Design evidence # 111: The heart

The human heart is a marvel of engineering. Lets have a look at a simple heartbeat from Page not found - Texas Medical Center :

quote:

---

A heartbeat is a two-part pumping action that takes about a second. As blood collects in the upper chambers (the right and left atria), the heart's natural pacemaker (the SA node) sends out an electrical signal that causes the atria to contract. This contraction pushes blood through the tricuspid and mitral valves into the resting lower chambers (the right and left ventricles). This part of the two-part pumping phase (the longer of the two) is called the diastole.

​

The second part of the pumping phase begins when the ventricles are full of blood. The electrical signals from the SA node travel along a pathway of cells to the ventricles, causing them to contract. This is called systole. As the tricuspid and mitral valves shut tight to prevent a back flow of blood, the pulmonary and aortic valves are pushed open. While blood is pushed from the right ventricle into the lungs to pick up oxygen, oxygen-rich blood flows from the left ventricle to the heart and other parts of the body.

​

After blood moves into the pulmonary artery and the aorta, the ventricles relax, and the pulmonary and aortic valves close. The lower pressure in the ventricles causes the tricuspid and mitral valves to open, and the cycle begins again. This series of contractions is repeated over and over again, increasing during times of exertion and decreasing while you are at rest.

​

Your heart does not work alone, though. Your brain tracks the conditions around youclimate, stress, and your level of physical activityand adjusts your cardiovascular system to meet those needs.

​

The human heart is a muscle designed to remain strong and reliable for a hundred years or longer. By reducing your risk factors for cardiovascular disease, you may help your heart stay healthy longer.

---

(emphasis added)
The Texas Heart Institute recognizes DESIGN! And so they should. The heart could not have evolved in darwinian step-by-step fashion. Everything has to be in place and working properly for the heart to function.The four valves, the four chambers, the intricate network of blood vessels that enter and exit the heart, the pacemaker (sinoatrial node), the accelerator nerves that link the heart to the central nervous system, not to mention the centrifugal flow of blood within the blood vessels.
The blood vessel pathways are helical and designed with a spiraling effect built in, this prevents a potential for friction to build up as the blood flows through the heart, the arteries, the capillaries, and back to the heart through the veins.The whole system is interdependent and precisely tuned, if it fails in one part, the whole system falters. (ref: Body by design, Dr. Alan Gillen)The heart pumps approx. 2000 gallons of blood each day. Each heartbeat is perfect with valves preventing backflow, and specified chambers for specified functions. It is a wonderful testament to an Intelligent Designer who created in His divine wisdom.------------------
"You can no more alter God than a pebble can alter the rhythm of the Pacific."

Holmes:

quote:

---

Each heartbeat is PERFECT? Wow, someone tell that to my doctor. I was born with a heart murmur where my valves allow for plenty of backflow.

---

Well then Holmes, YOU of all people should appreciate how delicate and precise this system is, and how any flaw is detrimental.
Something that couldn't just gradually assemble itself, by random mutation and natural selection.If you don't like the topic, nobody's holding a gun to your head.Regards,
S ------------------
"You can no more alter God than a pebble can alter the rhythm of the Pacific."

hee hee..I guess that's the best you could come up with.
That's okay, evidently I'm communicating with an "odd species of African apes"

quote:

---

Holmes:How can there be a flaw if it is god's perfect handiwork (your claim)?

---

God's original perfect creation is degenerating because of the second law of thermodynamics, as you know.
Your(evo's) beloved "mutations" which are supposed to increase information and "create" new specified complexity, does the exact opposite. A heart flaw is a good example of the "wonders" of mutations.
The very fact that we all aren't born with heart defects or many other defects, is evidence for initial design, since mutations upon mutations without intelligence would firstly not even exist, and secondly prove very deadly.The heart is incredible, the amount of work it does day in and day out. It's layout and design coupled with the interdependence on the brain and nervous system is very strong evidence of specified complexity.
http://www.leaderu.com/...ces/dembski/docs/bd-specified.htmlIf you tried to give a step by step description of how the human heart might have evolved, what kind of story would that be?And, yes...if you really want to prove God's existence, a gun would suffice... Regards,
S------------------
"You can no more alter God than a pebble can alter the rhythm of the Pacific."

quote:

---

Actually this is not true. IC is more rigorous than the logic Sonnikke uses.

​

In another thread Sonnikke admits that he does not use IC at all. He simply believes that if something is complex (not IC) you can logically assume that it has been made by somebody.

​

This requires no logic or evidence at all, other than circular logic.

​

I'm not saying IC is credible as a standard for inferring design, and I admit they share similar routes to that inferrence, but Sonnikke's reasoning is an insult to IC (which means it has to be REALLY BAD).

​

holmes

---

Holmes, why do you insist on misquoting me?
I never said I don't use IC at all, what I said was that IC or not, the interdependance of the system (ie. heart, brain, nervous system, multitudes of blood vessels, etc) shows specified complexity, and it is in and of itself, at the very least inferrence of design.Please explain how inferring design based on a complex system of interdependant parts, is circular logic.I would argue that this system is irreducibly complex.
If you take away the heart, the system breaks down.
If you take away the brain, the system breaks down.
If you remove the blood vessels, the system breaks down.
If you remove the nervous system, the system breaks down.They all have to be in place and working properly, or the system breaks down.Ipetrich earlier attempted a story for how the heart might have evolved:

quote:

---

In the Vendian, just before the Cambrian, a little ocean-floor worm was born that had a strange birth defect. It grew an extra throat in its body cavity -- a throat which reflexively swallowed. But that swallowing kept its body fluids in motion, enabling it to nourish itself better. And as a result, that lucky worm's descendants multiplied and multiplied, with that extra throat becoming a heart and blood vessels. And sometimes multiple hearts, as with earthworms.

​

Sometimes this heart would grow extra flaps of skin inside of it. But one that grew in the right place would act as a valve, thus the origin of heart valves.

​

A simple tube of a heart is widespread in the animal kingdom. However, land vertebrates faced the necessity of supplying a lot of blood to the lungs in order to get oxygen and dump carbon dioxide. Which forced the gradual splitting of the heart into two sub-hearts. This was only partially completed in most amphibians and reptiles, but completed in mammals and archosaurs (crocodilians, dinosaurs, and birds).

---

This is a very cute story or "just-so" story, but it is nothing more than that (no offence Ipetrich).The fact is, the heart, the brain, the eye, these are just a few examples of the immense problem evolutionism has in trying to explain how they might have evolved (except for cute just-so stories, of course).Regards,
S------------------
"You can no more alter God than a pebble can alter the rhythm of the Pacific."

quote:

---

And it is possible to find living organisms missing any one of these, and even missing all of these, so your claims that "the system breaks down" fall flat.

---

Please list these organisms so we can evaluate this statement.
Note also that I was referring to humans.S.------------------
"You can no more alter God than a pebble can alter the rhythm of the Pacific."

Ipetrich's story:

quote:

---

In the Vendian, just before the Cambrian, a little ocean-floor worm was born that had a strange birth defect. It grew an extra throat in its body cavity -- a throat which reflexively swallowed. But that swallowing kept its body fluids in motion, enabling it to nourish itself better. And as a result, that lucky worm's descendants multiplied and multiplied, with that extra throat becoming a heart and blood vessels. And sometimes multiple hearts, as with earthworms.
Sometimes this heart would grow extra flaps of skin inside of it. But one that grew in the right place would act as a valve, thus the origin of heart valves.

​

A simple tube of a heart is widespread in the animal kingdom. However, land vertebrates faced the necessity of supplying a lot of blood to the lungs in order to get oxygen and dump carbon dioxide. Which forced the gradual splitting of the heart into two sub-hearts. This was only partially completed in most amphibians and reptiles, but completed in mammals and archosaurs (crocodilians, dinosaurs, and birds).

---

1. Please explain how you would test this theory.
2. Please explain how the worm originated.
3. Please explain by what law and mechanism an open circulatory system could transform itself into a closed system.
4. Please explain how a birth defect could "create" a whole new organ.
5. Please explain how the system transformed itself step-by-step, while remaining fully functional.
6. Please explain how this scenario translated into higher organisms in a step-by-step fashion.
7. Please show what evidence there is for this theory.Otherwise, it's a cute storyAnd to Holmes, why must everything I say be taken as ad hominem?
I'm not attacking Ipetrich, I was focusing on his story.
Please explain your definition of ad hominem.Regards,
S------------------
Dr. D.M.S. Watson: "Evolution is accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Nature, Aug 10, 1929, p. 233

quote:

---

Bacteria have none of these components. They violate all of your criteria.
I know you are refering to humans, but it is silly to claim that one cannot build a moustrap without components x,y and z when there are functional mousetraps missing x, y, and z.

---

What exactly do you think "my criteria" are?
How can you compare a single celled organism to a heart? And secondly, what part of a bacteria could you remove and still have it fully functioning?Regards,
S------------------
Dr. D.M.S. Watson: "Evolution is accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Nature, Aug 10, 1929, p. 233

quote:

---

A: There is no need to "test this theory" unless you do not believe in reproduction and changes during reproduction. Birth defects do occur and while most are not beneficial, some are. since the described scenario involves known mechanisms it is a plausible explanation.

---

How many beneficial "defects" do you know?
It is only plausible in the evo's mind because you have an extraordinary belief in extrapolating data from the miniscule to the astronomical.

quote:

---

A: Irrelevant. The discussion is formation of the heart, not abiogenesis. You can duke it out with Behe on that one.

---

I do love how that is the typical response from evo's."Conclusion: Mathmatics do not support the theory of evolution as
it is currently concieved. Mathmatically there is a zero probability
for any kind of cell development by haphazzard chance alone.This, of course, is why evolutionists wish to claim that evolution and
abiogenesis are two separate subjects, and that they do not wish to
answer questions about abiogenesis. Who would wish to defend two
untenable pieces of rubbish at the same time? This does, however,
leave them having to defend the following insane proposition:That God or whoever created the first life forms used intelligent processes
(no element of chance involved) to do so, and that then he/she/it got
STUPID, and began to use stupid processes (chance mutation, natural
selection etc.) to proceed to successive steps."
http://www.bearfabrique.org/Evolution/abiodds

quote:

---

A: Unless you know of a law that this explanation violates, there is no need for lpetrich to refer to a law at all. This criticism simply makes no sense.

​

The mechanism request is valid and relatively easily answered. It may have started as an open system which slowly grew more self-contained (through overgrown flaps of skin) until it closed off completely.

---

It is not easily answered. How does a system that "bathes" the internal organs with blood, create the necessary vessels and arches and force mechanisms to become closed, while at the same time remaining functioning. There would have to be so many intermediate steps, created by succesive beneficial mutations. The odds are simply zero for that to occur.

quote:

---

A: It cannot all at once, or at least I would find that problematic. I don't believe lpetrich said this anywhere. Like a meandering river whose changes over time slowly create isolated oxbow lakes with their own environments, general organs may develop specialized sub organs or tissues which eventually function independently. This takes many generations.

---

Re-read his story.

quote:

---

A: Essentially he did, unless you need him to account for every precise flap of skin to create separate walls and valves. There was nothing here that was so controversial that it would not remain fully functional if included. The biggest "gap" would be the growth of an extra throat... how often would this occur in a way that would be useful and passed down?

---

I had a better diagram at work, but of course I can't find it now.
However, look at this diagram, it is not as simple as just growing an extra throat. The circulatory system is separate and elaborate.
bioweb.uwlax.edu...earthworm_model
{Shortened the text of this link, to prevent overwide page - Adminnemooseus}

quote:

---

If someone were to use this theoretical example to say "this explanation proves evolutionary theory is true",would be mistaken. That would be circular logic.

​

lpetrich did not do that. His description is sound and only shows that evolutionary theory does provide explanatory mechanisms for development of the heart.

---

At an extremely basic, untestable, unprovable, level.
However, "A" for effort...is just too bad evolutionary science retsricts itself to entirely natural events, and thus misses out on exploring all the possible avenues...it reminds me of this:
Signs of IntelligenceRegards,
S------------------
Dr. D.M.S. Watson: "Evolution is accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Nature, Aug 10, 1929, p. 233[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 02-21-2003]

In the absence of a time machine, and in light of the self-imposed restrictive boundaries of evolutionism, the only "plausible" explanations for any organism or organ development, is reduced to an imaginative story which in a sci-fi movie would be no problem, but in the real world, the MEGA-MEGA extrapolation from miniscule, random rare usually neutral or destructive, mutations to the fantastic creation of new organs, circulatory systems, higher organisms, is simply NOT to be found except in the believing mind of the evolutionist who chooses to restrict his/her search for truth.Regards,
S"The occurrence of genetic monstrosities by mutation ... is well substantiated, but they are such evident freaks that these monsters can be designated only as 'hopeless.' They are so utterly unbalanced that they would not have the slightest chance of escaping elimination through stabilizing selection .... the more drastically a mutation affects the phenotype, the more likely it is to reduce fitness. To believe that such a drastic mutation would produce a viable new type, capable of occupying a new adaptive zone, is equivalent to believing in miracles .... The finding of a suitable mate for the 'hopeless monster' and the establishment of reproductive isolation from the normal members of the parental population seem to me insurmountable difficulties."Mayr, Ernst (1970)
Populations, Species, and Evolution
Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, p. 235"

No I just have a fondness for illuminating quotes by evo's, and, regardless mutations are still as useless as ever at producing the kind of "believed in" change, that the evo is hoping for.Regards,
S------------------
Dr. D.M.S. Watson: "Evolution is accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Nature, Aug 10, 1929, p. 233

Hi Percy,
Thank you for your continued demonstration of class.Regards,
S

I have yet to see even an explanation. So far I have seen stories. What you consider an "explanation" is analagous to me saying that a tricycle accidentally grew another wheel and became a four wheeler. Then one day an accident caused an internal combustion engine to form on the four wheeler. Further, structural changes fortuitously took place which encaged the lucky engine. The four wheeler adapted to the new changes by growing a steel skin which encompassed the entire four wheeler. More gradual modifications ensured that roominess abounded so the lucky four wheeler could carry passengers. That is the "excellent" explanation for how a tricycle evolved to a car. (sidebar: please spare me the "it's not a biological organism, it can't pass on heritable traits, etc"..it's the same idea for illustration purposes). pre-dark age? please elaborate. I'm sure there's a logical fallacy involved in this dark age stuff. Yes I'm aware thank you. The link was to show that man is looking for intelligence in the wrong places, spending millions of dollars looking for any signs of intelligent life from outer space, whilst right here in our own world an incredibly intelligent "sign" has been found in the form of DNA.
What I was saying was that just as man is not seeing the obvious in that respect, man is also not seeing the obvious (God's creation) as evidenced by the naturalistically limited search for answers to our existence.Regards,
S------------------
Dr. D.M.S. Watson: "Evolution is accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Nature, Aug 10, 1929, p. 233

Are you sure you read Ipetrich's story, because his "lucky" worm grew a new throat. It didn't happen over many many generations apparantly. I know of no one debating microevolution, that is correct. My tricycle to car analogy was illustrative of macro-ev. It wouldn't be that unreasonable IF we saw evidence that the little miniscule changes that are either horizontal or downward, could be extrapolated to astronomical changes, but that evidence was supposed to be in the rich fossil record, and it wasn't. How many years have they experimented on mutating flies? 20 years or so? We still only have flies right? right!
These mutations which are supposed to add the raw material for new organisms, do the opposite most of the time. And when they don't, they are neutral or horizontal. Thanks for insulting me by the way...
"grand universal truths"..."a priori"..you mean like uniformitarianism and natural occurences only??
Evolutionism isn't far from the greeks then, I suppose.
Let me ask you something, what if God really did create life and the universe and the only "evolution" that has occurred since is MICRO...that creation event would have been supernatural correct? So if science really wanted the truth to be found, wouldn't it make sense to NOT limit itself to a priori reasoning and grand universal truth assumptions?? Seriously?As far as the DNA example, again, it is just an illustration of how people can miss the forest for the trees.Regards,
S------------------
Dr. D.M.S. Watson: "Evolution is accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Nature, Aug 10, 1929, p. 233

That's a non-sequitur if I've seen one. What kind of logic is this? Because something designed can be simple thus complexity cannot be related to design? What constitutes a simple design? What's the simplest design you can think of? Even the most simple design is DESIGNED! So actually what you are saying is that design can be inferred even more easily since even simple things show evidence of design.Regards,
S------------------
Dr. D.M.S. Watson: "Evolution is accepted not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible." Nature, Aug 10, 1929, p. 233