PV Gap

Edna Said:

How Gay do you have to be to Intelligent Design a solar system with rings around Uranus?

We Answered:

ROFL!

Ruth Said:

How many un-Intelligent aspects can you name about the Design of our bodies, planet and/or solar system?

We Answered:

I give two examples at the end of this post.

But first, a comment to miknave, who wrote: "I love the rules of the debate, bad/poor design can only be used to disprove Intelligence, never to disprove Evolution, good design never is proof of Intelligence always proof of evolution."

Yes! That's is precisely the problem with Intelligent Design as a theory!

The fundamental premise of ID is that suitability of a structure for a given function, is evidence of a designer with foresight ... i.e. an intelligent designer that perceives a function, and designs a structure for that purpose. But you can't have it both ways! That premise leads to a corollary ... that the extent that a structure is a *poor* design to achieve its function, must then be considered *counter-evidence* of the intelligent designer. ID is hoisted by its own petard.

Evolution, as a theory, is not so hampered by the need for perfect "design". Because evolution does not involve foresight, all manners of suitabilty of structure to function would be expected. Nature shows all sorts of bizarre solutions that indicate a structure once used for one function, re-used for something completely different, or once-useful structures that have lost any function whatsoever.

Example 1: The inner ear bones of mammals seem to be repurposed from the same bones found in the hinged jaws of reptiles. The result is a bizarre "design" for a hearing aparatus, that doesn't make sense as the work of an intelligent designer, but makes great sense as the work of evolution making do with materials it has on hand.

Example 2: The plantaris muscle in the human calf is completely useless, and in fact completely absent in 9% of humans, and therefore completely unexplainable from an Intelligent Design point of view. It only makes sense from the point of view of Evolution, as we notice that the same muscle in other primates is important for *grasping with the feet*.

Oscar Said:

HOW could we design an effective economical solar tracker system?

We Answered:

Four small solar panels, two small DC motors and a little bit of mechanics. Really easy. And pretty useless. In practice most simple tracker systems just dead-estimate the position of the sun based on an initial calibration of location and installation angle. The sun is a very reliable customer. A few simple formulas from astronomy allow one to tell where it will be at any time of the day for centuries in advance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_track…

Here is a hobby electronics solution. Simple but probably quite good:

http://pages.prodigy.net/rich_demartile/

A bit more advanced

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses…

Google will give you many more hits.

Mathew Said:

Design a solar system of the universe on your computer system by taking one star and eight planets that fulfil?

We Answered:

Capler? Who is Capler? I though the orbits were done with Kapler's Law?

By the way, do your own programming homework.