That's pretty much the line of argument that Stephen Jay Gould used in defending evolution against creationist attacks. Gould pointed out that both evolution and creationism could explain the appearance of design in living organisms but Darwinian theory was better able to provide more plausible, more parsimonious, and more testable explanations for the apparently poor or incompetent design of many features of living organisms such as the nightmarish design of the human spine, or the fact that we possess organs like the appendix which do nothing positive for us except to get infected on occasion.
Jim F.
On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 10:26:25 -0400 Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu>
writes:
> > From Letters, Science, Vol 309, Issue 5734, pp. 556-557 , 22 July
> 2005
> >
> > "Intelligent" Design versus Evolution
> > Donald Kennedy's Editorial ("Twilight for the enlightement?", 8
> Apr., p.
> > 165) highlights how ineffective the scientific community has been
> in the
> > battle for the minds of the American public. Arguing details of
> scientific
> > facts before this audience has been largely unproductive. Perhaps
> it is
> time
> >
> > to take a lesson from recent political campaigns: Instead of
> defending
> your
> > position, attack a weakness of the opposition and repeat (again and
> again),
> > with a modicum of humor. The following script has been effective in
> dealing
> > verbally with creationists/intelligent design adherents.
> > "You have a philosophic choice between evolution or belief in ID,
> so
> called
> > intelligent design. But even a first-year engineering student
> would be
> > embarrassed to have designed your lower back with the extreme bend
> that
> > allows you to stand erect even though your pelvis slants forward
> for
> > knuckle-dragging like all our near relatives. You probably have
> had braces
> > or wisdom teeth extracted because there are too many teeth for the
> size of
> > your mouth. Then there are your sinuses, with a flawed drainage
> system
> that
> > would provoke laughter from a plumber. Yet evolution provides a
> ready and
> > rational explanation for all these design failures: by progressive
> changes
> > into an erect posture, by shortening of a mammalian muzzle into a
> face,
> and
> > by expansion of our large brains to crowd the facial bones. So
> take your
> > choice: Do you prefer evolution or an ID whose letters may as well
> stand
> for
> >
> > Incompetent Design?"
> >
> > After a bit of flustering, the ID adherent usually mumbles
> something about
> > our inability to know the mind of God. The reply: "Indeed, ID is
> not
> science
> >
> > but religion and should be taught as such."
> >
> > These simple facts need little explanation, bring evolution to a
> personal
> > level, and leave the ID adherent on the defensive, all with a bit
> of
> humor.
> > Others may wish to try it.
> >
> > Donald U. Wise
> > Department of Geosciences
> > University of Massachusetts
> > Amherst, MA 01003, USA.
> >
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>