would take yourself out of the context of the play by dropping out of your character and reverting to yourself, an actor." Who wrote the script? The play does not exist on its own. Yet you demand the character pretend bilindly that the stage is the whole show. What about accolades for the producer? What you're leaving out is presciesely the 'real' thing the play is all about. The stage was never the real world anymore than the earth is the universe, or the universe the universe. There is that nagging question of origin. One empiricism is impotent to address. "In the same way, the problems we deal with in this play, our mortal lives, have to be solved here, in this context." So you say... Can you support that with empirical evidence, or is that a metaphysical belief? I find it telling that like Hume, Kant and so many other master magicians, you are using philosophy to tell us that philosophy is meaningless. It is 'this world' that matters. How secular of you... Just explain what you mean by world, matter, energy, and the like and I would be happy to consider it. I found that I could not.Lock
February 16, 2010
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The Miracle Of Eyesight: Excerpt: Most people would agree that it is an audacious miracle that we even see in the first place. And indeed the absolutely stunning complexity that we find in the eye that enables us to see, would seem to overwhelmingly confirm this first impression. Yet evolutionists are not impressed and maintain that chance put together the miracle of eyesight. Since the eye is irreducibly complex and steadfastly resist any plausible chance driven scenario, the main attack of evolutionists has been to say that the eye is poorly designed, Yet as more is learned about the eye and how it relates to the environment, many of their "bad design" objections have fallen by the wayside. http://eyedesignbook.com/index.html What astonishes me is that evolutionists are so easily led astray by the dubious bad design argument when the staggeringly level of complexity is so readily apparent: The eye is infinitely more complex than any man-made camera. It can handle 1.5 million simultaneous messages, and gathers 80% of all the knowledge absorbed by the brain. The retina covers less than a square inch, and contains 137 million light-sensitive receptor cells, 130 million rods (allowing the eye to see in black and white), and 7 million cones (allowing the eye to see in full color). In an average day, the eye moves about 100,000 times, using muscles that, milligram for milligram, are among the body’s strongest. The body would have to walk 50 miles to exercise the leg muscles an equal amount. The eye is self-cleaning. Lacrimal glands produce secretions (e.g., tears) to flush away dust and other foreign materials. Eyelids act as windshield washers. The blinking process (3-6 times a minute) keeps the sensitive cornea moist and clean. And, tears contain a potent microbe-killer (lysozyme) which guards the eyes against bacterial infection. During times of stress, one eye will “rest” while the other does 90% of the work; then the process is reversed, allowing both eyes equal amounts of rest. The brain receives millions of simultaneous reports from the eyes. When its designated wavelength of light is present, each rod or cone triggers an electrical response to the brain, which then absorbs a composite set of yes-or-no messages from all the rods and cones. There are about seven-million shades of color the human eye can detect. It takes 200 million billionths of a second for the retina to create vision from light. The eye is so sensitive it can detect a candle one mile away. One type of light sensitive cell, the rod, can detect a single photon. For visible light the energy carried by a single photon would be around a tiny 4 x 10-19 Joules; this energy is just sufficient to excite a single molecule in a photoreceptor cell of an eye. There is a biological computer in the retina which processes and compresses the information from those millions of light sensitive cells before sending it to the visual cortex where the complex stream of information is then decompressed. While today's digital hardware is extremely impressive, it is clear that the human retina's real-time performance goes unchallenged. To actually simulate 10 milliseconds of the complete processing of even a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution of about 500 simultaneous nonlinear differential equations 100 times and would take at least several minutes of processing time on a Cray supercomputer. Keeping in mind that there are 10 million or more such cells interacting with each other in complex ways, it would take a minimum of 100 years of Cray time to simulate what takes place in your eye many times every second. The human is the only species known to shed tears when they are sad. In spite of this stunning evidence evolutionists use a very dubious and philosophically based "bad design" argument to try to undermine the obvious Theological implications. Something tells me evolutionists are not being fair with the evidence. And all this begs the question for the evolutionists; Can you go into your laboratory and design a better eye by random mutations? http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMThmd25mdjRocQ&hl=enbornagain77
February 16, 2010
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Lock @66,
Toronto: “The underlying thought in your statement above shows that you aren’t looking for this world’s answers in this world”. Trust me when I tell you that I used to. And I was aware (even then) of how desperately others encouraged (and even pressured) me to do so. I am more aware of it now. Astonished by it really…
I am certainly not pressuring you to accept any particular viewpoint of life. What I am saying is we have to be aware when looking for answers, to restrict ourselves to the scope of the problem. If you are in a stage play and forget your next line, you can't simply pull out your cell phone and call the understudy. You would take yourself out of the context of the play by dropping out of your character and reverting to yourself, an actor. In the same way, the problems we deal with in this play, our mortal lives, have to be solved here, in this context. Any answers we need here, will be found here in this physical world.
You make your statement as though you are entirely confident what the world is, and what rules we should confine the answers to.
I am as confident in this physical world as any religious leader is in their heavenly one.Toronto
February 16, 2010
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Seversky:
A couple of other points to ponder: the highest resolution in the retina is found in just one small area, the fovea. What was the problem with expanding that to the whole of the retina to give us truly HD vision? The other point about the fovea is that here the ‘wiring’ is run by the side of the photoreceptors so there is far less obscuration of the light. So the question becomes, if this wonderful designer can do it there, what was the problem with doing it over the whole retina?
We already have good answers for most of these points: The wavelength-dependence on transmission becomes important in the highest-resolution areas, hence the change in the wiring position is dependent on the resolution required. The highest-resolution area of the eye also requires the highest blood-flow, cooling, repair. Extending this region to the entire eye would require a substantial increase in all these needs. The optical properties of the lense cannot provide the same focussing ability at all angles inside the eye; it is best at the fovea and decreases away from it. Even if all the eye had equal resolution throughout, only a small fraction could even take advantage of it any any given time. This is a well-known principal in lense-making for optical instruments such as binoculars and telesocpes where designers strive to maintain resolution towards the edges of the field, in fields much narrower than what the eye has. Increasing the number of optical cells would require an increase in the size of the optic nerve, and every processing stage in the brain that follows, all with costs. In summary, the distribution of resolutions provide detailed central resolution where it is required, and lesser resolution in peripheral regions, where it is less important, while minimizing the overhead. It is a case study in optimization of multiple parameters, and excellent design.SCheesman
February 16, 2010
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SCheesman @ 57
Your answer astounds me. I expect if I threw in for effect “the eye should take up no physical space” you would have agreed to that too. God cannot be perfect enough for you.
No, I do not expect the impossible but anything less should be well within God's powers.
Maybe we’ll petition God to give you an extra million years to improve on the eye, since you are so confident it is badly designed.
Give me an extra million years and I will design and build a better eye all by myself.
So far you can’t even give a convincing reason why a blind spot is a detriment. But in fact, none is so blind as he who will not see
A blind spot is a gap in the visual coverage which, as Nakashima has pointed out, could make a prey animal more vulnerable to a predator. Yes, evolution has found a way to compensate for the gap, possibly at the expense of co-opting brain capacity for optical processing that might be used for other purposes. But why do it that way in the first place A couple of other points to ponder: the highest resolution in the retina is found in just one small area, the fovea. What was the problem with expanding that to the whole of the retina to give us truly HD vision? The other point about the fovea is that here the 'wiring' is run by the side of the photoreceptors so there is far less obscuration of the light. So the question becomes, if this wonderful designer can do it there, what was the problem with doing it over the whole retina?Seversky
February 16, 2010
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Toronto: "The underlying thought in your statement above shows that you aren’t looking for this world’s answers in this world". Trust me when I tell you that I used to. And I was aware (even then) of how desperately others encouraged (and even pressured) me to do so. I am more aware of it now. Astonished by it really... But now? Regarding your accusation (as though it were a blasphemy)? Not entirely... no. You are partially correct. In the same way, I would not look for [complete] answers as to how the furniture was moved while I was gone, by limiting my inquiry to the room, the physics in the room, ad nauseum. I would want to know who was visiting and what their purpose was. Especially if the furniture were moved in such a way as to spell my name. It would be absurd to look in the room alone for the answer. The room would only be the crime scene. In fact, the room would only be valuable in declaring the existence of the culprit. You make your statement as though you are entirely confident what the world is, and what rules we should confine the answers to. I no longer share your confidence, and see no sound philosophical reason to presuppose such limits of inquiry. This is especially the case in light of modern biology, cosmology, and quantum physics. What I am more intersted in, is making the pressupositions you bring with your argumentation visible, especially to yourself. That is about the exent of my job and ability. I am not going to coerce or pressure you. I certainly do not intend to win an argument or convert you. You convert yourself. I know the line... Not looking within oneself for the answers and strength is a cop-out'. I do try very hard to be reasonable in this age of soundbite lawyering and pandering to human impatience. I concede some truth in the belief. However, to make it an absolute is simply prideful to the highest degree. Such a belief ridgidly adhered to with the accompanying and very visible scorn and derision, has all the markings of a truely anthropomorphic god. Yeah, not for me thank you. I am prideful enough already. There is something much more complete, real, and balanced (though I can never fully grasp or appriciate it) in the God I know, and who was revealed in this world as Jesus.Lock
February 16, 2010
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Seversky:
What you never see is the wiring for the chip carried in front of it because it would interfere with the incoming light.
Except that it has been discovered that, since the size of the structures involved is comparable to or smaller than that of the wavelength of light impinging, they are essentially transparent and transmit the light without any apparent loss. Hey, that's pretty smart. Human designers haven't made wires that small, so they are forced to hide them behind the image sensors. But you would have figured all that out on your own in the first 100,000 years.SCheesman
February 16, 2010
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Nakashima:
A prey species can’t see the approach of a predator that is in the blind spot.
You are the comedian! a) Wouldn't sneaking up from behind be smarter, and a whole lot easier? b) As you noted, the prey animal must not possess binocular vision (because two-eye coverage is complementary and removes the blind spot as a factor over much of the range). c) The prey animal would have to be able to sneak up in a manner which would keep its body mostly inside the cone of blindness, which is about 2 degrees in diameter or less. That's a pretty small prey animal, on an amazingly direct and straight course. What's the chance of the blind spot even being pointed in a possible direction of approach - its more likely to be pointing up into the sky or down into the earth. Two degrees is about 2 parts in 10,000 of the visual field, assuming 2 blind spots and 180 degree coverage, which is conservative for animals with monocular vision. d) Most animals do not rely soley, or even mostly on vision to detect predators; they use sound, smell and touch (vibration). e) Prey animals rarely stay exactly still for long... ungulates are continuously chewing, which would shift the blind spot about. In any case, it takes an undetectable movement to shift the blind spot to a completely different location. f) Prey animals DO rely on such proven aids as ground cover, or camoflage, or stealth, or shear speed, strength and weaponry (e.g. teeth and claws). What need do they have of a blind spot? So in the end, is the detriment to survival even measurable? Blinking is probably a greater problem. Got a reference for your new theory on "hunting with blind spots"? I thought not. Wait, I have a good theory that might be testable... it is much easier to sneak up and rob someone who is concentrating on a diagram designed to show the blind spot, than someone who is just standing idly around.SCheesman
February 16, 2010
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Lock @ 55
So design is poor… Fine! Assuming what?
It is poor assuming a designer with the capabilities of a contemporary human designer. As I mentioned before, if you are designing an imaging sensor, you do not put anything in the path of the incoming light that does not have to be there. In a digital camera, there might be a lens to focus the light and something like an iris and/or shutter to control the amount of light reaching the photosensitive chip. What you never see is the wiring for the chip carried in front of it because it would interfere with the incoming light. But we are not talking about a human designer. What we are talking about, in the words of the OP, is
...a marvel of intelligent engineering that far surpasses anything we have yet to dream about.
In other words, we are talking about a highly-advanced extraterrestrial at the very least. Although, given the ridicule heaped on Richard Dawkins when made such a suggestion, what really meant by the Designer is God. By that standard the eye is sloppy work.Seversky
February 16, 2010
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Clive Hayden @ 54
Do you want to talk theology? Because that is what you’re talking, a discussion that you cannot get to by mere design detection.
I have no objection to discussing theology but it is not me who is citing apparent design in nature as evidence of the handiwork of God.
I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.
As I am sure you are aware that quote is from Dr Dembski but there is no shortage of evidence both of the origins of ID in "creation science" and the uncompromising religious agenda which has driven it forward since its inception.
But if you insist, again, on talking theology, as I’ve already responded to you once, if you consider the Fall of man and nature, we would expect to see a damaged, albeit still designed, product. This is perfectly in alignment with Christianity.
This has been discussed many times before. The narrative of the Fall is, in my view, incoherent and even absurd if taken literally but I have no objection to revisiting the arguments.
54 Clive Hayden 02/16/2010 12:07 am Seversky, The alternative is to say that whoever designed the human eye, if it was indeed designed, it was not the God of Christianity. Do you want to talk theology? Because that is what you’re talking, a discussion that you cannot get to by mere design detection. You’re importing loads of assumptions that you’ll have to parse out, because I don’t care to ferret them out of you. But if you insist, again, on talking theology, as I’ve already responded to you once, if you consider the Fall of man and nature, we would expect to see a damaged, albeit still designed, product. This is perfectly in alignment with Christianity.Seversky
February 16, 2010
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Mr SCheesman, A prey species can't see the approach of a predator that is in the blind spot. (In order to maximize coverage (and therefore defense) most prey species have monocular vision on each side of the body.) You can compensate by moving, but moving gives away your position. Compared to a species with no blind spot at all, that is a negative consequence.Nakashima
February 16, 2010
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