Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Unfortunately "intelligent design" is only frequently self contradicting ad hoc explanation. There is no scientific evidence for it at all.
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I almost choked to death on pizza!
- Thread starter Suave
- Start date
I see now, I didn't read it that way at all but I can see how you would.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
And that is common when reality goes against one's beliefs. We all have it at some time. It is called "cognitive dissonance" when what the evidence supports is very different from how we interpret it. But if one does break it down it becomes rather obvious. Would you chop a child's hand off that touched at hot stove top after you told him not to? Just telling is never good enough. Reason and experience is often needed. God put innocents in the Garden, set them up to fail, and then punished them when they failed. It is rather clear.
There is no cognitive dissonance whatsoever concerning this narrative, I just do not think as you do at all or think you've interpreted it correctly. If I have cognitive dissonance I can say (and in fact would say, but I don't say for there is no need to be contentious) the same for you as well. When I break it down I don't get what you've gotten.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
And that is a classic when one is the victim of it. Please note that you could not deal with the actual argument. And as I said, all of us can be victims of it. But to unbiased minds it is rather obvious who screwed up. If given a very similar narrative without the word "God" in it most Christians can see who is at fault too. One has to realize that one quite often brings in some very heavy bias into a discussion.
There was no argument, there was your interpretation of the narrative, which I thought was interesting. You didn't ask me to respond to it or give my interpretation so I didn't as I didn't see a need to or use for giving my views here. I am fully aware of my biases.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
No, it's a reply to your ridiculous point.
You made up nonsense to try and explain away how it is an "engineering problem", as if an all powerful god wouldn't be able to make sure you couldn't choke on food.
I'm just responding by informing you that no "engineering problem" would stump an all powerful and all knowing creator, by definition of "all powerful" and "all knowing".
That is not what I said at all and I'm honestly having trouble believing that you are being sincere here.
I suspect you are just being trollish / cheeky to try and derail the point.
I find it hard to believe that you actually think that that is what I said.
To give you the benefit of the doubt: no, that's not at all what I'm saying.
Instead, I'm saying that in context of evolution, such "design flaws" are expected. The reason is that evolution is a vertical process that follows the flow of time. It's a gradual process and it can't go back to the drawing board.
It can only move forward through the gradual "tinkering" of what is already available.
So to get to a spine capable of bipedalism, it was required to start with a spine that evolved for walking on all fours and gradually tinker with it over the generations to get to one capable of bipedalism. So the bipedal spine will be based upon a design meant for walking on all fours. It will carry with it the baggage of that ancestral function.
Your DNA reads like a library of all your ancestors.
This isn't a "world view" any more then plate tectonics is a "world view", or atomic theory is a "world view" or gravity is a "world view".
I went to the extreme because what I was actually saying is that it has nothing to do with sitting down or sports or whatsoever. I'm talking about naturally occurring lower backpains just by living and walking and every-day life.
It's inevitable to manifest in many humans - no matter what they do.
And I'm trying to inform you that it has nothing to do with that. It's the very design of the spine that is ultimately the cause of it.
Not the point at all. The point is the very design of the spine.
It is a modified spine meant to crawl on all fours. And because it is a modified version of that one, it isn't as good as it could have been were it designed from the ground up for bipedalism.
2 tubes would mean you couldn't choke on food.
And even in the case of 1 tube, you could build in a mechanism or muscle system which can literally close up one direction so that food and water would never reach the lungs.
You could also not use a tube for breathing at all and make us breath through like pores or something.
There's a million and one things that an all powerful, all knowing creator could have done. Examples of enough of species throughout the animal kingdom who are incapable of choking on food.
But off course I'm just humoring you here now....
The entire idea of evolution being false and some magical creator having done it all, really is as absurd and ridiculous as Last Thursdayism.
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
It is not just about breathing and eating, it is also about talking. Which involves the same passageway, and also the mouth lips, teeth, tongue pallette and sinuses.
No, it's a reply to your ridiculous point.
You made up nonsense to try and explain away how it is an "engineering problem", as if an all powerful god wouldn't be able to make sure you couldn't choke on food.
I'm just responding by informing you that no "engineering problem" would stump an all powerful and all knowing creator, by definition of "all powerful" and "all knowing".
My point is that it isn't an engineering problem because it is the best engineered method and that if you think you could "engineer" it better, please let me know. At this point, all you are doing is making a point without a suggested better-engineered way of doing it thus making your point mute.
And like I said before, if you crash driving 150 mph on a sharp curve, it isn't an engineering problem. If you swallow a big piece of meat without chewing and then choke, it isn't an engineering problem. Quite simple IMV.
No, it is what you said. You said that the brain grew (evolution) but the mouth didn't. An engineering problem by your world-view of evolution especially if you admit that there are design flaws.
Again... I don't agree with your position that bipedalism is bad for the back. Bad posture, no exercise, too much sitting down, bad eating habits, abuse to the body... I believe these are the problems that affect the back. Are you saying that the things I mentioned don't affect the back?
Can't compare apples with an orangutan.
You brought up sports and now you are taking sports away. I will admit that age will affect your body but it isn't because of bipedalism, it is because we age. Now, taking into account the abuse we give our bodies and you have early pains.
And I disagree.
And I disagree. Our spine was created for bipedalism.
I believe the mechanism and the muscle system DOES in fact close up one direction so that food and water never reach the lungs.
now, chew your food at least thirty times, don't overstuff your mouth, let the saliva begin the digestive process and "voila" you don't choke. Your perfectly engineered esophagus will work correctly and you won't die from asphyxiation.
Quite simple.
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
This is not a pertinent question, and you know it. The real question is "Could God come up with a design in which the feeding and breathing tubes were not one in the same?" And would that be better from a health and wellness perspective? Would it be better if there were absolutely no way for humans to choke on a piece of food being eaten? I say it would be better, and with the diversity of life and models of life we see all around us, it is not at all a far stretch to believe that such a thing as a breathing mechanism separate from an eating mechanism is indeed possible. I mean, just consider fish, who breathe through gills. They don't need to take their food in through their gills, now do they? How about animals that are able to breathe through their skin? Such designs for animals also demonstrably exist. How about the snake, whose glottis can be moved off to the side as prey is being taken in through the mouth, and this breathing apparatus allows the snake to breathe even while its mouth and throat are entirely full?
Not only this, but there is evidence that the reason that humans are so able to choke on food (in research, more likely than any other animal to do so) is because our throat is configured for speech as an important activity, and because the choking possibility didn't impede "enough" humans to die from it, it was a passable feature that didn't get "weeded out" by natural selection - while speech did get worked in via such selective processes. At a certain point, if you couldn't talk, and therefore couldn't communicate, you were less likely to survive, likely due to lack of community, or due to outright inability to trust and exile or deadly combat (war, extermination, etc.) as a result. So we become a creature who cannot eat or drink while breathing, because speech was more important, and the depth of our voice box within the throat allows for a larger "echo chamber" and therefore a greater width and breadth of sounds to be created by us - while there are plenty of examples of animals who can eat or drink while breathing because they did not physically adapt to some alternatively advantageous scenario that would exclude that for them.
In other words, this doesn't seem like a "design" at all, given the evidence. It seems like what developed due to what was necessary for the species to survive, versus what was less necessary, even as it proved to be a detriment in quite a number of choking-death cases over the years. "Evolution" will take care of augmenting or adapting something to a more beneficial state if the need is great enough - which means that the detrimental quality induces enough deaths to make it non-viable in the long run. Choking happens relatively infrequently, so it is just a blip in the grand scheme of human evolution that wouldn't see any noticeable "improvement" coming out of future generations. It therefore becomes a feature of our bodies that each and every one of us must deal with.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Any breathing and eating system where it isn't possible to choke on food and die, is better then a system where that is a very real possibility.
I don't need to be able to do better myself to understand what outcome would be better and / or to be able to identify flaws or weaknesses in existing systems.
You think people only choke on food when they "abuse" the eating tube?
Really?
Your reasoning on these issues is so simple-minded and short-sighted, that it is crossing over into the pure juvenile.
No, it's not. It's what you made of it. Are you really simply going to double down on your strawman, even after I clarified it?
No. I said that the brain grow and that this increase in volume required compensation elsewhere. To accommodate for that extra volume, the mouth became smaller.
More often then not, evolutionary change is a tradeoff.
For example if a mutation increases bone density by increasing its calcium levels... that extra calcium would have to come from somewhere. It doesn't magically appear. Either the creature is going to have to increase its intake of calcium by changing its diet, or other parts of the body are going to have less calcium available.
And if the benefits outweigh the losses or extra effort, then the net outcome will be beneficial.
The net outcome of brain expansion and as a tradeoff the mouth getting smaller, was beneficial for our species.
Not a worldview.
These aren't "flaws".
A "flaw" is when things don't work like intended. There are not intentions in biology.
There is only what happens to work and what doesn't.
First, that's not what I said.
I said that our spine isn't entire fit for bipedalism, which is the reason why it causes lower back pains in the majority of humans later in life. The root cause of this, is because it's a spine that evolved to walk on all fours which was then modified by gradual tinkering to accommodate for bipedalism.
A spine build from the ground up for bipedalism, would not have such problems.
This, again, is not a "flaw". It's an evolutionary remnant. It's the baggage of our ancestors.
It doesn't prevent us from surviving till breeding age, it doesn't prevent us from breeding and it doesn't prevent women from giving birth. So it's not a problem that is going to be weeded out by natural selection.
It's something we humans simply are going to have to live with.
All irrelevant to the point being made. Lower backpains in a majority of humans simply as a result of living bipedal lives is an inescapable consequence of the very nature of our spine.
Regardless of posture, exercise, etc.
Off course not.
I'm saying they are irrelevant to the point I'm making.
I can behave in such a way that it destroys my knees or elbows as well. But we aren't talking about that.
We are instead talking about inevitable problems that WILL occur in a majority of people regardless of how they behave at some point in their life, simply because the spine is shaped like it is. In all humans.
It doesn't matter who you are and what you do.
Take any group of people that behave a certain way.
A % of them will encounter back problems.
And yes, in some groups those % will be higher then in others, obviously.
But they will occur in all groups, which is the point.
We can, actually. They share a lot of DNA as they are both eukaryotes.
But anyhow, evolution is a theory just like all those other theories I mentioned.
Scientific theories aren't worldviews. They are bodies of explanations that address specific phenomenon and sets of facts within a specific scope.
Evolution deals with how species originate.
Atomic theory deals with how atoms work
Plate tectonics deal with how the earth's crust moves about.
Germ theory deals with how micro organisms cause desease.
These aren't "worldviews".
The point keeps flying over your head.
Then you disagree with objective facts.
It demonstrably wasn't.
Except when it doesn't and instead it kills people. Hundreds, thousdands, of them, every day.
Again, this is so simple-minded and short-sighted that it borders the sheer juvenile.
Even only coughing at the wrong time can launch a piece up your breathing tube.
Your perfectly engineered esophagus will work correctly and you won't die from asphyxiation.
Quite simple.
Woosh!!! there goes another point over your head.
You seem to be doing your very best to avoid having to face reality.
I think we are looking at the same evidence but coming to a completely different conclusion.
If you look at a fish and design a human anatomy to match a fish, there would be no water for our gills to assimilate the oxygen and we would asphyxiate even as the fish would. So gills wouldn't work.
To breathe through the skin, as a frog, would require our skins to be moist. Our ambiance doesn't facilitate that capacity.
A snake requires a lung that goes throughout their body. The glottis extends outward and shifts to the side of the mouth to breathe while eating. They have no teeth and don't speak. Hard to equate this as feasible for a human application.
No... it seems like the one we have is still the best engineering feat for our breathing and eating.
I doubt that evolution will make it better than what it is.
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
You just can't claim this (or know it) with certainty. You can't. You want to believe it in order to maintain the foundation you have built for other things you can't possibly know, but want to believe, and that is the best you've got.
I don't even claim to know that it isn't "designed." However - looking at it as objectively as I am able, with the plethora of other designs around that don't have this issue, I see evidence that points to the idea that it "could be" managed/modeled without the whole "Can't breathe while eating/drinking" debacle. Hell... best case from my perspective would be that we all had chlorophyll on every inch of our skin and could leech the necessary energy we needed to survive from the light of the sun like the plants do. You want efficiency of design... there it is. Feed on one of the energy sources you have available to you that is free and in play a great deal of the time. I mean, just think if humans didn't have to compete for energy resources like food, which also, in our case, tends to require land and many other resources for cultivating. Just imagine if, with our mobility still in play, all we had to do was go walk to the stream for a drink every once in a while, and otherwise, all our food needs were taken care of simply by being outside. How much less competition and strife would humans cause one another? If all you needed was a few square feet of space in an open field to feed? That's a HUGE lot of human competition and introduced strife that would just be wiped off of our plates. With the ability of plants to do what they do, and the idea that such energy conversion mechanisms literally exist for other living things to take advantage of, and all that really differs between us is the cellular level of activity and how it is all configured together (I mean, the fact that our DNA is a large percentage matched to bananas should be a pretty good indicator of how plausible it likely is for any given life-form to have just about any demonstrated mechanism for survival), one would almost have to conclude that if there is a "designer" of humankind, then they designed us to have to compete for resources on the much more dire level we experience now as a species.
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
If mankind is still around in a million years or so, he will be a very different animal than we are to day.
What those changes will be is anyone's guess. we may not even still be top dog. Some other species may have overtaken us. and we degenerated and nearly extinct. Who knows what God's plan really is? if he actually has one.
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
Agreed! This is the most likely case based on what we can perceive and infer about our past, current and what may be our future conditions.
Also agreed here - that seems entirely within the realm of possibility given all that we have observed has and does go on within the confines of Earth's atmosphere.
And here we diverge quite a lot. These sentences assume that there is a god. Perhaps that wasn't your intent - but ESPECIALLY if it was not your intent to assume there was a god, do you see how pervasive these types of thoughts have become? How indoctrinated toward these types of thoughts people have continually made one another? The real question is "who knows whether there is a god?" And, once we have somehow determined there IS a god, then we might go on to rationally discuss whether or not this god we have found to exist "has a plan" or not. That's the prudent course of action. Not, at all, simply assuming a god exists. Not hardly.
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
I was replying to @KenS who most definitely thinks in terms of "God" I am not about to disillusion him on that, and probably not much else either. I am totally agnostic about the possibility or nature of God. I am quite able to encompass that possibility in my reply, with out making any associated concessions.
Unlike many suppositions, God either is or is not. The questions that can follow that, are endless. and suit the nature of this forum.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
Maybe check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungf...osest living,were abundant since the Triassic.
RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Intake your story as evidence that we do not live in a hostile universe, therefore there is reason to be optimistic about my own chances of survival, should I too become embroiled in a peanut-windpipe drama
I can see that the two of us will not be able to meet together on this one since I can and I do know it to be true. I can be as certain as you are certain that it is not true.
You say that I "want to believe" but that cuts both ways.
But, in reality, in the scope of our lives,it won't matter because God isn't changing it in our lifetime and evolution isn't changing it either (whatever our philosophical world view is)