Re: Lack of design

On Feb 23, 1:03 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 04:05:55 -0800, tgdenning wrote:
On Feb 22, 2:39 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:42:28 -0800, tgdenning wrote:
On Feb 22, 11:52 am, Greg Guarino <g...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[...]
Designed objects, especially in an environment of quick
communication (such as our internet age, or inside the mind of God)
can and do display technologies picked from the entire current
toolbox, not just from the inventory of that creature's ancestors.
So GPS, originally designed for the military, now appears in
commercial aviation, in cars made by dozens of different
manufacturers, in handheld units and in cell phones. That sort of
horizontal transfer doesn't happen, or doesn't happen very much, in
biology.

But that isn't *design*.

Yes it is.  It is one of the essential aspects of design.

It isn't essential at all. You are confusing what is done with what is
necessary.

My apologies.  It is one of the essential aspects of intelligent design.


I'm not sure how you are using "intelligent".

If you are suggesting that it is efficacious to use existing
components to achieve some function, I would say that this is
certainly not a universal principle.

It is possible now to draw a part on a computer and have it go
directly into mass production with no human intervention except maybe
loading the right material into the system. In fact you can buy a
desktop 3-d model-making machine for maybe USD10K last I looked. We
are become God-like indeed, and in many cases we could start from
scratch every time in order to optimize, and it would make economic
sense.

If you are talking about "ID", it sounds like you are supporting it
rather than refuting it. Or at least, your argument is orthogonal to
the whole silly business.


-tg





 If you are
designing, say, a prototype research submarine, you will probably find
a need to hold various parts together.  Only an idiot would start from
scratch to design and manufacture the fasteners.

Being an idiot doesn't mean that one isn't a designer. Trust me.

It does if the idiocy is sufficient to keep one from getting anything
done.



 An intelligent designer
would look in catalogues of existing bolts, glues, etc. and find ones
that suit.  Same with electronics, hydraulics, etc.  Probably most of
the submarine would have been originally designed for other products.
Life does not do that, at least not much.

Another essential aspect of design is that the design goes through
various incomplete stages.  A huge part of design is getting the bugs
worked out, and for that they go through conceptual plans, simulations,
and prototypes before getting to a production version.  Again, life
does not do that.  In life, *everything* is the beta test version.

That said, life and design do share some commonalities.  Both
incoroporate functions (life for reproduction, human design for
marketability, which is, in a sense, a form of reproduction).  Both
build upon existing versions.  Both discard failures.  Life *does*
look designed to some extent, but only to the extent that design is
evolution.

At some point, people did have to 'invent the wheel'. They had to use
the materials at hand, and make the kinds of evolutionary adjusments
that we seem to agree are part of the process. If your claim of
necessity is correct, then that first wheel (first bow, first basket,
....) and the ones that followed for a long time were 'not designed'.

Right.  The first round stone that someone slipped on was probably not
designed.  Nor the first springy bit of wood, nor the first bark stripped
from a tree.  Designers can take ideas from other places besides previous
designs.  So what?

--
 Mark Isaak          eciton (at) earthlink (dot) net
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
 the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
 being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
 exposing the country to danger." -- Hermann Goering


.

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