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13 Questions Evolution Can Answer, Intelligent Design Cannot
Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub ^ | Steve Bratteng

Posted on 02/12/2009 10:24:51 AM PST by steve-b

Stephen Bratteng, a biology teacher at Westwood High School in Austin put this together. I got the list from him when I heard him testify in favor of solid science in biology textbooks, in hearings before the Texas State Board of Education in 2003:

1. Why does giving vitamin and mineral supplements to undernourished anemic individuals cause so many of them to die of bacterial infections?

2. Why did Dr. Heimlich have to develop a maneuver to dislodge food particles from people’s wind pipes?

3. Why does each of your eyes have a blind spot and strong a tendency toward retinal detachment? But a squid whose eyesight is just as sharp does not have these flaws?

4. Why are depression and obesity at epidemic levels in the United States?

5. When Europeans came to the Americas, why did 90 percent of the Native Americans die of European diseases but not many Europeans died of American diseases?

6. Why do pregnant women get morning sickness?

7. Why do people in industrialized countries have a greater tendency to get Crohn’s disease and asthma?

8. Why does malaria still kill over a million people each year?

9. Why are so many of the product Depends sold each year?

10. Why do people given anti-diarrheal medication take twice as long to recover from dysentery as untreated ones?

11. Why do people of European descent have a fairly high frequency of an allele that can make them resistant to HIV infection?

12. Why do older men often have urinary problems?

13. And why do so many people in Austin get cedar fever?


(Excerpt) Read more at timpanogos.wordpress.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science
KEYWORDS: biology; evolution; id; science
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To: davidlachnicht
If EVOLUTION is logical, they most of these things shouldn’t exist under ‘Darwin’ either.

Well there you go. One of the best arguments for evolution is the obvious evidence that many features are the way they are because they got there by small, incremental changes, rather than top down design.

21 posted on 02/12/2009 10:34:54 AM PST by js1138
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To: steve-b
This list is the same sort of asininity that the "evolutionist" side so properly derides when the creationist side brings it up.

Bottom line: just because your opponents say idiotic things, doesn't mean that you cannot also say idiotic things.

Just to make the point more rationally: the fact that undeniably designed things eventually wear out, does not alter the fact that they were designed.

22 posted on 02/12/2009 10:35:02 AM PST by r9etb
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To: SkyDancer
If 80% of body heat goes out the top of your head why are there so many bald men? Evolution should make all people have thick hair on their heads ..... why can’t evolution answer that?

What about summer?

Bald heads do have an advantage, being bald allows you to make more Vitamin D, which means stronger bones to stay fit longer and live longer to make more babies.

23 posted on 02/12/2009 10:35:09 AM PST by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: kc8ukw
Intelligent design is just an attempt to develop a scientific method that can detect design. That’s it.

No it's not.
24 posted on 02/12/2009 10:35:47 AM PST by Filo (Darwin was right!)
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To: Names Ash Housewares
Why fight like cats and dogs over it?

And who said it has to be an either/or question in the first place?

25 posted on 02/12/2009 10:35:48 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: steve-b

There is no reason that both ideas can’t coexist.
Believe what you want you’ll find out in the end or not.


26 posted on 02/12/2009 10:35:57 AM PST by voveo
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To: frogjerk
Where is the center of the universe then?

Where is the center of the surface of a sphere?

27 posted on 02/12/2009 10:36:21 AM PST by js1138
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To: steve-b
Nice try, but these are each easily answered by creationists, if not the ID crowd. And many have better answers in an ID framework than evolution does anyway. Take # 8 for example:

8. Why does malaria still kill over a million people each year?

Dr. Michael Behe has a good extended discussion of malaria in The Edge of Evolution that underscores the fact that evolution can only produce trivial changes. Malaria and attempts (natural and engineered) to fight it present an excellent case study in understanding what evolution can and cannot do. It is clear that the malaria pathogen itself is a designed organism. It's just minor features within the genome that are varying to produce various features such as antibiotic resistance, and that generally due to degeneration of a design feature.

Of course, it's not like evolutionists actually asked their opposition about this list before publishing it. They just make things up and imagine it must be so. Sigh...

28 posted on 02/12/2009 10:36:53 AM PST by Liberty1970 (Democrats are not in control. God is. And Thank God for that!)
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To: steve-b

So I guess his point was that God should have created a perfect universe instead of one with flaws.

I am no huge fan of ID, but philosophically this guy’s argument is garbage.


29 posted on 02/12/2009 10:37:09 AM PST by Jeliota
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To: Filo

I think that’s a pretty good definition. Maybe more specifically, it’s generally only applied to organisms, although examples used to support the idea that design is detectable are taken from other areas. How would you define it?


30 posted on 02/12/2009 10:37:38 AM PST by kc8ukw
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To: qam1

OK but they probably went bald after they got married ... unless they have lots of money ..... :)


31 posted on 02/12/2009 10:38:47 AM PST by SkyDancer ("Talent Without Ambition Is Sad, Ambition Without Talent Is Worse")
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To: js1138
Where is the center of the surface of a sphere?

Trick question? Wouldn't any point on the surface of a sphere be an equally valid center?

32 posted on 02/12/2009 10:39:36 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (Obama must be the Antichrist. No one else would work so hard to destroy the US.)
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To: Filo
Intelligent design is just an attempt to develop a scientific method that can detect design. That’s it.

No it's not.

That's exactly what it is, in technical terms. Anyone can read the leading works like Dembski's The Design Inference to see this is bluntly the case. People need to understand that opposition to ID is literally a denial of the existence of engineers and factories. And there are plenty of in-context quotes from Darwinian fundamentalists that, applied consistently, prove this.

Someday some rogue scientist is going to engineer a pathogen and release it. And the NAS and other evolutionary fundamentalist organizations are going to quickly declare that it is illegitimate to believe the organism was modified by an UNKNOWN INTELLIGENT DESIGNER, because that would be "religion." At least, that would be the case if they are consistent.

33 posted on 02/12/2009 10:40:12 AM PST by Liberty1970 (Democrats are not in control. God is. And Thank God for that!)
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To: js1138
Where is the center of the universe then? Where is the center of the surface of a sphere?

I don't argue that the earth is the center of the universe but you argue the proposition that "the earth is not the center of the universe" but you give no answer where it is.

34 posted on 02/12/2009 10:42:06 AM PST by frogjerk (It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish - Mother Teresa)
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To: js1138
There are freepers in good standing who seriously argue that the earth is at the center of the universe.

Here is an illustration of the above statement:

35 posted on 02/12/2009 10:42:25 AM PST by AreaMan
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To: steve-b
If you found an IPhone in the desert, would you insist on a naturalistic explanation?

What if it even included a manual on how it was made?

36 posted on 02/12/2009 10:44:06 AM PST by DrewsDad (Somebody set up us Obama)
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To: steve-b

How do you know that the Designer can’t answer these?


37 posted on 02/12/2009 10:46:51 AM PST by TravisBickle (Are you talkin' to me?)
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To: steve-b

Number 16. If we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?


38 posted on 02/12/2009 10:48:19 AM PST by NTHockey (Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners.)
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To: AreaMan
It isn't a strawman when it is an accurate representation of the truth.

There are creationists posters on FR who insist that the Sun circles the Earth.

I can direct you to several threads if you doubt this.

39 posted on 02/12/2009 10:51:32 AM PST by allmendream ("Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?")
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To: NTHockey

If Americans came from Europeans, why are there still Europeans?


40 posted on 02/12/2009 10:52:20 AM PST by allmendream ("Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be redistributed?")
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