Animals with bad design.

Granny M, Relatively non-essential? Perhaps you should reread the post by Dr. Mead. If reproduction is non-essential, none of us would be here. Mead also mentions sexual dimorphism.The Mead quote had no mention of pelvic similarities or dissimilarities. He just called it a pelvis. I'll call it a pelvis too from now on. Calling it a pelvis doesn't mean its a remnant from a four legged ancestor's pelvis.You might also reread the quote I posted about pelvic comparisons. The one that starts "The pelvis is dramatically different in modern whales and land mammals. "The reason you call something a pelvis isn't because it is a current or vestigal feature of four-leggedness. Some fish have a pelvis - they don't have four legs - neither did their ancestors. They are called a pelvis because of the general shape and general region. This is curious. I'll be contacting a marine biologist about it. Could be that the variations are related to habitat or other behaviors.Interestingly, the species with the most complex pelvis is the bowhead whale. A unique behavior of this whale is that it breaks through the sea ice from time to time. Mead mentioned that the pelvic extensions (what you would call the femur) form an anchor point for the ischiocaudalis muscle - which is linked to tail locomotion. Perhaps this particular muscle/bone arrangement assists the bowhead in breaking through the ice.Similar pelvis bones are found in other fin whale species. Another unique feature of this branch of whales is that they lack dorsal fins - which acts as a swimming stabilizer in other whales. Could be the extra pelvis structures provide muscular attachments to provide extra swimming stability.In general, all baleen whales have a more elaborate pelvis structure than toothed whales. How would you explain this? That doesn't fit the linear progression of whale evolution. They say baleen whales evolved from toothed whales. If whale physiology was changing in a linear fashion, toothed whales would have more femur leftovers - and their descendants would have little or no femur leftovers. I know, I know, not everything evolves in a linear fashion... But that's exactly the claim being made when it comes to whales and the line of ancestors - pieces evolving in a linear fashion.Indeed, how could the excess nubs and pieces on a whale pelvis be leg bones? The study I referenced before showed that neither of the proteins essential to limb growth were present in the embryonic limb bud. If there are no signals for making a leg - a leg isn't going to grow - not a leg nub - not anything.Pelvic bones develop in a completely different way and have their own protein signals, such as Pax1 and Alx4. You're right that "perfect" is difficult to wrap our minds around - and probably isn't a useful word. Everybody's definition of "perfect" is different.Instead of "perfect," I'll say the whale pelvis "works properly" for its intended purpose. Extending the pelvis 5 cm in length most likely doesn't change how the whale pelvis works - so to that I'll agree that an exact 20cm x 10cm x 5cm isn't essential to the pelvis' function - so their is some flexibility in natural selection.Under your strict definition of "perfect," would you say that a Shih Tzu jaw bone is imperfect because it's not the same size as a Dachshund jaw bone? Same animal family - different sized bones - yet they both serve the dogs well. Ok -fair enough. Some whale pelvises consist of one bone, some of several fused bones. Again, the differences could be due to different behaviors or habitats.It must be a fact of this universe that some complex bone arrangements can only form by the fusing of several pieces - the human skull and rib cage for example. Would you jump to the conclusion that the human skull is a misleading structure because it is made up of fused bones? Before you think I said something I didn't - let me clarify.I'm not saying that God made certain structures or animals perfect but for some reason, decided to limit himself when it came to other structures or animals.I'm saying that God's self-imposed limitations apply to the entire created universe and everything in it.I'm sure God could have created a universe where everything gained energy directly from His glory and every creature was invincible and immortal - but He chose not to.Decay is a property of the universe. Why did he do this? The theological answer is that He did this to set up a system where evil could be eradicated in the quickest way possible - in order to set up a universe where everything does receive "energy" directly from Him.

Hi Aaron, You are not getting it. Not all whales even have femurs. Some individuals do, some (of the same species) do not. Now they may conceivably play a role in reproductive muscle, but since femur-lacking whales exist, it is clearly not a vital role.Reproduction is vital, but the femurs appear not to be. And the occasionally present tibia? Optional it seems. That does not alter the fact that individual variation is at least as big a variable, thus undermining the importance of sexual dimorphism. That doesn't mean that sexual variation has no impact, but it does mean that it must be rather minor. In this case, that is exactly what it means. That is why it bears that name. The only reason you deny this is because you are unable to reconcile the facts of whale evolution with your religious dogmas. No-one ever denied that. But the fact remains that whale's pelvis is more similar to its own ancestors than it is to the pelves of unrelated taxa. Flat wrong. In this case, it absolutely is because of that. But some fish did have four-limbed descendants - us included - and those bones are homologous to our pelves in much the same way as we have been discussing with whales. All you have done here is to point out another clear example of the evidence for evolution. Could it be that they are related random mutation operating in an environment that is relatively unconstrained by natural selection? Be sure to ask your biologist that. Also be sure to tell them that you intend to use their input in creationist apologetics. Scientists love that. Why not ask whether they think the evidence provided by whales supports evolution or special creation? Or are you only interested in some of their opinions, disregarding any pro-evolution input out of hand? Perhaps a tiny nub of vestigial pelvis helps a gigantic whale break through ice? You are getting desperate.Okay, perhaps it does. Then what? I have already told you that it does not matter to me if the pelvis of femur has a function or not. That does not argue against vestigiality in the least. There is nothing about vestigiality that demands lack of all function. Could you provide evidence for your claims instead of just scribbling out more theological IUOs?On second thoughts, no need. Maybe it does aid stability. Maybe it doesn't . It matters not. You are just obsessing over an irrelevance.Look at it this way; some sperm whales have been observed to have protruding limbs, actual mini-legs, quite visible outside the body. Not all sperm whales have these, indeed most do not. You could argue that they serve a purpose, but this is obviously not an important factor, since so few sperm whales have them. You could argue that the normal sperm whale pelvis/femur arrangement serves a purpose, but this is rather undermined by the existence of perfectly healthy sperm whales with these more developed limbs. Whatever purpose is there must be fairly minimal. You are getting a lot wrong here, and you even seem to know it. Curious.Evolution is not linear. Both modern toothed whales and modern baleen whales are descended from a common ancestor, an ancient toothed whale. All that this means is that before the evolutionary split between toothed and baleen, the overall whale group had larger pelvis/femur bones. This was retained in the baleen descendants, but not in the toothed descendants. I would predict from your observation that early toothed whale fossils would have bulkier pelves than modern toothed whales. That's an interesting, but quite wrong. From the paper you cited;

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Modern cetaceans have a strongly reduced hind-limb skeleton embedded in the ventral abdominal wall (Fig. 3). It consists, at most, of innominate, femur, and tibia (25), and at least just the innominate (e.g., in Stenella). Interestingly, mice lacking Shh expression are strikingly similar to the cetacean pattern: Both exhibit loss of distal limb structures, but retain parts of the remaining limb skeleton embedded within the body wall (26).

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In other words, mice (an animal that I think we can agree is supposed to have hind legs), when lacking in the appropriate regulatory molecules, will develop rudimentary hind limbs, much like those of the whale. This is smoking gun evidence in favour of tetrapod-to-whale evolution! And you cited it! Bloody hell Aaron! What does it take to get past your powers of self-deception? So you have changed your tune. You claimed that the pelves were perfect, now you acknowledge that they are not. Thank you.Please bear in mind though, I am not interested in perfection. I do not call a single feature of biology "perfect". Evolution does not concern itself with perfection. Theology does, but we do not see evidence of perfection in biology. And they could be used to repel mermaids, but they're not. Please, can we stick to what can be evidenced instead of just making up desperate excuses.Thank again though for acknowledging that the bones are fused. As I have said before, this is important. The bones are very good matches for tetrapod bones. For your creationist arguments to be correct, you need to assume that God did not evolve whales from tetrapods, but he did make them to look exactly as if they had evolved from tetrapods. I don't know how you can bear to worship such a deceptive deity. Yes. The argument is the same. A fused, multi-bone skull is evidence of the skulls haphazard evolution. To design like this from scratch would be perverse and deceptive. Yes I know. I understand what you're saying. But I think that you have failed to appreciate the flaws in your own reasoning.If God produces imperfect beings, that precisely resemble evolved organisms, then you have no way of making predictions for your theory. You have created a theory that could be applied to any situation, and still look equally valid.Imagine for a moment that life evolved entirely independently of God. For any observation that could be made, your theory would match it perfectly, despite being utterly false.Now imagine instead that God created all life from scratch, in the blink of an eye. Again, your theory would be a perfect match for the facts.A theory that can equally agree with any set of facts is a poor theory. That kind of unfalsifiable theory is anathema to science and it is very bad logic in any situation. The kind of theory that you are building seems unconcerned with explaining the evidence. In fact, it seems much more preoccupied with explaining away the evidence, whatever it might be.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

Oh yeah? Have you ever seen a whale with mermaids nearby? [/snark]Excellent post, Granny. Aaron, can you give examples? Or are you thinking of lungfish?

Razd,That was a very thorough post on the subject.Here's a few of my quips with cladistics. So, evolutionists harp on the similarities that prove their point - the ones that fall in line with what they already think is the case.Like vestigial organs, homologies aren't in themselves proof of evolution - because the term "homologous" is defined by evolutionary relationships - it only has meaning if the theory is already true. It's like using an idea contingent on the validity of the theory to prove the theory.I think the most that can be said of homologous structures is that they are an interesting fact of nature. Of course, like other observations, homologies are routinely said to only make sense under an evolution paradigm.As Jerry Coyne elegantly states:
"In such a case (of special creation), organisms would not have common ancestry, but would simply result from an instantaneous creation of forms designed de novo to fit their environments. Under this scenario, we wouldn't expect to see species falling into a nested hierarchy of forms that is recognized by all biologists."What is the claim being made here? That if everything was specially created, there wouldn't be any two organisms that share any physical or genetic similarities? That God wouldn't create organisms that fall into specific categories? That within each category (bird, fish, lizard) there would only be one single animal - and any variation on a theme can only be understood by evolution?I wonder what Jerry expects a created world to look like. Should one animal be carbon based and another be silicon based? (even though carbon has better chemical properties for complex organisms) Should one animal have traditional tube shaped bones and another have triangular shaped bones? Should some animals have traditional base pairs in their DNA and another have completely different bases? If you take this notion to its logical conclusion, no two animals would have anything at all in common if creationism were true - for even the slightest commonality would be used for "proof" of evolution. This is circular reasoning. In essence: the best trees are built using characteristics inherited from a common ancestor. How do we know what the common ancestor is and what it looked like? Refer to the best phylogenic tree...Yale professor Stephen Stearns pointed out the logical dilemma in building trees:
"You need some traits. The traits that are useful are shared with members of a group but derived from the ancestor. You can only define "derived" by comparison to the "primitive" form - the primitive form being found closer to the base of the tree. But you can't do that without a tree. There's kind of a paradox. Without a tree, you have no way of knowing what came first - and you don't know what state is primitive and what is derived."

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"A solution is to make a tree that would be most likely to give you the data that you did observe."This is the principal of Maximum Likelihood - a common practice of inventing trees that fit your evolution preconceptions. I do agree that phylogenic trees can be good at explaining animal diversity. I wouldn't say that God created every beetle species that now exists - or every bat species - or every plant species. Mutations, adaptations, and diversification is a given - I'm not arguing against the concept in general. It hasn't been done on the page you linked to. Dr. Gingerich made a complete tree of archaic and modern whales based on a single trait - one bone in the ankle - a trait that no modern whales have, yet he still uses that non-existent trait to link them in the same clade as the whale "ancestors" that have ankles.Let me give you a little test to see if evolution is as clear cut and predictive as you all imply.Try and place each three in their proper relationship on the tree of life. Which is more closely related to which? (note: both bacteria and archaea lack a nucleus, interior membranes, and organelles) As Dr. Stearns also pointed out: "Traits can conflict with each other and the information they give you - and they often do."

Ringo, Unless the submarine also cruises along the ocean floor - then the wheels would be useful. No whale structure we've been discussing is useless.

In which case evolutionists would be guilty of cherry-picking --- if there was anything at all in nature which didn't "fall in line with what they already think is the case". Like vestigial features, see post #86.If you prefer, feel free to use the phrase: "structures that look exactly in every way as if they were homologous and as if evolutionists were right about everything, as usual". No, that's not the claim that's being made.The claim is that everything fits with the evolutionary paradigm. That is what you have to explain away.And I think you're smart enough to know that your latest bit of rhetoric is disingenuous. No, of course we're not claiming that to disprove evolution every aspect of every animal should have to contradict evolution. But at least some aspect of some animal ought to, surely? Like most creationists, you are trying to muddle the difference between the evidence that evolution has occurred and the evidence (in the light of evolution) as to what exactly has occurred. It's one of your permanent errors. So would you like to explain how you draw the line in any particular case?Is there a reason why you would say: "Yes, using their methods the evolutionists are right to unite this beetle species with that species, and using their methods they are right to unite this beetle genus with this beetle genus with that beetle genus, but, dammit, when they use the exact same methods to unite this beetle family with that beetle family they've gone too damn far"? Biologists do not classify organisms on the basis of low-resolution photographs. As you yourself must realize, because the whole point of your question must depend on you knowing that they don't. Your point must depend on you yourself knowing that biologists do not classify organisms by simple superficial analogy just as they don't classify whales as the sister group of fish. The point of your question must depend on you yourself knowing that if biologists tried to do that, they would be wrong according to biologists.But if you know that, doesn't that kinda vitiate the point you were trying to make?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But no whale walks on its hind legs, no matter how leg-like they are.It is that that you have to explain away.You are free to speculate that the vestigial legs of extinct whales are for the purpose of clasping them together sexually. What you then have to explain is why the omnipotent deity decided that the best structures for doing that had to look exactly like vestigial hind legs.

I specifically said "tiny" wheels, analogous to a whale's tiny legs. To follow the analogy through, the wheels would be entirely inside the submarine. It doesn't matter whether they're useful for a hatrack. No intelligent designer would do such a thing. He'd make a proper hatrack.

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

Hi Aaron, thanks. At first it does seem like circular reasoning, I agree, however, interestingly, I was just reading Dawkins' "The Greatest Show on Earth" on this aspect (which may be his worst book to date - I don't like his antitheist attitude, and it seems like he can't let go of it in this book, AND he keeps telling me when I should be surprised or struck with wonder ). He says that a trait is homologous if it conforms to the mathematical concept of homeomorphism -- that one can be mapped to the other and back with no additions or subtractions.The simplest definition I found was:Homeomorphism Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

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Science Dictionary
homeomorphism
2. A one-to-one correspondence between the points of two geometric figures such that open sets in the first geometric figure correspond to open sets in the second figure and conversely. If one figure can be transformed into another without tearing or folding, there exists a homeomorphism between them. Topological properties are defined on the basis of homeomorphisms.

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Dawkins talks about drawing a skull on a sheet of rubber and then mathematically distorting the sheet to produce the homologous shapes back and forth.If I try this with a wold skull and a thylacine skull it doesn't work: the numbers of bones are different and the number & place of teeth and holes are different. Curiously, science does not seek to prove theory/ies, but to test them. That means they look for evidence that would be true if the theory were false and evidence that would not be true if the theory were true. Falsification evidence can "prove" the theory is false, but no evidence can "prove" the theory is true, just that all the evidence known so far complies with the theory.Thus evolution (the process): is the change in frequency of hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation in response to ecological opportunities. It is opportunistic, and it results in adaptation of existing features for fitness to new or changed opportunities. This means the rubber sheet stretching of bones etc in the development of homologies as evolution occurs.The homologies are evidence that the process of evolution has occurred. They are predicted by the process of evolution in the adaptation of features to changes in opportunities.Thus the theory of evolution: is that the process of evolution is sufficient to explain the diversity of life as we know it, from all lines of evidence. That it would not fall into nested hierarchies and other aspects that are predicted and fully explained by evolution but for which there is no predictive need in creation.Why does a sugar-glider (marsupial) look so stunningly like a flying squirrel (eutherian)? Homologies clearly pin the flying squirrel as a eutherian (placental mammal) and the sugar glider as a marsupial, in addition to the other evidence of geological location and the separation of the fossils of eutherians and marsupials.Evolution predicts that similar opportunities can result in convergent evolution of similar body shapes and functions from different lineages. The outside functionality is what is selected in evolution, not the internal structures, they are there due to heredity and because evolution starts with existing structures and modifies them rather than suddenly inventing all new ones. Otherwise known as the principle of parsimony in selecting likely trees from all the possible ones.Seeing as all evidence to date does not show similar mutations in different lineages, it is reasonable to assume this holds for ancestral trees as well.Increasingly we see that not only do these trees fit the fossil evidence, but they fit the genetic evidence as well, another aspect that is predicted by descent from common ancestor populations but that does not follow predictively from creation. I have another thread you may be interested in - and I would appreciate an intelligent creationist participant: see Dogs will be Dogs will be ???. Maybe we can expand on this in that thread. Interestingly, guessing from one set of cherry picked evidence is not how biology investigates relationships.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

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So the concept of Intelligent Design won't work unless the design is flawed.

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No, the arguement is, what we see as a flaw, actually isn't. It's a requirement for life to continue. If every animal uses energy to survive, but each was perfectly able to defend against all attacks, no energy could be consumed, and every animal dies. It is the interdependence of organisms on each other that makes the animal kingdom on earth successful. Exploiting an organisms' weaknesses is crutial to another's survival.

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The next question is: Does it take an "intelligent" designer to balance all of those flaws or just an incompetent boob?

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You tell me. No system, even designed ones are perfect correct? Could you design a system that could be left untouched for 6000 years and remain functional? If every employee working in roads/contruction/municipal traffic engineers/etc. stopped changing the traffic system, how long would it remain functional? A year? Less?

That's what I said. In order for the system to work, each individual part of that system has to have a flaw, a weakness, an imperfection that forces it to pass on its energy to another part of the sytem.The question is: How do you tell a system that was designed to be flawed in "perfect balance" from one that evolved haphazardly? The fact of extinctions seems to answer that question. If it was designed by a perfect being, it ought to be perfect. Again, the designer you're describing seems to be no improvement on the messy results that we'd expect from evolution. If he exists, so what?

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You can have brevity and clarify, or you can have accuracy and detail, but you can't easily have both. --Percy

Hi, Dennis.Good to say you(r words) again.I'm an ecologist, and I so rarely get the opportunity to use my particular specialty of the biological sciences in the EvC debate. But, this post of yours is just screaming for ecological insight, so here I go: Leaving aside the obvious response that this predator-prey system is only a requirement because God made it a requirement, it's still a bad argument.Look at the trophic pyramid below: This pyramid relates the biomass of each trophic level (producer, herbivore, predator. etc.) to one another. In terrestrial systems, we always see that the biomass of a consumer is extremely small relative to biomass of the organism it consumes.Why is this? Well, it's because organisms are not particularly efficient machines. For most animals, the wastage is much higher than the resources that are actually used. While much of this wastage is just due to the nature of converting energy from one form into another (which is essentially unavoidable); much of it is also due to various weaknesses and shortcomings in the behavior and biomechanics of the organisms (which is avoidable).If every organism were equipped with parts better suited to its functions, then the entire system would be more efficient, and could still run on the same principles of carnivores eating herbivores eating plants, and everything being recycled by detritivores. Sea turtles waste a lot of energy laying their eggs because their flippers are not suited to any of the components of the task placed before them. A more efficient system could save the turtles energy, which they could then invest in producing more eggs, which could then hatch into more baby turtles, which could then feed more predators and scavengers that eat baby turtles.The point isn't that we expect Designed predators to be flawless killing machines, or that we expect Designed prey animals to be impervious to predators. The point is that there is a lot of energy wasted on inefficient parts and processes, much of which might very well have been conserved and put to better use within the system if the Designer had been more willing to look a little beyond the handful of common templates that all organisms were designed from.To me, yeah, "bad design" arguments are somewhat useless, because anything that falls short of perfection could be argued to be a "bad design." But, your counterargument---basically, 'the fact that the system works proves that it's not a bad design'---is pretty pathetic when it's clear to us that the same system could be maintained with less wastage than the current system experiences.So, because life could have realistically been more efficient than it is without compromising the overall conceptual integrity of the system or relaxing the constraints placed on it by the laws of physics, I don't see how you could make the case that this system is not poorly designed.Edited by Bluejay, : Altered "biomass of X is extremely small relative to biomass of Y" statement for better generality.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

See posts #7, #48.

Bluejay, I'm about to get on a little tangent - but I see a difference between the ToE explaining differences and expecting differences.The ToE is a framework for explaining the differences - but I don't know that you could say that it expects or predicts change.If you could travel back to the beginning, an atheistic ToE would expect an eternal equilibrium of nothingness - not the evolution from big bang to elements to earth.You wouldn't predict that molecules would independently form the first replicating cell.From a purely theoretical standpoint, a theistic view based on a Designer would predict a vast array of biological diversity - an atheistic view of strictly natural forces couldn't reliably predict that any diversity would develop. I wasn't implying that. I just gave the tuna speed as an example of the benefits of maintaining higher body heat on motor/chemical abilities. Good question. These "land mammal" traits certainly haven't hindered them though. Couldn't you say that their presence as the largest predator in the ocean and widest global distribution of any other mammal is proof enough that they're doing something right? You have to have the right mix of features in order to maximally exploit the ocean's resources and grow to be the largest marine creatures. Of course, leave it to man's overhunting to bring them to their knees (figuratively speaking of course). But, manta rays don't have the distribution range of whales. You could make the same claim about a number of other links in the food chain. Why are there 10 species of African carnivores when only one species could do the job? Why are there so many types of insects that help pollinate flowers? But, you expect variation from a design/artist paradigm.I think its pretty clear though in nature that when one species begins to overpopulate a habitat - the effects are never good. In fact, there are epigenetic mechanisms that limit reproductive rates in species when a species' population become too dense. The echosystem is strengthened by deep diversity. But, ID isn't based primarily on "good design" or "optimality." It doesn't say "this is the best possible design - so it must have been designed." ID says that we can recognize design - and design implies a designer. Even if somebody makes the claim that an organism or a structure is "bad design" - there is still the underlying understanding that the thing in question has a design. You wouldn't call a rock a "bad design" because you know it was formed by random processes and there is no "goal" or "purpose" to the rock. A "bad design" label can only be thrown at complex, purposeful systems. All biological organisms exhibit complex systems of small parts that work together in a specified and complex way towards an overall purpose. That is the common criticism - but it's not accurate. ID specifically forms opinions based on what we DO know - not what we DON'T know about science. We do know how to recognize design when it comes to man made objects vs. naturally created objects. We do know that intelligence is the only empirically verified cause behind specific/complex designs. We have experiments that give us an idea of the abilities and limitations of natural selection. We know what ingredients are necessary for the first replicating cell - and we know from experimentation that you can't get all the necessary ingredients to form in the same testing environment. (some experiments can generate amino acids - some generate long chain fatty acids - but an environment that might be good to form one necessary substance can also prohibit the formation of another necessary substance.)Darwinism has as many unknown details as you might accuse creationism of - but you are right - scientists haven't waited to figure out all the answers before accepting evolution. Yes, this makes biological optimality a hypothetical issue - partly because there is so much biological diversity. It makes it possible to compare two different organisms and see how they do things. You might even suggest that creature A would be more "optimal" if it had features from creature B - but that may just be a subjective assertion - and it certainly isn't testable.On the other hand, optimality is a much clearer issue when it comes to the cosmos. Astronomy isn't my strongest subject - but I know there are a number of anthropic principles that earth is privy to. Unlike the diversity in the animal kingdom, there is only one known planet that possess life - which has helped astronomers calculate the necessary conditions for planetary life - from proximity to the sun, to the presence of water, to specific planetary elements, to our proportionally large moon, and even the presence of large perimeter planets like Jupiter which protects the earth from space debris. You may be able to change the size of a whale's pelvis by a few cm without affecting function, but if you change the axis of the earth's rotation by the same degree, you wind up with a planet unsuitable for life. It's hard to argue against the earth being optimal for biological life.The earth/moon/sun system is a complex system with all the specifics finely tuned for life - which is strong evidence for a designer.

Hi Aaron,I don't want to but in - you have enough on your plate already - but I just couldn't ignore this. WTF? We are only calling these features "bad design" because it is your argument that they are designed. We are addressing your argument, as I have said before.You claim that living things are designed. Okay. We, as debating opponents, are taking your premise of design and running with it, seeing where it leads us. We are asking questions that are intended to shine a light on the flaws in your argument, questions such as "If biology is designed, what kind of design is it? Good or bad?", "What does life tell us about this alleged designer?" and "Is what we see in biology consistent with design by the Christian god?".For you to point to our accusations of bad design and say "See! You think it's bad design! You accept design!" is outrageously dishonest. If you were arguing that rocks were designed for a purpose, that is exactly what I would be doing.Remember, none of your interlocutors on this thread believe in design. Only you are promoting that idea. Everyone else is just arguing your premise. You can't then throw that back at us and claim that we are implicitly assuming design. We are not. We are explicitly assuming design to be true, but only for the sake of argument.Mutate and Survive

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On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage