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A Wing and A Walkingstick

There is one aspect of the design debate the Neo-Paleyists rarely discuss, and that is the issue of observable purpose in the design of species, particularly when they are talking about certain designed elements or features.

Walkingstick Insects

See Figure 1 from Nature 421, 264 - 267 (16 January 2003); doi:10.1038/nature01313 (reproduced below)

Walkingstick insects originally started out as wingless insects (blue at start and top row). That diversified.

And some gained wings (red). And diversified.

And some lost wings (blue again). And diversified.

And one gained wings again (Lapaphus parakensis, below, red again).

And this doesn't even address the ones where one sex (usually male) has wings and the other sex doesn't (the red includes these, so it is hard to determine from this graphic how many times the female sex gained and lost wings independent of the winged males).

From a Design standpoint, this is not intelligent design, it is either "Make up your #*! mind" design, or it is classic "Now you see it now you don't" silliness.

To pursue this point a little further, we need to look at the elements of good design, determine what the use of basic practices of good design would result in, and then see whether or not these results are incorporated or observable in overwhelming degree in known organisms.

Design, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

A good starting point for discussing what makes good design is to go to the professional designers.

First there is Systems Design Engineering:

"Systems design engineering refers to the definition, analysis, and modeling of complex interactions among many components that comprise a natural system (such as an ecosystem and human settlement) or artificial system (such as a spacecraft or intelligent robot), and the design and implementation of the system with proper and effective use of available resources. ... It is a unique blend of a systems philosophy and a creative problem- solving and design framework. ... The challenges ... require the ability to cross disciplines easily in order to use technology and research results"

And we can look at the process of design (from Wikipedia):

"Design as a process can take many forms depending on the object being designed and the individual or individuals participating.

In the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture and other such creative endeavors, design is both a noun and a verb. Design in its verb context is the process of originating and developing a plan for an aesthetic and functional object, which usually requires considerable research, thought, modeling, iterative adjustment and re-design."

Or a codified design process:

• The Problem (define the goal of the design)
• The Design Brief (describe simply and clearly what is to be designed)
• Investigation (define the parameters of the design)
• Developing Alternative Solutions ("brainstorming")
• Choosing a Solution (summarize the design requirements and solutions and evaluate the best solutions)
• Models and Prototypes (flesh out the design)
• Testing and Evaluating (does it work? does it meet the design need? can it be improved?)
• Manufacturing (put it into production)

Good design often involves a reiteration process at any stage before final production that goes back to earlier steps, redefines those steps and then proceeds to a new final design. This is often referred to by various terms, such as Design Feedback Cycle, Design Spiral, the Design Circle and the like.

Likewise, design of a new product does not begin from scratch, but takes elements of previous designs, or combines elements from other designs together in new ways, and then adapts or refines them to new uses.

The elements of good design then are:

1. Integrated systems approach to ensure that the final design does what it is supposed to do and is fully compatible with the environment where it will be used,
2. Optimized, efficient and user friendly with a minimum of extraneous features and waste products,
3. Combination of new features with refined features of previous designs that are applicable, freely taking from multiple sources to combine the best features of relevant previous designs.

More specifically, what we would see in biological systems, if there were intentional and intelligent design of organisms, would be:

• Organism completely in tune with it's environment, adapted to predictable variations with immediate changes at the individual level ,
• No broken, unworkable, useless or vestigial features,
• New organisms that combine features of several previous organisms, rather than just modification of old ones.

We don't see this.

When we see change in response to variations in environment, the adaptation is piecemeal, fickle, and takes several generations to become effective, and then when the environment reverts, it takes generations again to return to previous form. The adaptation of Galapagos (Daphne Major Island) Finches to drought (heavier beak) and reversion (smaller beak) when the drought ended are a case in point, particularly when this same kind of variation in environment has been observed in the past ⁽¹⁾. An intelligent design would have allowed the individual finches to change beak size as needed for the conditions. For insects like the walkingsticks above, an intelligent design would allow the individual to molt to gain wings (as individual insects of other species do at certain stages of development) or drop wings when they are no longer necessary (as the "king" and "queen" ants and termites do), so that one superior design would occupy all the niches now occupied by 39.

There are numerous examples of vestigial or useless feature in species. The tailbone in apes, which can be completely removed from humans with no loss of any functionality for the individual and no long term complications ⁽²⁾, and the appendix, that no longer serves any digestive purpose ⁽³⁾ and can get infected to the point of threatening death to a significant portion of the population if not treated (to cite but two examples), can hardly be called evidence of good design.

Finally, there are no examples of features combined from different previous sources. Take the eye for example: in the article Investigator: Eye's Silly Design ⁽⁴⁾, there are two different eyes with very similar outward features, the human eye and the octopus eye. Ignoring for now the issue of the human retina facing the wrong way, there is one aspect here that shows an absolute failure to improve the basic design: there are two different completely functional methods to focus the image in these eyes. One system (human) changes the focal length of the lens and the other system (octopus) moves the retina into the space where the image in question is focused. If good design practices were being used, these would be combined into one eye to allow the organism to have "zoom" vision by changing the focal length and relocating the retina to the new focal location. This would also make glasses totally unnecessary - by design.

Alternatives

One alternative is {evolution\darwinism} as espoused by the {evolutionist\darwinist} faction. Because this process relies on random processes and selection events it's result would show no design purpose or process.

Another alternative, put forth by the Silly Design Institute ⁽⁵⁾, is that the purpose of these features is Silly Design for some cosmic entertainment value. First consider that at the beginning we discussed insects that look like sticks, and then fly. Then consider that humans joke about the coccyx, the appendix, and bad eyesight. Thus even people recognize that these features posses an innate, high Silliness Index.

The only other conclusion would be that these features are the result of bumbling and incompetent "Intelligent Designers" in training (IDITs) that are barely able to stay in the program, but who have been given free reign on our corner of the universe. Now that would be a silly hypothesis eh?

Conclusion:

Using the actual tools of intentional, practical design procedures to evaluate the evidence of design in nature shows that the basic practices and effects of good design are not incorporated. Further, using these results to be able to discern whether the result is (a) a Natural Nothing (NaNo), (b) an Intelligent Designer (IDr) or (c) a Cosmic Imp (CImp), shows that the Neo-Paleyanism "Intelligent Designer" concept cannot be considered a valid concept regarding these features, or any like them.

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1. Grant, Peter. Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches. 1999 edition, Princeton University Press.
2. Miles, Jon. Summary of the results of seven studies of coccygectomy for the treatment of coccydynia. On-line article, Updated 1999-05-08
3. Open source. Vermiform appendix. Wikipedia On-line article, no date.
4. RAZD. Investigator: Eye's Silly Design. Silly Design Institute, On-line article, no date.
5. RAZD. The Silly Design Institute (vision, mission and theory). Silly Design Institute, On-line article, no date.

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