Show me the intelligence ...

Ah, I see. Well that's me stumped. See you Sunday!Gosh, let's see... maybe there were dung beetles (or insects doing that sort of 'job') in the Jurassic? Insects had been around since the Carboniferous at least.Maybe bacteria just broke it down like they still do?Maybe there was no more poo then than now: a given area of land can only produce a certain amount of plant matter, and it doesn't matter whether that's eaten by 500 one-ton cows or 5 100-ton Argentinasauruses. Roughly the same amount of crap will come out at the (other) end. So what's so special about dinos?I guess you're saying that the seabed should be miles deep in fish-crap. Ho hum. I thought you meant you were tired. "... and emotional", probably. Ah well, there goes my argument then. Cos there’s bits of the bible that suggest that the god in question is neither omnipotent (eg Judges 1:19, Mark 6:5) nor omniscient (Genesis 3:8, 18:20-21, Hosea 8:4, etc). So he could indeed be the creator who’s apparently responsible for all the clumsy, foolish and downright stupid designs we find in nature. Fair enough!DT

The turd buds was a joke by the way. Not a creationist argument. But then I do know how they're hard to tell apart. Tee hee hee.....the nasty evo part of me is coming out. What, like an Irish elks antlers? Now I thought they would surely prove silly - for what would 12 foot antlers serve them evolutionarily. However, creationarily I could understand it. Have you any clumsy foolish or stupid examples? I'd like to now why you would think this way. You'll have to speak layman's terms though. Because I am a simple program. I think we'll leave that out of this topic, we'd only get shut down if I responded.[This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 01-15-2004]

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What, like an Irish elks antlers? Now I thought they would surely prove silly - for what would 12 foot antlers serve them evolutionarily. However, creationarily I could understand it.

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Sexual display.Just like bright plumage on male birds or risk-taking behavior in male humans.

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Have you any clumsy foolish or stupid examples? I'd like to now why you would think this way. You'll have to speak layman's terms though. Because I am a simple program.

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The human air and food tubes cross and share a common opening in the throat, making it very easy to choke and quickly die from lack of oxygen.Our spinal columns and knee joints are very poorly designed for upright locomotion.We have a sharp ridge on the inside of our skulls.No, mike. Nature is full of "good enough" design, and it's also full of design that is clearly modifications of existing structures or systems to serve new purposes, or multiple purposes.We can directly observe evolution producing these changes.You are too smart to not see this. You are too smart to lie to yourself about reality.

That's what Mrs Columbo says when I suck on a big cigar. And an even sharper tail when we fall on it. Ouch! Take some oil for it, meanwhile I'll investigate. You're probably right, hell you know more than me about it - I'm not even going to argue. Problem is I'm a layman, you'd have to show me an experiment, and even then I'd ask questions....I have to fully inquire, a good detective needs evidence. Thanks for the vote though Schraff. Don't count me out......I'm not exactly super biased at the moment, at the moment I would say the TOE is good science.Err, just one more question mam.....Would you rather have no skull?[This message has been edited by Columbo, 01-16-2004]

Am I to take it, judging by the sharp change in direction,
that there is nothing that anyone can think of about
any object that they may come across from which the input
of an intelligence could be inferred/deduced or otherwise
determined?

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Would you rather have no skull?

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No, I'd rather have a skull with no sharp ridge on the inside.

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Am I to take it, judging by the sharp change in direction,
that there is nothing that anyone can think of about
any object that they may come across from which the input
of an intelligence could be inferred/deduced or otherwise
determined?

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The pocket watch fits in fine here, which has probably been mentioned. It is complex but doesn't reproduce. How about this question, if a machine were able to reproduce (von Neumann machine), would we assume intelligence had a role or assume abiogenesis followed by evolution, and why?

Read Genesis 1:9,12,18,21,25 then tell me if you found perfect in any of them. I belive God DIDN'T want our life on earth to be perfect, that way we would need him. Stop using 'flaws' in God's creations as an argument against him when he himself said, it was good.

I think you are badly off toic. If you want to discuss this move it to the bible inerrancy thread perhaps.

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What goes? The Nose Knows!

Um... he said it was good. Okay. By what criterion of design does ‘good’ encompass wasteful, pointless, excessively convoluted, less effective than other designs he knew of, dangerous to its owner, and plain bloody stupid?Please explain what is ‘good’ about the position of the marsupial birthing canal. What’s ‘good’ about a beetle having wings when it lives entirely on the ground -- wings that cannot work because they are sealed in under the wing covers, and which would not work anyway because they are too rudimentary? What’s ‘good’ about having external testicles?This is obviously some strange definition of the word 'good' I wasn’t previously aware of. Please tell us what dictionary god -- and yourself -- were using.TTFN, DT

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What’s ‘good’ about having external testicles?

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I thought external testicles helped keep the sperm cooler.

I think his point is that it's poor design to require sperm production to have to occur at a lower body temperature, necessitating the external testicles.If I were God, and the guy I had design Woman showed up and was like "well, they're going to have to do this 'mensturation' thing," I'd send him back to the drawing board. But that's just me.

There's a variety of related points here.Firstly, the obvious one: why can’t sperm be made at body temperature? After all, females make eggs inside their bodies just fine, so it’s not like there’s some intrinsic biochemical process that’s temperature-dependent in gametogenesis. Even if an external set-up were in some way unavoidable, they could still be protected -- a shield of cartilage, perhaps? But it seems very improbable that they do have to be external from a design point of view: not only mammalian females, but males of most animal groups -- and even some mammals, eg whales -- have their gamete-making structures internal.Remember, the point is not, why isn’t sperm made at body temperature, but why couldn’t it be? Is god in some way limited in matters of sperm production?And the reason why a vastly intelligent creator should have had a crack at doing internal testes is that it leads to a bunch of other poor design features.

• It uses extra materials: more tubing, a scrotal sac with attendant muscles, blood supply, hairs etc.
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• It leaves the testes far more open to damage, dangling around rather than safely inside.
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• And most strangely, there is how they get outside the body cavity. They are formed inside the body. Why should that be? If they are required outside -- ie if there’s some design imperative for the above oddities, which I doubt -- why the hell don’t they form outside... or at least, outside the abdominal muscle wall? Because, forming inside, they then have to get outside. They move out through a gap in the muscle wall, the inguinal ring. This ring leaves a weakness, through which the bowel is liable to herniate. This can both strangle the bowel and cut off the blood supply to the testicles. This is not a Good Thing .

Inguinal hernias apparently affect 500,000 people per year in the US alone. I can’t track down a percentage for how many people will suffer it at some point, but as a rough guess, across 30 years there’d be 15 million people, which I estimate is about 7%... and since it’s men, that’s 14% of the population. Call it one in ten, to be on the safe side. (I’ve also noticed some sites saying that inguinal hernais are more common in men than women -- anyone know why women can suffer from it at all?!)Now, there are good evolutionary explanations of why sperm might need to be made outside the body. But I do struggle to see how this can be even merely ‘good’ design from an allegedly vastly intelligent creator. Can any creationists explain it please?Cheers, DT

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What’s ‘good’ about having external testicles?

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DNAunion: I thought external testicles helped keep the sperm cooler.

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blah blah blah...

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Ok, so my answer was correct: the problem is that the wrong question was asked.

I cannot explain for God, but I can offer one simple explaination.
Mabey the ancestor of the beatle used the wings, then after the Flood, when the environments changed, they were useless, so they became unactive. I am just guessing. Remember, God said, "was Good", not was PERFECT.