Intelligent Design & the tapeworm?

WinAce said:
My article points out that those particular creatures are more in line with an intelligent designer testing biological weaponry, creating stuff to defeat the intelligently-designed defenses someone else made, or just overall being an *******, than the benevolent gods of most religions. When you think about it, given how red in tooth and claw nature is, all of these seem more probable than a monotheistic view and an additional, tacked-on, attempted explanation for why God--entirely counterintuitively--made such horrors as the eye worm. As I write on the webpage, if we're going to go by analogies to human-designed things, God's surprisingly creative at designing implements of torture, and I'm not sure if ID-ists would want the baby-killing liberals to teach that in schools.
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Creationists already know about poisonous spiders, snakes, crocodiles, etc.

"He who made kittens put snakes in the grass" --Jethro Tull

While I think that this takes it to a different level I don't think that it would be that significant to those who are pro ID. JMO.

Ultimately, yes, I believe such creatures prove beyond a reasonable doubt there's no god as the major religions describe one. One could still exist that was uncaring toward humanity, limited in power and forced to use a process--such as evolution--that auto-creates such Frankensteinian beasties despite a desire not to, or simply a sociopath who did it on purpose to harrass us.
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Again, Christians believe as a matter of course that God ordered the execution of children in the OT, he created predators who eat children. He created bacteria that kill children. How many infants have died of colds? Your article makes the point in a disturbing way but it is a point that has already been dealt with. This is just a commentary about Christians and not a critique of your page which I think is great and does make a valid point.

This argument of mine is the bastard love child of Epicurus' ancient Argument from Evil, and William Paley's Watchmaker argument.
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Understood, your AE argument simply takes the argument to extremes to make its point, correct? Argument from Evil is not a great argument. Though I think it quite appropriate. My point is not to rebut your argument just to point out that I don't think it all that problematic for believers, but then what IS?

The Evidential Argument from Evil

Undaunted by the difficulties posed by AE, theists have devised literally dozens of theodicies that attempt to explain why God chose to create a world with evils in it. For example, it has been suggested that suffering is a warning for humans to reform their sinful ways; suffering helps humans to accept God; suffering is essential for humans to learn the difference between good and evil; suffering is necessary for humans to exercise compassion.
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But I just loved collecting all that cool parasite-related information, as well as getting all those horribly gross and disturbing pics, so I'm glad you all enjoyed it, too.
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Nature is cool no mater how gross. :)
 
Every single theodicy I've seen can be shot down in seconds with a skeptical eye, leaving the theist arguing it either baffled or retreating to a faith-based position. They can convince believers, but for everyone else, it should be pretty obvious they're the equivalent of epicycles--contrived explanations meant to rationalize away, rather than really explain, seemingly contradictory facts.

In my opinion, the Evidentiary Argument from Evil, if not a logically sound and ironclad disproof of God, is about as good as it gets. It just makes it painfully obvious how more likely other options, like a weak God, multiple conflicting gods, or no god, are, as they require no contrived or implausible explanations for the universe's brutality at all, and in fact, naturally predict it.

But yeah, my spoof takes potshots at the fundamentalist Christians' view, too, saying it's right up the Old Testament God's alley to create this stuff. Sadly, it's true, but that matches the overall point of my article, as that one, from its descriptions in the Bible, was neither benevolent (actually a scary, jealous, tribal warlord-like entity) nor all-powerful (who changed his mind several times based on human input, needed to actually watch what Job would do instead of omnisciently forseeing the result of that bet, had his plans foiled by a talking snake, couldn't get them back on track for any length of time with a genocidal flood, either, and so on).
 
RandFan wrote:

quote:Originally posted by allanb
"for all we know, the human brain might be somewhere between 0 and 1."

Possibly, it has always been my understanding that the brain is the most complex system in the known universe.

You illustrate my point exactly. Millions of people assume the same thing, but what reason do they have?

And even if your statement can be justified, it implies that we need only consider the known universe. You surely do not believe that we know everything there is to be known. (I don't mean you and me; I mean the entire human race.)
 
allanb said:
You illustrate my point exactly. Millions of people assume the same thing, but what reason do they have?

And even if your statement can be justified, it implies that we need only consider the known universe. You surely do not believe that we know everything there is to be known. (I don't mean you and me; I mean the entire human race.)
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I don't at all illustrate your point.

You are making an argument from ignorance.

"There are more thing in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" --Hamlet

Certainly there could be things far more complex than the human brain. There could be extremely complex invisible pink unicorns. That there could be doesn't mean that there is. However it does little good to speculate about things that have no justification. On the other hand we know quite a bit about the known universe and its complexity. Further we have no reason to believe that there is anything in the unknown universe that is likely to be far more different or far more complex than anything in the known.
 
RandFan said:
I don't at all illustrate your point.

You are making an argument from ignorance.

"There are more thing in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy" --Hamlet

Certainly there could be things far more complex than the human brain. There could be extremely complex invisible pink unicorns. That there could be doesn't mean that there is. However it does little good to speculate about things that have no justification. On the other hand we know quite a bit about the known universe and its complexity. Further we have no reason to believe that there is anything in the unknown universe that is likely to be far more different or far more complex than anything in the known.
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I think that quatum computers could at least be more powerful than the human mind if not more complex.
 
RandFan, what I'm saying is that we should be careful not to assume something when in fact we do not know whether it is true. You may call that "making an argument from ignorance", but it's a respectable argument whatever you call it.

We do not know that things that appear complex to us are really complex by any universal standard. We may therefore be too easily impressed. And I think that is part of the fallacy of the ID principle.
 
I.D. arguments I have seen revolve around the argument: "Look at the _____, is it not beautiful? Look at its specialized organ it has, I can't imagine it could come about any other way than the apparent design I am pushing."

But here's the thing, since I.D. is supposed to refute evolutionary theory. In Origin of the Speces, Darwin will take an animal with a specialized organ and use it as an example, and not only does he explain how it works or how complicated it is, he says how it got to be that way. So basically, if you can't imagine how it could come into being any other way than yours, you didn't do your homework, you haven't understood the concept of how natural selection and adaptation produce specialized organs, so you can't see them no matter how many times they are applied.

However, there are probably stronger arguments for I.D. out there, I just haven't encountered them yet.
 
c4ts said:
IHowever, there are probably stronger arguments for I.D. out there, I just haven't encountered them yet.
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There are no strong arguments for ID. All that they do is try to tear down evolution and say "There - that means goddidit." ID is not a theory - it is an attempted refutation of the theory of evolution.
 
DuckTapeFileMan said:
I think that quatum computers could at least be more powerful than the human mind if not more complex.
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When a quantum computer is made it will have falsified the notion of the human brain being the most complex system in the known universe and it won't be an argument from ignorance.
 
allanb said:
RandFan, what I'm saying is that we should be careful not to assume something when in fact we do not know whether it is true. You may call that "making an argument from ignorance", but it's a respectable argument whatever you call it.

We do not know that things that appear complex to us are really complex by any universal standard. We may therefore be too easily impressed. And I think that is part of the fallacy of the ID principle.
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I think you misunderstand the scientific method.

We can only observe and classify what we know. It would be unscientific to state categorically that it is not possible that there is no system in the universe that is more complex than the human brain. I make no such assumption or declarations.

However we can say that based on considerable observation of the universe we believe that the human brain is the most complex system in the known universe. Now, it would be spurious to make conclusions in regards to ID, dualism, god or anything metaphysical based on that fact. We can stop right there. We don't need to speculate that there could be more complex systems. There might be. There might not be. As far as being "impressed". That is only an emotion and not part of the scientific method. If people are impressed by the human brain and draw faulty conclusions then that is a result of ignorance and has nothing to do with a statement of fact that the brain is at this time the most complex system in the known universe.
 
Dr Adequate said:

I think you should try to learn more about the theory of evolution before you try to find counterexamples. At the moment, you're criticising what you think is the theory of evolution and its implications. But you're wrong.
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To Vagabond,
For what it's worth, I think you should keep trying to find counterexamples, and if you want to know more about the theory of evolution, this seems like a good place to do it.

Do try to find the pearls in the Dr.'s answer. They are there. However, while they were not cast before swine, they might have been obscured by other foreign substances that might have prevented them from being seen.

A better place to do it might be the works of Richard Dawkins, but the lack of interactivity does seem a drawback.
 
RandFan wrote: As far as being "impressed". That is only an emotion and not part of the scientific method. If people are impressed by the human brain and draw faulty conclusions then that is a result of ignorance ...

I agree. In fact that's a fair statement of what I suspect about believers in ID: they look at something that strikes them as being amazingly complex (or beautiful, etc) and respond emotionally (gosh, that's wonderful, there must be an Intelligent Designer up there ...) rather than rationally (why does that strike me as wonderful? Is it complex by some absolute standard, or is its perceived complexity a function of my limited capacity to understand?)
 
allanb said:
RandFan wrote: As far as being "impressed". That is only an emotion and not part of the scientific method. If people are impressed by the human brain and draw faulty conclusions then that is a result of ignorance ...

I agree. In fact that's a fair statement of what I suspect about believers in ID: they look at something that strikes them as being amazingly complex (or beautiful, etc) and respond emotionally (gosh, that's wonderful, there must be an Intelligent Designer up there ...) rather than rationally (why does that strike me as wonderful? Is it complex by some absolute standard, or is its perceived complexity a function of my limited capacity to understand?)
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If there were an organisum 100times as complex as the human brain in the Universe then it may still be possible that it could evolve. It's not the complexity that is the argument against evolution it's just getting across to IDers that small changes can produce such complexity.
 
juryjone said:
ID is not a theory - it is an attempted refutation of the theory of evolution.
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From DTFMan's link:

Kansas School Board chairman Steve Abrams said the hearings are less about religion than they are about seeking the best possible education for the state's children.

"If students ... do not understand the weaknesses of evolutionary theory as well as the strengths, a grave injustice is being done to them," Abrams said.
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Once again, no proof is offered of ID - just pounding away at the imagined "weaknesses" of evolutionary theory.
 
juryjone said:
There are no strong arguments for ID.
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In principle, there could be, but yes, its advocates just attack evolution instead of doing research on what intelligently-designed biology might actually uniquely predict. To name but one example, Michael Behe speculated, in his book, that God may have created one primordial super-organism with all the genetics for later developments already in place, and allowed it to split up into all other species by regular evolution. That sounds laughably improbable, but it'd be the ID-ists laughing (and a scientific uproar of the millenium) if they went and found recognizable genes for, say, wings in plants. Or distinct messages encoded in our genome. Or any of a number of things that would actually make their views valid science, as opposed to faith-based reactionary quackery.
 
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