FR Debate: Intelligent Design vs. Birth Defects, Can They Be Reconciled?

Discovery Health & Multiple Medical Sites ^ | 11/11/05

[Wolfstar]

Each year in the United States, about 150,000 babies are born with birth defects ranging from mild to life threatening. While progress has been made in the detection and treatment of birth defects, they remain the leading cause of death in the first year of life. Birth defects are often the result of genetic and environmental factors, but the causes of well over half of all birth defects are currently unknown.

Following is a partial list of birth defects:

Achondroplasia/Dwarfism	Hemochromatosis
Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency	Huntington's Disease
Anencephaly	Hydrocephalus
Arnold-Chiari Malformation	Klinefelter's Syndrome
Ataxia Telangiectasia	Leukodystrophies
Blood coagulation disorders/Hemophilia	Marfan Syndrome
Brain malformations/genetic brain disorders	Metabolic disorders
Canavan Disease	Muscular Dystrophy
Cancer: Neonatal, newborn, infant and childhood	Neural tube defects/Spina Bifida
Cerebral Palsy	Neurofibromatosis
Cleft lip and palate	Niemann-Pick Disease
Club foot/club hand	Osteogenesis Imperfecta (brittle bone disease)
Congenital heart disease	Phenylketonuria
Conjoined twins	Prader-Willi Syndrome
Cystic Fibrosis	Progeria (advanced aging in children)
Down Syndrome	Sickle Cell Anemia
Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome	Spinal Muscular Atrophy
Eye, ear and speech defects	Tay-Sachs Disease
Fragile X Syndrome	Tuberous Sclerosis
Gaucher's Disease	Turner's Syndrome
Genital and urinary tract defects	Wilson's Disease

Some birth/genetic defects, such as near-sightedness, are mild and do not affect the person's ability to lead a normal life. Others are so severe that the person has no chance to even live. Efficiency and economy are part of intelligently designed systems. If the "design" of human systems is so intelligent, why do tragic inefficiencies such as the following occur at all? Warning, the linked photos are graphic medical images, and are very, very sad.

Conjoined twins, i.e., monozygous twinning in which there is fusion of the twins. The popular term is "Siamese" twins. This happens when identical twin embryos become fused together during the very early stages of development. Conjoined twins occur in an estimated one in 200,000 births, with approximately half being stillborn. Here are links to three photos of severely conjoined twins:

Photo 1: one head, two bodies

Photo 2: essentially one torso between two babies

Photo 3: profound fusion

Neural tube defects are are one of the more common congenital anomalies. Such defects result from improper embryonic neural tube closure. The most minimal defect is called spina bifida, with failure of the vertebral body to completely form, but the defect is not open. Open neural tube defects with lack of a skin covering, can include a meningocele, in which meninges protrude through the defect. Here is a link to a severe neural tube defect.

Photo 4

Defects of the head/brain: In the linked photo a large encephalocele that merges with the scalp above is protruding from the back of the head. The encephalocele extends down to partially cover a rachischisis on the back. This baby also has a retroflexed head from iniencephaly.

Photo 5

The form of neural tube defect in the next linked photo is known as exencephaly. The cranial vault is not completely present, but a brain is present because it was not completely exposed to amniotic fluid. Such an event is very rare. It may be part of craniofacial clefts associated with the limb-body wall complex, which results from early amnion disruption.

Photo 6

Congenital and pediatric neoplasms: One type that can occur is a teratoma. The next linked photo shows a large nasopharyngeal teratoma that is protruding from the oral cavity.

Photo 7

Tumors: In the next linked photo there is a large mass involving the left upper arm and left chest of the baby. This congenital neoplasm turned out to be a lymphangioma. This baby and the one in Photo 9 were essentially riddled with cancer before birth and shortly afterwards.

Photo 8

Next is a gross neuroblastoma arising in the right adrenal gland. It is the most common pediatric malignancy in infancy, and 75% of cases are diagnosed in children less than 4 years old. These tumors most often present as an abdominal or mediastinal mass.

Photo 9

[hosepipe]

[ You've jus made a lot of parent's day. ]

You can pick your nose but you cannot pick your relatives especially your ancestors.. Some gene pools have been pee'ed in.. possibly ALL gene pools have been pee'ed in..

[zeeba neighba]

No, I lurk on your threads. Whenever you guys run out of argument, then you accuse every single person of lying. It can be a preacher, a little homemaker from Kentucky who wouldn't lie if she had a mouthful, or it can be God Himself. They all lie. You guys though are paragons of virtue.

[Farmer Dean]

Why not-don't expect creation to be perfectly self correcting when it is not functioning in it's originally intended realm.all of creation groans under the weight of sin in the world.

[Wolfstar]

My understanding is that intelligent design theory pivots on the principle of irreducible complexity at the molecular level. To proponents of ID, IC describes molecular processes and systems that fail when any element of the process or system is defective or missing. It seems to me that birth defects could be potential illustrations of such failure.
Does the existence of birth defects prove that any potential designer wasn't very intelligent? Good question. Does the existence of death do the same thing?

Thank you so very much, Tom Bombadil. This is exactly the kind of information I hoped to obtain. I must say that I don't understand your first paragraph; not due to the way it was written, but to my own lack of a scientific education. Is there a way you can explain it for a layman?

Does the existence of birth defects prove that any potential designer wasn't very intelligent? Good question. Does the existence of death do the same thing?

I chose birth defects with which to frame my question, but your question about the existence of death -- even the existence of so many ways to die -- is also pertinent.

[Wolfstar]

I'm not sure Wolfstar was ridiculing...

Thank you, heartwood. I wasn't. You're question, "Why were they created to die so soon," is heartbreaking. What I was hoping is that people who believe in ID could explain their point of view about such tragedies in the context of the theory.

[js1138]

Why don't you just ping heartwood and ask her whether she or her parents or grandparents engaged in "long term inbreeding and incest... or chronic drug abuse including alcohol"?

Since sins only affect us unto the third or fourth generation, it shouldn't be hard to track down.

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . . particulary when the people doing it are motivated by religion.

Who is not motivated by religion? Why should perjury be considered "interesting?" Like birth defects, it is a sad fact of life. Maybe you consider it "interesting" to gaze upon open wounds. Maybe you like to roll around in other people's lies like a pig in filth. You may think yourself above perjury, and maybe you are. But you are not above death itself. Unless, of course, you are morally perfect from birth.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

There is no standard of morality anyone can hold an athiest to.

[zeeba neighba]

/there's something really wrong with you

[highlander_UW]

"Soon it will be a sin of parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children."

Why do these scientists think we should take them seriously when they reveal their hypocrisy in their own statements. If it's a sin, then they accept an objective moral standard outside themselves such as God. But if they did accept God then they would value life as a creation in the image of God. So these scientists are hypocrites from the very start.

The scientist's concerns about the "quality" of our children is just a code phrase for genetic selections. the problem is, whose genetic ideal is to be followed? Clearly Hitler lead the way in their mindset with the pure Aryan race and his efforts to pay attention to the "quality" of our children. These scientists are nothing more than latter day Nazis at heart...but would rather couch their bigotry as concern.

[Wolfstar]

I strongly believe this is a transcendent purpose within the intelligent design. This means that deformities (as we see them) are part of that ironic process whereby we recognize our limits of judgment.

Not a challenge, but a legitimate attempt to understand: Does the ID theory hold that what we may see as deformities or flaws are not really flaws at all, but merely a means to instruct us in our limitations?

[js1138]

You guys though are paragons of virtue

Scientists are not more truthful than other people because they are better people, but because they face a 100 percent chance of being caught, at least in their professional lives.

[Wolfstar]

Are you the Wolfstar who does the marvelous photo series, "A Day in the Life of President Bush?"

I am merely one of the several volunteer custodians of that daily thread.

[Fester Chugabrew]

You lie in stating you are "amused." You are angry at the slightest suggestion you may be morally inferior to anyone but yourself. The grave is not an "implied" threat. Ask Adam. Ask anyone. Or do you have a doctor who with the answer to all birth defects?

[TMSuchman]

Ok, Then I have this to add; to those who believe in GOD,there is more than enough evidense for HIM. For those who do not believe; there is never will be enough evidense, for them to believe.

I for one have to believe, my son has taught me that. :)

[Liberty Wins]

Wolfstar, you are too intelligent not to believe in a higher Power, and you have thrown us a Doozy.

I have no hope of being able to understand how we got here. But maybe the real question is, why are we here? If we are here to make money and collect toys, then no amount of discussion about the Big Bang or evolution has any meaning because we are only the product of the material world and cease to exist when we die.

However, put yourself in the place of an all-powerful Being. If you wanted to send your children to a school where they would develop and grow, would you put them in a soft, protective environment, or rather a place where they would be challenged? Maybe the whole purpose of tragedy is our reaction to it.

[Wolfstar]

No you aren't.

TN4Liberty, you really shouldn't go about calling someone a liar when you don't have any reason to do so.

I am very interested in exploring the concept of intelligent design. How can it's proponents hope to gain wide acceptance of the theory without being prepared to discuss and explain it cooly and rationally?

[js1138]

There is no standard of morality anyone can hold an athiest to.

I have no practical way of separating actual Christians from hypocrites. In my experience the public profession of faith is not an indicator of trustworthiness.

[Tailgunner Joe]

New Study Fuels Controversy Over Down Syndrome Abortions - "What I see today in America is in many respects the repeat of the eugenics era of American history back in the early 1900s, where infants were allowed to starve to death because they had deformities or abnormalities, where it was suggested that people who did not have the appropriate brain power should be sterilized or not allowed to have children"

[TMSuchman]

Then let the fight begin here. I will defend my family to the death of many of those who will try to condem my son & family!