Research Submarine Asherah
Designer was riding Her submarine through the depths of the ocean one day, taking stock of Her work, and decided, “I’ve learned just about everything I’m ever going to learn from these prototypes. It’s high time to take the next big step toward the ultimate goal, a species of animal in which to ripen souls for harvest.” (Of course, souls that turn out goatlike go to Hell, to suffer eternal torment at the hands of Satan, and souls that turn out sheeplike go to Heaven, to kowtow forever at the feet of God. But Designer had to come up with something considerably more sophisticated than sheep and goats, to satisfy God’s requirement that the Fate of Souls be contingent instead of determined.)
Now, if Designer had done a complete redesign, when advancing from aquatic to terrestrial organisms, Hell might well have frozen over before there were any goatlike souls to fuel the flames. So Designer said, “I know that the optics are different in air than in water, but fish eyes are gonna have to do.”
Lacrimal system After observing that Her transitional prototype frequently took dips in the marsh to wash its eyes, She invented an organ to wet the eyes with saltwater. Compared to the eyes themselves, the lacrimal glands were a cinch to get right. As for eyelids, Designer had already tested them on some sharks. She did not anticipate that drainage would be a problem, but found that mammals with drops of water running down their faces looked very sad. In a flash of brilliance, Designer realized that eyewash could be reused to moisten the nostrils. And that was when She invented the lacrimal and naso-lacrimal ducts. What initially was supposed to be an aesthetic feature turned out to serve a useful function. God was highly impressed, and gave Designer, whom He called Asherah, a generous bonus at Christmas.
“Yahweh [front, flaunting large penis] and His Asherah [rear, working at computer]”
If the alternative theory to this is:
Well, things living can copy, but they copy rather poorly. In fact, so poorly that every time they copy new pieces of living things just sprout up all the time. For instance, something might be born with a wing in its mouth, or be born with three feet, two on the stomach and one on the back. Or with lizard like scaly skin covering the penis. Or a lung at the end of your elbow.
Now, most of the time, these “new pieces” that pop up all the time, they are a pain in the ass, often quite literally. Besides being inconvenient on a date, a lung on your elbow also might make it hard to sleep. And if you have enough nights where you don’t sleep well, you might start hallucinating, and believe that a tree is actually a Ford Falcon, and attempt to drive one over a nonexistent bridge over a river and drown. In that case, you are unlikely to pass along your genes, and thus, not a great little accident to have inherited.
But, BUT, this is the great part! Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, a lucky new piece pops up, that instead of keeping you up at night, lets you sleep in peace. Like say a kidney. Instead of one spontaneously popping up, because of those bad bad copying problems, on the top of your head, one pops up in your lower back. And as it turns out, that kidney just so happens to filter your blood, balance the fluids in your body and regulate electrolyte levels. What a fucking bargain. Can you imagine how many more offspring you can go create if you have stable electrolyte levels? Is it any question the advantage you will have in finding a mate if you are able to pee? Its not even a fair competition.
So if you don’t want a scaly dick, a foot sticking out of your ass, or if you just want eyelashes that flutter at the speed of sound and are a great place for applying mascara, well you can just thank your lucky stars for the “lucky” accidents brought to us by Charles Darwin.
Hmmm…I think I will stick with Asherah.
It isn’t. 🙂
I’ve underestimated you phoodoo. You’re right up there with Robert Byers and J-mac.
Rummy: Not really, those 2 still set the standard.
I disagree.
Exhibit A:
I rest my case. Reminds me of this.
Seriously. That is the dumbest imaginable argument against evolution. It is so dumb it indirectly proves that God must exist. Because the person who seriously advocates it cannot possibly have stayed alive long enough to have learned to write. They MUST be kept alive by the sustained intervention of a divine being.
This is the phoodoo theory of mutation and natural selection. Why aren’t we covered in feet and scaly vestigial dicks? Checkmate evolutionists!
I know that you’re plenty bright, and that you’re exaggerating to have a bit of fun. But still, Darwin famously did not account for the “arrival of the fittest.” Furthermore, he said that his theory of evolution by natural selection failed if there were a complex feature that could not have emerged in a succession of small changes. I have to believe that you know as much, after all these years. So I’m genuinely confused as to what you’re trying to do here.
People are still debating whether an eye can be an outcome of evolution by natural selection. However, tear ducts are not complex. I did just a quick bit of googling on the evolution of them, and got the impression that there’s no great mystery. So how is it that you’ve gone from eyes to tear ducts as a challenge for Darwinian theory?
The best guess I can make as to what’s going on with you, putting little bits of what you’ve written here with what I’ve seen you write in the past, is that you can’t imagine an evolutionary pathway for a tear duct, i.e., a sequence of slightly differing traits, with selective advantages for bearers of the traits all the way through the sequence. That’s what I had in mind when I indicated, in the OP, that tear ducts seem not to be essential. What were the selective advantages to bearers of precursors of the tear ducts? It’s hard to imagine. If that’s your objection, then say it. You come off as terribly ignorant when you attempt to pin on Darwin the claim that fully formed organs pop up here and there in individuals. I know that you’ve seen the term Darwinian gradualism bunches of times, and I have to believe that you understand it. So it would be nice if you dropped the cuteness for a bit, and spelled out clearly whatever it is that you’re trying to say.
Tom English,
It makes your argument much easier if the new organs that pop up don’t have to be fully formed the first go round? You believe that? You think a fully formed tear duct popping into existence could be a problem for evolution, but well, a partial one, that is no problem at all? You really believe this?
Whatever that partial first tear duct must look like, it still has to arrive for no reason whatsoever and it still has to confer some benefit. So how fully “unformed” can it be to meet that criteria?
And whenever I hear Darwinists try to weasel out of explaining that one by pulling the “the organ could have been co-opted from some other use” argument, it becomes even more ridiculous to me. So every organ had to first be some other organ, and THAT makes the whole farcical storytelling so much more believable.
So how partial does the new organ have to be, and how often are these “partial” organs arriving spontaneously and in the wrong spots rather than the right ones? How many accidents did it take to make a tear duct?
A screwdriver isn’t that complex, but a factory that can make them isn’t trivial. You could try to deal with substantially more complex multi-connected multi-node communication networks in biology in the context of self-replicating factories. That’s not so trivial.
But since we’re talking ducts, how did mammary glands evolve. Evolutionists say they came from sweat glands. Did baby decide to start sucking on his mother’s sweaty chest while she was sweating and found it nourishing, and the hickey baby gave mommy evolved into a breast with mammary glands?
Rube Goldberg machines are not designed for the glory and well-being of the Rube Goldberg machine, but of the Designer.
So what benefit to a Rube Goldberg machine is the design of a Rube Goldberg machine? None, but it is to the benefit and amusement of a Designer that he could make something so improbable actually work, even though in the end most Rube Goldberg machines self destruct.
But regarding the steps from simplicity, here is an alternate viewpoint:
Would You Rather Have Medical Researchers Dissect Mice Testicles vs. Your Own?
We have simple organisms like bacteria and complex ones like humans. The sequence of going from simple to complex superficially suggests common descent by evolution.
The Darwinists would argue, “If God wanted us to believe in Creation, He wouldn’t have made such sequences of organisms going from simple to complex.”
I beg to differ! There are sufficient gaps that make evolution implausible from bacteria-like creatures to humans. The first substantial gap begins with the transition from prokaryote -like creatures (bacteria) to eukaryote- like creatures (yeast and humans). The sequence from simple to complex is very well optimized to help humans understand their own biology through studying other creatures. Patterns of similarity are a gift from God.
Mice cannot evolve into men, but physiologically they are similar enough to help us understand human biology. To study human neuroscience we drill holes into mice brains then shove electric probes them and subject them to all sorts of pain, and after we’re done, we kill them! Would you prefer we do that to humans? How about studying reproductive organs? Would you rather we learn about human reproduction by dissecting mice testicles versus your own?
The patterns of similarity and diversity in creatures are a “user manual” for human biology. We can, for example, learn something about human chromatin by studying plant chromatin (since the protein Histone 3 is 99% similar between plants and humans for example).
Sorry, but they’ve been left behind by Nonlin.
If we knew how the designer made the tear duct then we might be able to estimate how many accidents it might take. Some design takes advantage of unexpected consequences.
Only if the designer is Rube Goldberg, otherwise it is like going from Austin to Dallas by way of El Paso, you can do it but there is a cost.
Lucky for them, the mice would have a hard time living in walls if they did.
I guess the designer didn’t Rube Goldberg that design.
I guess we can only hope the designer doesn’t turn out to be a super intelligent mouse.
Have a spare , so I guess it depends on how much it pays. I would trade one for a Porsche.
Is Designer gender neutral or does She/He switch back and forth?
I liked the OP, except for the going to hell part.
But isn’t that the point?
God: “Hold my beer”
I have a great quote from Dawkins I’ll have to find.
The probability of a complex organ arising in one go is miniscule, but not impossible. Just very, very, rare. Of course, given enough time, and enough attempts … It’s bound to happen.
ETA: That is not the quote from Dawkins.
Apparently it has to be reiterated that evolution works by existing structures and tissues changing over time. Kidneys, tear ducts, eyes or what have you are all derivations and modifications of something that existed before.
To really answer the question of when and how tear ducts evolved and changed over time you’d have to do some comparative anatomy and see what forms and functions homologous structures take in increasingly distantly related species.
That doesn’t work for the eye, so why should it work for anything else?
I think one of the problem is you take the idea of a “not fully formed” tearduct to mean essentially half of-a-human-tear-duct somehow literally cut in half. But that’s not how it works. I guess even calling it not fully formed is a bad choice of words for that reason, because whatever organ it is at the time it’s always fully formed.
A better way of thinking about it is an analogous transition of a limb, such as the ones seen in semi-aquatic mammals like seals, sea lions and so on. They’re functional, and depending on the environment good at what they do. Not so great on land though they do work, but much better in water.
So when a new tear duct pops up in a population, it is by definition fully formed.
Like I said, an accident makes a fully formed organ suddenly appear.
Thank you for that.
LOL, can you try reading what Rum said and make sure you understand it before you double down on your pathetic misconceptions?
But a new tear duct never just “popped up” in some population, it gradually evolved from something else. Amazingly you completely missed the point.
And like I said, that’s wrong.
The front-limbs on the aquatic mammal are fully formed limbs, but what type? At least by superficial appearance they’re sort of half-way between flippers ala what we see on whales, and the arms/front-legs you see on terrestrial mammals such as bears. Nobody says a mutation happens and then suddenly from nothing at all, that halfway-flipper-halfway-an-arm type limb suddenly exists where nothing was before. Rather the arm/leg gradually evolves into the flipper. From one thing to another thing.
The concept I’m trying to communicate here is that the same is what would have happened in the evolution of tear ducts. But to understand what kind of structures and tissues the tear ducts evolved from, you’d have to look at other species with similar structures and find out what they do and how they work to undertand that transition.
Here we go again. Its always just made from something else, that already existed and already was a fully formed organ. How convenient!
If you want to make a car, just take a toaster, make it work (please don’t ask where the toaster came from though!)
I doubt it. When the reader is in a hostile state of mind communications is almost impossible.
Nobody said it had to be a fully formed organ. What do you think is going on in embryogenesis? All of the cells in a multicellular organism ultimately come from a single cell. And the developing organism is in fact a living organism throughout the process.
No to be fair to phoodoo here I did say it was always a fully formed organ, but we wereren’t talking about embryogenesis. Obviously everything goes through some embryonic developmental stage where it isn’t fully formed.
The submarine named Asherah?
How about the Submarine named Corpus Christi (in Latin means “Body of Christ”), which the Catholic Priests forced the US Navy rename it The City of Corpus Christi. The US Navy had it right the first time!
The USS Corpus Christi is hunter killer submarine with likely nuclear capability as it can attack LAND targets with its Tomahawk missiles.
Probably a rock and a fire.
Actually. it was Tip O’Neill who requested the change. St. Ronnie approved it.
It appears land and sea targets have nothing to fear
“In an operation during the naval exercise Malabar, between the navies of India, the United States and Japan which featured a simulated battle, Indian Navy’s INS Sindhudhvaj reportedly scored a kill against City of Corpus Christi..Sindhudhvaj is a Soviet-built Kilo class, but upgraded with the Indian USHUS sonar.
The ship is currently homeported in Bremerton, Washington, having moved there after being deactivated on 30 May 2016.
She/ if god has gender it would be the gender he stated was to be the top.
Genesis is clear this is the man. the woman was made for the man and not the man for the woman. This matters in historic and present relationships of the genders.
Anyways.
I understand only people cry from emotion(s). This because only we are thoughtful enough to get that upset or laughing. it shows its on a hair trigger.
This to cleanse the eye QUICK from stuff.
Yep, nothing gets the Christian message across like a ‘hunter-killer’ nuclear sub.
And it said of Jesus:
Nothing like an Intelligent Designer who is more powerful than a nuclear hunter/killer and more ingenious than the designers of the nuclear hunter killer.
One of the most incredible submarines:
https://youtu.be/jiDLg2gY_ec
Someone named a weapon of mass destruction after Jesus, therefore God.
You can’t make this shit up.
Sure you can. And the bible predicted hardened fallout shelters hidden in the mountains.
Perhaps I didn’t read closely enough. I had thought that you were dealing with particular cases, not setting up the “organ regress” that phoodoo objects to.
[phoodoo, too::] I don’t know how the tear ducts originated. But let’s suppose, purely to ask phoodoo some questions that might help us understand what he’s thinking, that one of several pairs of sinuses branched into the bottom of the eye sockets. What is the miracle in there being several pairs of sinuses, if there is one pair? What would be the miracle in a pair of sinuses branching into the eye sockets? What would be the miracle if the sinuses connecting the eye sockets to the nasal passages subsequently were lined with tissue much like that in nearby regions?
Not to say that ontology recapitulates phylogeny, we do witness an evolutionary process in embryogenesis, and we do know that all changes in lineages of multicellular organisms have originated as changes somewhere or another in the developmental process. phoodoo focuses on the end states. I want to know when and where, in embryogenesis, the “tear duct miracle” occurs. It’s easy to find lots of pictures of the process in Google Scholar.
[EDIT:] I meant to write ontogeny, not ontology.
Of course, it’s “making shit up,” not Christianity, that I’m lampooning in the OP. It seems to me that turning God’s creation into a feat of engineering, as is the wont of many ID proponents, is essentially heretical. It’s all too easy to use “created in the image of God” to justify anthropomorphizing God.
Actually, the part about comparative anatomy works for the eye. The rest, being derivations of something else, of some other homologous structure. Well, just because it does. We’ve seen that. Several specialized glands start their development as if they’re one more of a very common gland, staring from the very same kind of tissue, developing as if they’re that other thing, until they start taking another turn in their development. Some very common glands start their development as if they’re but the tissue they’re immersed in, which starts folding and instead of, say, scaling they start making a duct, etc. When the development is followed it’s easy to notice how some step here or there can change the end product, and how one thing could be a derivation of another one. When the genetics are solved, we see that even the genetics support the notion that some structure is starting the way the other, more common structure, starts. Long long etc. Studying histology, development, and embryology, with a molecular biology background, going through several levels, makes the understanding of these things fascinating, and the evolutionary perspective very persuasive. I studied this too long ago. Today it must be even more fascinating, If there’s any time to cover properly at least a few examples that is. The hard part must be how to decide what to teach and how to approach it so that the students get enough understanding and still have time for other things.
Anyway, I digress. It’s fascinating stuff.
Actually you’re lampoon was pretty entertaining. Your command of the English language is also pretty amazing.
That said, the modern incarnations of ID and Creationism are a mix of Payley and old fashioned Bible Thumping.
God is the great engineer in the sky. He made the Sonar in Bats, the Magnetic Navigation in Monarch Butterflies, the electric signal sensing in acquatic animals, the original submarines we know as sea creatures, the single photon sensing eyes, and the submarines birds we know as penguins.
So, you are conjecturing that each of these steps, random as they were, just so happened to confer some kind of advantage? Who knows what that advantage that would be, but I find it surprisingly easy to make up an advantage for almost any conceivable part of the anatomy ( as do biologists and social scientists as it turns out).
Or are you saying these effects were simply neutral, but just so happen to spread anyway for no reason at all. But THEN, it worked out perfectly that they turned into tear ducts , which WERE very useful? And if you didn’t have that tear duct, well, of course you would be out-competed for reproduction?
Don’t you see how silly and convenient the argument looks either way?
Tom English makes a good point here. To which I will add: The parts become ever more specialised as it develops but the organism remains a fully functional whole throughout development. Organs form and develop in preparation for when they are needed during development. And the more that tissues become specialised the harder it is for them to change and adapt to a new function.
Here Tom distances himself from recapitulation theory, but admits that there is a connection between individual development and evolution.
And here Entropy writes:
What we see is the general form radiating into specialist forms. It happens in the formation of tear ducts, in the formation of limbs as Rumraket has already stated, in the branching of species, and throughout the evolution of life as a whole.
This pattern repeats at all levels, the whole is repeated in the parts. There is much wisdom in the phrase, “as above, so below.”
We know and can see the direction inherent in individual development because the time frame allows us to see examples of the whole process, the birth, development, maturity and death of individual organisms. It is more difficult to see the direction inherent in the process of evolution because from our limited existence we do not get the same clear picture of the whole process.
But if we take the whole to be reflected in the parts as genuine, as I do, then the evolution of life on earth is in the midst of undergoing the same process of birth, development, maturity and death. As Tom wrote, “we do witness an evolutionary process in embryogenesis.”
To see the world in a grain of sand, evolution in a tear duct 🙂
YOU can make it up, not me.
That was your strawman of what I said, not what I actually said.
Tip O’Neil probably requested it because of the priests and protests.
But this is the part that Tom, and any other Darwinist does not except. The organs aren’t headed in any direction, they are just accidents that work, accumulated on top of one another. So there is no preparation for anything. Its is the fundamental difference between ID and Darwinism. That is why I find the Darwinist view so impossible to fathom.
Imagine getting to a tear duct, without any plan to get to a tear duct. Think how sloppy and impossible that trajectory would be. Like building a car without actually planning to build a car, and each successive step being piled onto the first.
So you might start with six wheels all facing different directions. Next you have some pistons, but no crankshaft. Then some airbags on the top of the pistons, because well airbags confer some advantage over pistons that are getting rained on. Next we get a frame built for six tires facing opposite directions. You then get a bumper on top of the airbags, with a drive shaft and some piston rings attached to it. The wheels all gets horns after that. Each step is some kind of crazy advantage supposedly, but your car it getting worse and worse. One day this car is going to be the most precise instrument our minds can even imagine. Ha.
But its even worse. Not only is it ONE DAY going to be super. Its super every step of the way. Because we never see, nor have any evidence of things that weren’t super, but instead were extremely sloppy and ill-conceived. Such things never seem to exist in our world.
Yes, I don’t understand how anyone cam find the seemingly blind, directionless passage of evolution so easy to believe.
Look at the pentadactyl limb. The most creative, multifaceted use it can be put to is what appears last in evolution, the human forelimb. There is no other animal on earth that has used any limb in a way that makes such a difference to the future of life and the earth. While all other life forms have used their limbs in an ever more narrow way, humans have done the opposite. Has that happened by chance?
I think you got it right the first time. 🙂
Ontology Recapitulates Phylogeny
Sounds like a good title for a forthcoming Nonlin or J-Mac post.
🙂
I think we have some agreement here. Of course ID simpliciter does not identify any particular design with any particular designer. But in doing so it separates the Creator from her creation. That, to me, is of greater concern than anthropomorphizing God.
When it comes to anthropomorphizing God there is a fine line that has to be walked. Obviously the bible is full of passages that do just that. It seems to me that we must either do that or remain silent about God, for how else are we to speak of God than by reference to those things we are familiar with? Also, it is the Christian message that God became flesh.
But I hear your concerns.