Sunday, March 01, 2009

 

Heretics


A thought:

I am trying to talk to people of faith and to try and persuade them that the theory of evolution is not anti-religious. In fact, it is more consistent with faith than these theories that have evolved under the name of creationism or intelligent design. These have implications with respect to the creator that are completely unacceptable. ...

With respect to intelligent design, if we have been designed by God, God has a lot to account for. There are many aspects of human beings that are very poorly designed, starting with our jaws. The human jaw is not big enough for our teeth, so we have to have wisdom teeth removed, and other teeth grow crooked, because there is not enough room for them. An engineer who designed the human jaw would be fired the next day for incompetence. Are we going to blame God?

... People of good faith, like the majority of the audience I had at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, are at first puzzled, and one hopes that as they hear more and more about it, they feel enlightened, and that they come to understand it is not evolution that is anti-religious. But it is intelligent design that is anti-religious.

- Francisco Ayala, "Former priest is a Darwin disciple," Houston Chronicle, February 28, 2009

Comments:
Ah, but God's greater purpose may be inscrutable. Perhaps the genetic information for poor teeth was frontloaded because God knew He would need to provide employment for dentists. (This ID stuff's quite easy, isn't it?)
 
The most "problematic" things that I think of that the Intelligent Designers have to answer for are along these lines:

1. That humans are so closely designed to chimps and other apes, that one might think that the designers wanted us to act like them. What are the kids to think, when we tell them that they are supposed to be just another ordinary ape - Rather than the similarities being only a matter of chance, or because of natural (and therefore without any suggestion of values) laws?

2. That just about every thing which shows signs of being intelligently designed, is so designed to act contrary to another thing which is intelligently designed: Bacterial flagella vs. adaptive immune system. Eyes of predator vs. eyes of prey.

3. That the world of life is designed to give the appearance of being related by common descent with modification; and as if genetic variation is random (that is, non-directed); rather than with the correct appearance of being designed. Why are the designers misleading us?

Tom S.
 
Good ones!
 
Of course, you do realize that "faggot" has a different meaning in the United Kingdom?

Of course! But that's what I meant ... they'll be making cynic meatballs come the Kingdom.
 
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