Well, that's not the author's argument, really, but this New York Times Magizine article does one of the best jobs I've seen of succinctly explaining why Intelligent Design fails as a scientific explanation and offers nothing substantive to a theist either.From a scientific perspective, one of the most frustrating things about intelligent design is that (unlike Darwinism) it is virtually impossible to test. Old-fashioned biblical creationism at least risked making some hard factual claims -- that the earth was created before the sun, for example. Intelligent design, by contrast, leaves the purposes of the designer wholly mysterious.Stephen J. Gould did a pretty good job of explaining how many "mistakes" and other design oddities fit well into evolutionary theory, provide evidence for it rather than undermining it (see The Panda's Thumb, for instance). A bit of humor is found in the current article from the notion that an intelligent agent would sow similar chaos...
. . .
But if we can't infer anything about the design from the designer, maybe we can go the other way. What can we tell about the designer from the design? While there is much that is marvelous in nature, there is also much that is flawed, sloppy and downright bizarre. Some nonfunctional oddities, like the peacock's tail or the human male's nipples, might be attributed to a sense of whimsy on the part of the designer. Others just seem grossly inefficient. ... If this is evidence of design, it would seem to be of the unintelligent variety.
(apologies to my referer; flu grogginess caught up with me just in time to erase all traces of who you were...)
3 comments:
Being a huge fan of peacocks I must come to their defense.. on useless things, ie; a peacocks tail, besides it's absolute beauty,it's one of the best cat toys in the world and the fodder that started my audio childrens story...having had peacocks,(see my blog pics for my favorite)I had wondered what purpose such an array of plumes did serve, for when they would be surging in the wind they looked like the Mardi Gras Indians trying to hold onto their headdress in a hurricane, however I found their use to actually be defense..for when they open up their huge tail and rush you with their rear stiff feathers rustling, I've observed it'll scare the hell out of coyotes and damn near anything that tries to attack!...but I used to be most ammused when he would return the mating calls of wild turkey's...I often thought that if a female turkey brought a peacock to meet her family it would be like bring home a "pimped out turkey"....but I digress...
The clearest evidence that the Intelligent Design Theory is flawed:
Flu-induced blogging.
:-)
Sid
busters --
no, the peacock's tail is the result of what is called "sexual selection" -- that is, it has evolved purely because it impresses the peahens. the same is true to a lesser degree of the wild turkey, and to a much greater degree of the lyrebird -- the latter's tail is so completely maladaptive in all other ways (makes it difficult for them to fly, hugely increases the chances of getting caught by a predator, etc.) that it has to be under constant positive selection pressure (i.e., an impressive tail hugely increases the chances of mating and thus having lots of heavy-tailed sons) to a unbelievable degree in order to be maintained.
a peacock in full display may be intimidating, but as far as I know they only spread their tails to "strut their stuff" and not to try to chase anybody (other than competing suitors) away...
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