Why would a designer design these?

[QED]

I am assuming that we are all familiar with the strange creatures that left their fossil remains in the Burgess shale - Critters like Wiwaxia, Marrella, Anomalocaris, and my own personal favorite - Hallucigenia:



Now standing aside from any dispute about the actual age of these fossils, is there any disagreement that these peculiar critters are representative of some of the earliest of species? I'm sure I would remember if I had seen one recently.

I ask because what is evident in these creatures is a far greater diversity of bodyplan compared to those seen today. Indeed just about every living creature alive today is topologically equivalent, being a tube with a single mouth-gut-anus arrangement. But these early fossils display significant deviations from this arrangement.

I would note that the situation is strikingly familiar to enthusiasts of vintage man-made artifacts of all types: I am thinking of the first aeroplanes with different numbers of wings and motor cars with seating arrangements no longer seen - not to mention radios, TVs, vacuum cleaners etc!

This is because the most efficient solution to our requirement always takes time to emerge due to our limited capacities. We tend to learn as we go along. However, given a specific objective (such as speed, passenger capacity etc.) there is generally an optimum solution waiting to be arrived at. This leads to uniformity - a convergence of style - no jet planes with six wings for example.

Now I am contemplating the same thing amongst the fauna of the Burgess shale. Creatures with multiple mouths, tandem guts and so on. Why would an intelligent designer seem to be following the same path as us?

[Jose]

It was not my intention to suggest 5 was the best number of digits(although it certainly could not have been considerably worse than others, all things considered).I merely used this as an example of how this apparently "intelligent" design failed utterly in terms of survival.

It was not my intention to imply that you had . It occurred to me, as I was reading it, that it might provide an opportunity to offer the lurkers a bit of insight into how evolution works.

What you mention here is an example of the creationists ignoring not only scientific evidence but also scriptural reference...

[He] obliterated every being that was on the surface of the ground

The King James version puts it this way:

every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground

...and we all know (at least, we are told by some of the YECs) that only the KJV is the True Bible... "Destroyed" probably means the same things as "obliterated," but if we read it metaphorically we canconsider either to refer to simple drowning. I also note that the KJV refers to living "substances" rather than "beings," which we would have to take to include plants and bacteria. Again, we need to read this metaphorically, since Noah later sends out a dove, which returns with an olive leaf from some tree that is growing somewhere, and therefore was not among the living substances that were destroyed.

You make a good point. If we read Genesis literally, we end up with no fossils. If we want to force Genesis to fit the YEC interpretation of fossils, then we have to read it metaphorically, which seems odd for a "literalist" interpretation.

[axeplayer]

What you mention here is an example of the creationists ignoring not only scientific evidence but also scriptural reference...

[qoute][He] obliterated every being that was on the surface of the ground

I mean no offense to you or to the Torah Curious, but the Torah is hardly a reliable source to bring up for a Christian based argument. Its like me saying that in the Koran it says so and so when we're arguing about Jesus walking on water. Plus, it even says "on the surface of the ground". this would mean that the beings/living substances on the ground were destroyed. those in the ark were not destroyed.

[Curious]

What you mention here is an example of the creationists ignoring not only scientific evidence but also scriptural reference...

[qoute][He] obliterated every being that was on the surface of the ground

I mean no offense to you or to the Torah Curious, but the Torah is hardly a reliable source to bring up for a Christian based argument. Its like me saying that in the Koran it says so and so when we're arguing about Jesus walking on water. Plus, it even says "on the surface of the ground". this would mean that the beings/living substances on the ground were destroyed. those in the ark were not destroyed.

Are you suggesting that the dinosaurs were all burrowing animals? Or perhaps they lived in large underground cities and were swept out when their drains got overwhelmed by the flood water. As for the Torah not being relevant...where exactly do you think Genesis comes from?

[Jose]

What you mention here is an example of the creationists ignoring not only scientific evidence but also scriptural reference...

[qoute][He] obliterated every being that was on the surface of the ground

I mean no offense to you or to the Torah Curious, but the Torah is hardly a reliable source to bring up for a Christian based argument. Its like me saying that in the Koran it says so and so when we're arguing about Jesus walking on water. Plus, it even says "on the surface of the ground". this would mean that the beings/living substances on the ground were destroyed. those in the ark were not destroyed.

Gosh, axe, doesn't your interpretation (which would apply to the KJV as well, of course) mean that birds, pterosaurs, giant dragonflies, fish, ichthyosaurs, pleisiosaurs, etc were not destroyed? They weren't "on the face of the ground" or "on the surface of the ground." And what about the fishermen who happened to be out fishing in their boats, who also weren't on the ground? I guess it's essential, for a literalist interpretation, to read this metaphorically and interpret it to mean "everything except the things in the ark, and at least one olive tree." I agree that it comes out and says that everything was killed, but to square this statement with the "on the face of the ground" statement, we have to use some metaphorical thinking.

...and I'm puzzled by the statement that only "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail" in this flood. That's kinda shallow for depositing thousands of feet of sediment, and then carving out all of the world's canyons when it finally drained away. What about the trees that stuck out of the water? Or do we read this metaphorically also, in order to interpret it literally?

[Curious]

...and I'm puzzled by the statement that only "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail" in this flood. That's kinda shallow for depositing thousands of feet of sediment, and then carving out all of the world's canyons when it finally drained away.

This measurement is given directly after the statement that the mountains were covered and so probably means 15 cubits upward of the highest mountain. Since the highest mountains have no trees near the peaks I don't think this causes confusion.

[Jose]

...and I'm puzzled by the statement that only "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail" in this flood. That's kinda shallow for depositing thousands of feet of sediment, and then carving out all of the world's canyons when it finally drained away.

This measurement is given directly after the statement that the mountains were covered and so probably means 15 cubits upward of the highest mountain. Since the highest mountains have no trees near the peaks I don't think this causes confusion.

It doesn't seem to cause confusion, but it should for anyone who reads the bible literally. It says:

[19] And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
[20] Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

We see that the water went up 15 cubits, and [then] the mountains were covered. This seems to say that the mountains were less than 15 cubits tall. Otherwise, it would have to say that the mountains were covered and the waters prevailed another 15 cubits beyond that.

But this is just quibbling with semantics, and is irrelevant if we read it metaphorically. The thread asks about things like Halligenia, and wonders why a designer would design them. We should also wonder why a designer would design the sloppy systems that still exist. Any thoughts?

[Curious]

[19] And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
[20] Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.

We see that the water went up 15 cubits, and [then] the mountains were covered. This seems to say that the mountains were less than 15 cubits tall. Otherwise, it would have to say that the mountains were covered and the waters prevailed another 15 cubits beyond that.

But this is just quibbling with semantics, and is irrelevant if we read it metaphorically. The thread asks about things like Halligenia, and wonders why a designer would design them. We should also wonder why a designer would design the sloppy systems that still exist. Any thoughts?

I know it's not really directly related to the main topic but the reason for my using the Torah is that is the text that the kjv is derived from. Otherwise it ends up like Chinese whispers if we are to use this or that version of the Bible. It is unlikely that anyone could follow literally unless they have the literal version. Maybe multiple mouths were given so that while eating, the creatures didn't have to stop praising God?

[Jose]

Indeed.

My understanding is that some of the YEC fundamentalists consider only the KJV to be god's word. Certainly, the newer translations are too colloquial, and the older versions are too hard to read, so the KJV is the right balance of sounding old but being newly-enough translated that they can still read it.

By this logic, the Torah isn't relevant, even if it says the same thing.

I guess, if you want to be a literalist, you have to choose one version and stick with it, or else you are certain to run into discrepancies. Discrepancies would make you think about what's "literal" and what's not--and that might lead to questioning whether a literal interpretation is valid at all. Once you've done that, you're on your way to accepting evolution, and you'll be lost forever.

[QED]

The interesting thing for me is the diversity of "design" found in the first animals. Fossils found in rocks from the Cambrian era present us with what look like "experiments" in animal anatomy. I can't resist posting an image of Opabinia with its five eyes and long flexible proboscis tipped with grasping spines:


A similar but far from identical creature calledAnomalocaris is no less unfamiliar to us today. A good many of these "experiments" never got much further into the fossil record, while others have survived to the present day.

While searching for info on Trilobite eyes (fascinating devices only partially in evidence in certain insects today) I read with interest this quote form a website titled Does God Exist?

The purpose of the program is to provide thinking, seeking people with scientific evidence that God does exist and that the Bible is His Word

There are a great many lessons to be learned from what we have briefly surveyed in this discussion of trilobite eyes. The incredible complexity and design of the eye is a tribute to God's wisdom and design in all of His creatures throughout time. In this case, however, the complexity is of special interest because the trilobite is one of the first animals to live on this planet. To talk about this complexity being the result of evolutionary forces over very long periods of time is difficult because this animal dates from the start of life on earth. The trilobites already have a sophisticated visual system when they first appear in the fossil record. The genus Fallotaspis is dated at 500 million years ago to the Cambrian period.

http://www.doesgodexist.org/NovDec01/Le ... obite.html

Here someone seems content to ignore the four-billion year preamble leading to the emergence of the trilobite. They can hardly be termed the start of life, just another noticeable explosion along the way.

[Jose]

I suspect that you are right about the diversity and "experimentation" of life when it first arose. The Precambrian animals are quite diverse, and the Burgess Shale creatures are also seemingly bizarre. Those of us who currently exist are the descendents of the few forms that made it through, so it's no surprise that we have a great many similarities.

It's probably even more interesting, if we add some geology to it. I heard a seminar a few years ago by a geologist who described several Precambrian deposits that had certain minerals in them (I've forgotten what, by now) that would require some type of "living" chemistry to produce. What we have now does not do this type of chemistry, so the inference is that there were various "chemical experiments" when life was first getting started. Again, the more successful types out-competed the others, and we're the descendents of the ones that happened upon DNA, glycolysis, lipid membranes, etc.

It's interesting (and, I think, a little sad) that many people choose to declare that life exploded suddenly at the beginning of the Cambrian, with no prior history. We know very clearly now that this is not so. Yet, they use this misconception to support "the design inference." When someone is taught something like what you quoted, that trilobite eyes appeared full-blown at the very beginning of life, what do you suppose their reaction must be when they learn that this was not the beginning of life, but actually more like 75% of the way to where we are now? I guess they conclude that either the facts are wrong, or the people who taught them were.