Now I am not a scientist, but I do feel that I am a fairly intelligent individual and feel that logic thought is one of my strong points.

One of my biggest problems is that creationists and evolutionist alike seem to fall into the same trap of bashing the others ideas (most times using the other sides worst arguments i.e. CREATIONIST the second law of thermodynamics proves there is a god. EVOLUTIONIST Radiometric dating proves evolution) and sometimes getting down right personal at the other persons idea “some people attribute these to natural processes and others attribute them to magical sky fairy”, I feel that we are all to arrogant and have this childish need to argue a point that none of us are really equipped to argue, because lets be honest no one can say with 100% surety as to how we were a) created b) evolved, and most times reading between the lines this never seems like an argument to find the truth, it appears more like ” there is a God” “There is not”.

here is the thing, I have read every post here (the video was unavailable, so I could not view it) however this is not a discussion, this seems to be more of a childish game on who is write and who is wrong) I myself am interested in learning, however this seems very counter productive to finding out the truth, to working together, sharing ideas and making our own opinions based on that, and not bashing someone for his opinion.

Some seem to be here for the discussion, to learn more and to share ideas, but can we leave out the snide remarks that are there to boost our own egos?

Fascinating bit about the eye.

Yes, the list is tongue-in-cheek. Sometimes you just need to play a bit.

I might’ve responded sooner if the darned spam-filter hadn’t kept spiking me.

Even if the human eye isn’t the best eye in the world, we still have an eye that functions best for us. Of course, it’s an adaptation from our primate ancestors with some modifications that worked best with us.

But the fact remains that each species has body constructs best suited for it. No body design is “optimal”: what works good enough is all that is needed.

As for finally removing the appendix from the human body: all that has to happen is that a great many persons with susceptible appendices (one that would easily clog and get infected) get appendicitis and die before reproduction, thereby leaving the non-appendix humans to breed better. But since we have modern medicine, I got to live.

(Before someone get their thong in a bunch, I am only illustrating a point and in no way condone eugenics. Nor do I advocate a pogrom against appendix-carrying humans.)

Lastly, I wear corrective lenses. Although a separate issue from the light-sensitive pigmens, the fact that my eyes still work despite obvious imperfections (myopia and astigmatism) shows that as long as it works somewhat, it’s good enough for me.

And Paley’s Watchmaker remains an idiot. (I thought I’d let that bit of snark remain.)

Fair enough to hate liars. Lying is stupid. It makes you look like a liar. ;p

But hating ‘creationist liars’ is one thing. Hating someone that might argue certain points of ‘creation vs evolution’ is another thing. Arguing a point is not lying. I can see however that there is a large community of ‘creationist liars’, that is, they have an agenda. They seem to want to trick people into believing their point of view regardless of obvious scientific fact. Hating these sort of ‘creationists’ is fair enough.

I still find it strange that many people still want to bundle all these people together with other people that have a view point regarding creation. (whether you can argue it as right or wrong) The latter are not lying, they are just exploring other ideas. Whether they are right or wrong, calling all ‘creationists’ liars, is a bit unfair. This is the part I have difficulty with. So again I would ask if anyone has a definitive explanation as to what actually constitutes a ‘creationist’. If you argue that it is anyone that believes in creation, fine, but by doing so you need to differentiate between lying creationists with an agenda, and other sorts, like the ones that still support evolutionary theory for example. Sure they might just be wrong, but thats not the point, being wrong does not mean you are lying and have an evil agenda, it just means you are wrong. Hatred in science does not really help anyone. It just panders to the human ego.

I think you guys are arguing the same side of different issues.

I think the issue here is really in Richard H’s intitial list of “poorly ‘designed’ features” on the human body… which, in my opinion, was somewhat meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and not necessarily a jumping-off point for a serious debate on designed vs. evolved… that’s how I took it anyhow, and why I included “wisdom teeth” to the list… I was just extending the tongue-in-cheekiness to something I could really do without… just my opinion, anyhow…

I’m not sure you’re getting the big picture here.

The listing above contains this particular entry:
Richard H: “Shall we gather a list of stupid “designs” … 3. Backwards facing light-sensitive cells”

It is this claim that is being questioned. Back facing light-sensitive cells are not “backwards” (backwards in this context implies that a reversal results in an improvement, but here we have a case where a reversal results in worse vision, not better vision). The specifics directly involve the feature of color vision (if humans didn’t have color vision, the location of the pigments wouldn’t be such an issue). I wrote a very lengthy, detailed, and factually accurate (if not, simply correct me) explanation for why this is the case.

Connect the dots now, please. I didn’t bring up color vision as yet another random better feature the human eyes have over octopus eyes. Color vision and back facing pigments go together. I also never claimed that you did say something about trading eyes (and am therefore baffled why you would rebut this way), but the point to the trade scenario is precisely to bring up a realistic metric of “better”. Using this metric, human vision (with the color vision, improved by the specific chromatic abberation reducing back facing pigments) is better than octopus vision (with the forward facing pigments, and no color vision).

Therefore:

“Why would you give an Octoups better features than a Human unless you are an Octopoid designer?”

…makes no sense. Taking the specific feature of forward facing pigments in octopus vision, and adding that to human color vision, results in a visual design that is worse than both human and octopus vision.

Defending evolution is nowhere near as important as defending scientific thinking, so should a falsifiable claim come up (say, that back facing pigments are automatically inferior to forward facing pigments), and be falsified (by pointing out how back facing pigments can actually have positive contributions to better vision than forward facing pigments), you should just toss it out like a good scientist.

Well, clearly the Intelligent Designer(s) has a team of contractors working under him/her/it/them, each interpreting the draft plans differently for their projects.

Why doesn’t the human eye have the good bits of the Octopus eye?

Surely if it had been designed by the same person it would have the same construction and function? Whgy would you give an Octoups better features than a Human unless you are an Octopoid designer?

We have differences because our eyes evolved independantly, we can only inherit what our ancestors had, It’s a long way back since we had a common ancestor with an Octopus.