Re: Fwd: Nature article on ID

> From: Iain Strachan <igd.strachan@gmail.com>
> Date: May 2, 2005 1:53 PM
> Subject: Re: Nature article on ID
> To: Robert Schneider <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
>
>
> I believe it was Alfred North Whitehead who wrote that the purpose of
> > evolution is to maximize beauty. I was struck immediately by the
> force of
> > that statement and believe it to be true (though not the whole
> truth).
>
>
> I have a problem here. Is Cancer the product of evolution? Is
> depression the
> product of evolution? I have read a number of books on depression (e.g.
> Lewis Wolpert's "Malignant Sadness", and Paul Gilbert's book on
> Cognitive
> behaviour therapy), and it is frequently argued that depression is in
> fact
> an adaptive feature that has evolutionary origins. But, since I speak
> to
> many people with depression, I would not describe it as beautiful at
> all -
> it is a horrible thing that sucks all the colour and zest out of your
> life
> and makes you want to lie down and die. It leaves your head full of
> racing
> anxious thoughts and delusions that you can't escape from. It is surely
> one
> of the most ugly things there is.
>
> Iain

There are also some decidedly "ugly" adaptaions in the natural world. Spotted hyneas
begin intense fighting withing seconds after birth, sometimes literally while one is
emerging from the amniotic sac. They continue this all through the newborn period and it
almost inevitably leads to the slow death of one sibling before weaning, as the weaker
sibling gets less access to foosd and wounds become infected.
Young ale lions who successfully displace a leader of a new tribe typically kill all the
nursing cubs, which brings their mothers into heat and always him to mate and get them
pregnant with his offspring. In some shark species, the first to hatch cannabilizes all the
siblings in the mothers womb. And I study a species of shrew where the female fights
intensely with the male before mating; often giving him a bloody nose in the process.

It's easy to see how all those processes improve fitness by weeding out the weak, but
hardly in a beautiful way.

I have a similar problem with ID: Take a so-called irreducibly complex structure like a
bacteria flagellum and say "we can't explain how it's put together, so it must be an act of
an intelligent creator. Certain evangelicals pounce on that as "See! God did it! Get that
theory into science class!"

Wha happens when you find some of these irreducibly complex structures in a cancer cell,
a deadly bacteria, a lethal virus, a mad-cow-disease causing prion? Are they also signs of
Intelligent design and, by extension, a acts of God?

Going to back to the beetles, would we consider their complexities (e.g. squirting acid as a
defense mechanism) as signs of God's fondness for the species if they were routinely used
to kill *us*?

Louise
Received on Wed May 4 08:20:31 2005