A thread for ID proponents to explain their alternative theory for biological phenomena.
Allan Miller has written an article on sex, proposing an evolutionary explanation for why almost all Eukaryota indulge in sex. In response to comments from evolution skeptics questioning his explanation, he challenges them:
OK, you ID types, what’s the Design explanation for sex? You need to explain why all eukaryotes have genes that are involved in meiosis, though some never actually perform meiosis, and in some, the genes are ‘broken’. And you need to explain the taxonomic distribution of asexuality – absent in mammals and birds, but increasingly found as one descends your imagined scala naturae – though intermittent sex remains the norm, even in single celled organisms.
Why? What purpose does it serve that is common to single celled protists and our favourite organism, the chimp? Why wasn’t everything designed to just reproduce asexually?
In response, commenter phoodoo writes:
Why are there legs? Wouldn’t it be better if we just moved like water? Why ten fingers instead of thirty? Why skin? Evolution doesn’t answer these questions any better or worse than ID.
Now, for evolution to have a better or worse explanation than ID, there must be an explanation for sex according to the theory of “Intelligent Design”.
I don’t know of any Intelligent Design theory that attempts to explain biological observations such as sexual reproduction. So I invite those who do know of such a theory to correct my ignorance.
How does the theory of Intelligent Design explain sex?
PS: please feel free to use this thread as a peanut gallery WRT Allan’s article.
Without misrepresentation, IDists would be a bit short on ammo.
The question I asked IDists was loaded, not my original post. But it’s fun watching you do anything other than consider the issues involved.
303 posts and still no ID explanation for why sex exists.
All we get is still the same old “hurr-durr evolution random” *drool*.
“Why wasn’t everything designed to just reproduce asexually?
I have a distinct feeling the omnipotent natural selection bmust’ve known that asexual reproduction, at the speed that bacteria multiply, is not a good idea and that’s why it invented yet unknown mechanism leading to evolution of sex…
Let’s face it:
Can anyone, in the right frame of mind, imagine ignorant Darwinists reproducing asexually at the same rate as bacteria?
The Designer of life couldn’t have known that…😉
Therefore, an equilibrium between reasonableness and stupidity…
BTW: DI is doomed…I think they are packing their bags…🤣
Do you tap dance like this for your wife?
Is she unamused like I am?
Nobody actually cares about your opinions. Have you not noticed that yet?
Faith in Purpose.
Fortunately there is a never ending supply of misrepresentation!
There’s plenty enough to go around for everyone. 🙂
Can you give an evolutionary explanation for the existence of earwax? I think its a bit unfair to ask you to explain sex, this should be much simpler for you.
Rumraket,
I mean, I just think its a bit too optimistic to expect you to tell us which came first, the erection, or sex. Evolutionists seem to kind of hate those which came first questions. Just way too many of them, when we are dealing with life without a plan.
Oh, dear…
Yeah, we hate them so much we churn out whole Torleys’ worth of material addressing them. Hint: you don’t start with multicellular structures at all. So the answer’s ‘sex’. Gosh, that was easy.
What’s the plan then, sex-wise?
Evolutionists, theist and atheist ones alike, can as well. That is not the issue. The issue is that only ID proponents claim to be doing science when they “explain” why there is purpose in their life. This is what the whole OP is about: articulating that purpose and making it operational in order to be able to explain biological features.
If you cannot do that, that’s perfectly fine, but you are NOT doing science.
Corneel,
What’s the scientific purpose to life?
Yes, with the express purpose of preventing them from evolving. That is what you claimed:
(bolding mine)
I listen to you, Nonlin. I attentively read what you are writing down. Perhaps you should do so as well: you’d notice that you are constantly contradicting yourself.
Science doesn’t tell us those things. You are free to choose your purpose yourself.
Because sexual reproduction wasn’t strongly deleterious when it arose, because it tends to increase the evolvability of populations and facilitates purging of harmful variants, and because many lineages can no longer revert back to asexual mode, once costs start to build up.
For which Allan gave a plausible scenario, after reading the contributions of dozens of “Darwin’s faithful” engaging with the issue they “pretended did not exist”. You really only see what you want to see, isn’t it?
Time for J-Mac to stop dodging the question. Your turn:
Why wasn’t everything designed
evolvedto just reproduce asexually?One thing one can say with some certainty is that, without sex, our lives would be very different. As obligate, nominally monogamous outcrossers, our entire societies are structured around it, and it informs the bulk of our arts. Imagine the world of popular music or dance without it.
Pining after other members of the species is a shared experience, as is (if we’re lucky) succeeding – reasons to strive. I’m a huge fan of the opposite sex. In the round, it is something I value. So, there’s that. However, we have a whole world to deal with. While one can see sex as enriching the human experience (assuming there’s an entity that gives a shit about that), we still have the basic eukaryote-wide haploid-diploid cycle to deal with. Trees don’t write each other sonnets; yeast don’t (one assumes) experience pleasure at the sight of the opposite mating type.
Don’t be naive, phoodoo!
Purpose means foresight, and foresight means planning… intelligent, in some cases…
Darwinists have to pretend they are better off being mindless robots, like their “creators”: bolt of lightning, thermal vents and random, mindless processes..
After all, why would mindless processes purpose to produce minds?
While others just post comments like one.
I suspect that phoodoo was being rhetorical when (s)he posed that absurd question.
You might have the purpose of learning science, that doesn’t mean that you will. So no foresight there.
Creators? You sure cannot tell your projections from what other people think. While I cannot answer for Darwinists, since I’m not one of them, I was not “created.” I was the result of common life processes.
I suspect that English is not your main language. You’re mindless and yet you claim to have children. If that’s true, then you’re the prime example of a mindless process producing minds (even though you’re working hard to get them to be mindless). Take that ID-creationism!
My favorite evolutionary sex fairy-tale is how birdies lost their penises…and selectively in related species, mind you…
For example: Ducks have penises, but chickens don’t.
When eggs are fertilized inside the female body, sperm are much easier delivered, if Mr. Pipe-Pitol is involved.
Why would the omnipotent natural selection select against such an important organ that promotes much better reproduction?
It must be another evolutionary miracle… 😉
Praise Darv!
My another favorite evolutionary fairy-tale is when Darwinists realized that related species were missing essential genes that must be present to keep the animals alive…
What happened?
Another evolutionary miracle was announced…
Prais Darv!
After 322 plus comments, can someone finally rectify the issue why would ID even attempt to explain the design of sex according to the evolutionary assumptions?
Nobody here has at least 10% of his brain functions left?
The evolutionary embarrassment has reached unprecedented proportions… 😉
Thanks Einstein!
Without stupidity, even more… 😉
I am confused by this. Do you mean when evolutionists claim there is purpose to life they are doing religion?
Not everybody is religious, but that certainly isn’t a scientific statement.
I’m sure you do your best.
Sure, would you like me the explain the topic of Alan’s thread” Intelligent Design explains Sex!
A thread for ID proponents to explain their alternative theory for biological phenomena.”?
How does the abstract become concrete? Purpose becomes earwax.
To demonstrate that ID is not just a cynical ,political ploy to get creationism in schools, maybe. To demonstrate your alternate explanation can withstand the same sort of criticism you level at evolutionary theory, possibly.
It is Alan Fox’s question “ How does the theory of Intelligent Design explain sex?“ that I was referring to.
That question does not seem loaded unless avoidance is your only option.
I don’t know, present a logically sound, empirically verified hypothesis might be a possibility.
newton,
I see little evidence that anyone here understands what Allan is trying to say, little yet is able to call this an explanation.
This is why I suggested you try earwax. Hopefully that is simple enough for some evolutionist to explain its evolutionary explanation. Accidental Drift?
To show its adherents take the hypothesis seriously.
That may well be true. A bit of effort is required; it is technical stuff. Corneel and Joe F certainly got it, both with plenty experience in relevant disciplines.
If an explanation is not comprehensible to all, that does not make it wrong or worthless. It’s for interested readers, of which I accept there may be few in these here parts. It’s an uphill struggle with people who can’t grasp selection or genetics, and whose very lives, or at least their egos, seem to depend on not grasping those things. Still, sex is a huge topic in biology.
If that organ promotes better reproduction, why didn’t your presumed “designer” give it to all species?
Indeed. Whenever j-mac attempts to strawman evolution in that way, he shoots himself in the foot. What’s God got against chickens?
If you do not understand ,are you the best judge about other people’s understanding?
The thing is, since there has been no alternative explanation offered , that explanation is the best of all the actual attempts.
Yes ,understand. What I don’t understand why someone should spend the time providing it to satisfy your whim.
Perhaps as a show of good faith , you could provide details of the alternative explanation and demonstrate why and how the design of earwax serves the purpose of life , to have faith. Would your faith be less without the existence of earwax?
Obviously, 25% of the web searches have something to do with sex
What are you talking about?!
The purpose of life according to evolutionary science is to reproduce and leave offspring…unless of course your reproductive systems, just to use your own words of wisdom is:
” strongly deleterious” and you are going to lose it, like most birdies…
And, if 90% or more of your cognitive behavior is driven by Mr. Pitol, when it gets selected against, so does your thinking ability, as shown in your brainless posts like this one:
That is probably why “Be fruitful and multiply” is in “the Origin of Species”.
No wait, it was some other book. Which one was that again?
Still waiting J-Mac: Why wasn’t everything designed to just reproduce asexually?
We have all the time in the world …
This is not a “purpose,” this is but what life tends to do. Obviously, life forms leaving offspring that are able to keep leaving offspring will prevail. But that’s a consequence of what life is and does. Not something life has the “purpose” of doing. This is what evolutionary science tells us, not that teleological piece of bullshit that’s in your brain mistaken for evolutionary science.
This OP, along with Sex – a matter of perspective, are probably the most embarrassing OPs ever at TSZ.
First, Allan can’t explain why evolution of sex would happen and then, when challenged, he shifts the burden of proof on ID to explain the design of sex, but, according to evolutionary assumptions… Not bad…;-)
That’s not enough, brainless Darwinists, imbeciles, can’t figure out why the reproduction of bacteria, and human, were not designed the same way…
How much more stupid can they get?!
If they were, if humans like Darwinists, were able to reproduce asexually, and at the same speed as bacteria, then people like me would have not choice but to believe that random, brainless process were behind the asexual reproduction of humans… 😉
I’d explain the conceptual mistakes involved in thinking that the loss of an organ can only occur if there’s selection against. Instead, I’ll point out that you shot yourself in the foot J-Mac. You laugh at the imperfection of natural phenomena as if we were expecting natural phenomena to be perfect and omnipotent, while actually pointing to what we expect, thus giving us further reasons to think that life is just natural.
I know there’s plenty of excuses made for the magical being in the sky’s incompetence. However, if there was such omnipotence and perfection, there’d be no need for excuses in the first place. Sorry.
Not to forget boobies.
The fucking irony. For embarrassment look at your own OPs.
Challenged on what? If Allan said that he cannot explain the evolution of sex, then what can you possibly pose as a challenge to Allan? You challenge him to explain what he said he cannot explain? Are you really that dumb?
And you have the gall to say that someone’s OPs are embarrassing? Look at yourself in the mirror pal.
I’d imagine that Darwinists do not think that life was designed in the first place. They’d think that it evolved. So, yet again, are you dumb?
Your incoherence has no end. I’d advice you to stop posting until you improve, but I doubt that you have the ability for introspection.
You said that about my ‘variant genetic codes’ OP too. I’m honoured.
In the OP that you evidently haven’t read, I do exactly that.
No, I invite alternative explanations for the observed phenomena. They aren’t evolutionary phenomena, they are current observations.
No, I think sex can be explained in evolutionary terms (broadly understood), and my OP does exactly that. Biologists in general are stumped by it; my OP explores a way through the thickets, and why I think the ‘mystery’ is overplayed in the literature.
Allan Miller,
I know. I was just pointing to the incoherence in J-Mac’s comment.
Perhaps you are setting an example for that.
Ah OK, misunderstood!
You need to know something about the designer to answer that, go ahead , why? Is it beyond the ability of the designer?
Boobies?
Me, on the other hand, if humans were able to reproduce at the same speed as E. coli bacteria, would have no choice but to accept the mysterious workings of a supernatural Designer.