The Prostate - A nail in the coffin of ID

"Intelligent Design" is

the term used for the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

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While evolution is

the process of change in all forms of life over generations

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The implication being that if ID is the predominant influence, then there is nothing to go wrong, because life forms have been designed intelligently, while if evolution is the predominant influence, then at any point in time what exists is what has been tried and works, however flawed it may be.

Enter the human prostate. This is a gland in human (and other mammalian) males that has a variety of functions. For the purpose of this discussion, the issue of interest is that the human prostate surrounds the urethra, which is the passage used to eliminate urinary waste from the human male body.

In later stages of human male life, the prostate tends to enlarge. Not necessarily anything wrong with it when it does so, it just tends to enlarge over time (of course, there MAY be other issues contributing to this).

This enlargement causes restriction to the urethra, which in turn causes issues with elimination of waste from the body, which in turn can cause infections and other undesirable effects.

This behavior of the human prostate is a counter example to the idea of Intelligent Design - any physical system "Intelligently Designed" would not include such a gland, or would have situated it differently or would not include the tendancy to enlarge over time.

On the other hand, this tendancy is an excellent demonstration of evolutionary forces at work - enlargement does not normally occur in early years of human life, and it is only in the last dozen or so decades that humans have consistently lived long enough for this to become a noticed issue. In other words, the design, function and behavior of the prostate demonstrates a system that is "good enough", not one that is "designed".

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic


I just don't see it.

I don't believe ID supporters would claim or even expect that something designed intelligently would be perfect and without flaw.

You make the case that the prostate serves many functions, but you neglect to mention the primary one....

Its primary role is to produce the fluid portion of semen (the substance that protects and transports sperm as it travels out of the penis).

That's right, the prostate is crucial for human reproduction.

The fact that it enlarges is an unfortunate occurrence, but I don't believe it to be some flaw of ID.

After all, that's why evolution has led us to this....

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5f8eb33399bf.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic


problem with arguing body design elements is we still don't know enough about how all the systems interact, nor how the coding of various proteins and terminators, work, to be certain the system was or wasn't properly designed to do the job it was meant to do.

for example, if you were going to code a series of self-replicating programs to all inhabit a set space on your computer disk, you would necessarily (logically so) also code in a terminator so that the disk didn't become unnecessarily full or overburdened by older instances of the same program.

the self-replicating program could've been made a regenerative program instead. without self-replication, the need for a terminator code is removed from consideration. this, however, only provides an answer in certain types of functions - those that don't require more than one program to be working at the same job, simultaneously.

an example of this is the need to have constantly self-replicating food sources. even if you were the only human self-regenerating specimen on the planet, you would need replicating food sources since you would live forever and have a constant need for energy (food).

but if you can't possibly do the job by yourself, and more of you are needed, you and your food sources will not only have to be replicating but contain terminator codes to keep the balance of work and energy, without the issue of overpopulation to extinction events.

LOL... yeah, it was an ad for that, or Prosta-Shrink, or some such, that was the inspiration for this...

For the purpose of this discussion, the function of the prostate is not of interest; that is why I did not mention details of such function.

I am by no means an expert in the ID field (nor do I buy the premise), so perhaps an ID'er might not come to these conclusions... however, to me, this indicates not so much "Intelligent" design as "well, this works... ".

My very limited understanding of ID is that God or the equivalent designed humans and other life forms. I expect flaws in the design of aircraft or automobiles or computers or anything designed by humans, but if ID is real, I personally would have higher expectations of that Designer.

Originally posted by Open_Minded Skeptic
For the purpose of this discussion, the function of the prostate is not of interest

But the function of the prostate is all that really matters is it not?

True your argument would be better served if the prostate were in fact a useless entity, but it is not.

The fact that it does serve such an instrumental purpose weighs more in favor of ID than it does against it.

Just my opinion of course.

The problem with concluding a flaw in a design is that you have to know the function of the design from the designers perspective. Not from the prespective of the design. There coud be any number of reasons God might choose for a design to be "flawed" if it served his greater purpose.

Besides, in the Judeo/Christian Worldview, there is already an built in excuse for the apparent "problems" in nature. Its called sin.

Just because something doesn't work perfectly doesn't give us any indication that it was an accidental creation. Cars get flat tires, airplanes crash, and trains run off the track. This is more of an indication of your focus than an indication of proof.

Perhaps the prostrate was intelligently designed to stop working well at a certain point. Everyone has to die from something. The intelligent designer could easily have designed certain organs to slow or cease functioning at certain times in the life span. All to the intelligent designers purpose of limiting lifespans on earth so we can move on to what's next.

Now if you want to question intelligent design .. I wanna know who the heck thought up the RHINO VIRUS! ARGH!!

I agree with Dbates.

Let's add to that, that when a protein codon hits a termination sequence, the event has a cascade effect. it's all part of the design, hard wired.

I can't agree with this type of theorum.

We put SO MUCH artificial "crap" (for lack of a better term) through our bodies. We are ingesting stuff we don't know about, that scientists don't know about. Hell the cup of coffee I'm drinking right now (sugar only, no aspartame could be declared carcinogenic in 10 years.

I think until we reach the point in understanding how everything effects our bodies in this world you can't use your topic as evidence for a sound argument. (although I do emplore the effort to do so!

Good point op, yet another part of humanity designed badly - appendix and tonsils being other great examples of things which 'god made badly'

The bible bashers will tell you that the only problems with the human body happened because humanity left eden, from this point on gods creation is ruined by sin and random genetic flux -hence why we get smaller every generation since the giants of the old book. (hehe well, ok this was how they #used# to argue away evolution before the advances of the industrial revolution made everyone tall again, previously only gentry and born clergy had enough nutrition to grow to full potential)

Some other great question such as why god bothered putting all that 'old' DNA which isn't used in humans but was used in the species we evolved from i haven't heard them explain yet - although i do know most hardline hesidic Jews [often] explain away evolution as 'the method god used to create...' hehe that's all well and good but it makes god look kina lazy -'i'll just start that going and have a little nap....[6 days later]....#YAWN#...OH MY GOSH! What happened? I'm gonna have to clean this mess up -little pink bipeds are all over my monkey garden!!!"

Originally posted by NatureBoy
Good point op, yet another part of humanity designed badly - appendix and tonsils being other great examples of things which 'god made badly'

The bible bashers will tell you that the only problems with the human body happened because humanity left eden, from this point on gods creation is ruined by sin and random genetic flux -hence why we get smaller every generation since the giants of the old book. (hehe well, ok this was how they #used# to argue away evolution before the advances of the industrial revolution made everyone tall again, previously only gentry and born clergy had enough nutrition to grow to full potential)

Some other great question such as why god bothered putting all that 'old' DNA which isn't used in humans but was used in the species we evolved from i haven't heard them explain yet - although i do know most hardline hesidic Jews [often] explain away evolution as 'the method god used to create...' hehe that's all well and good but it makes god look kina lazy -'i'll just start that going and have a little nap....[6 days later]....#YAWN#...OH MY GOSH! What happened? I'm gonna have to clean this mess up -little pink bipeds are all over my monkey garden!!!"

Well we all evolved from the same pool of matter. But god used a different equation to create each kind. The Bible say where God created.

Cars, aircraft and trains are all designed by humans, i.e. the designer is him/her self flawed, so produces flawed products.

Is not ID based on the Designer being God, therefore perfect? If that is the case, I at least would expect a perfect Designer to produce a perfect product.

If ID is correct, and God the Designer intends prostates to enlarge after a certain period of time, why then do they not ALL do so? I guess it is possible the Designer intends that some X% enlarge...

I disagree that the function of the prostate is relevant in this discussion. Yes, it is important as regards human procreation, but enlargement does not necessarily affect that function.

I don't buy into your rational at all. First off, evolution is mostly devolution. Intelligent Design, as I relate to the concept, implies that a life form is introduce here as/when needed. That form is adequate to the needs of the spirits that require its existence. Whether that form is initially perfect or not, devolution may degrade it in one or more generations within the limited influence of the degenerating spirits specifically associated with those forms. The idea that the prostate always degrades is questionable itself. The degeneration is the direct result of diet and social influences such as imagery that encourage excess and decline. Does a person who lives their whole live in perfect moderation and purity have such problems? Perhaps, but then their is the karma they are constantly undergoing coming into play, including the karma that is involved into creation of the form and the subtle form of the bodies that will be factors in "health" issues the person has in life.

Another way to look at it is that the prostrate may have functioned perfectly in the beginning but has become corrupted over time by genetic inbreeding or from changes in diet and environment.

Free will does mean you are free to fail as well.

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic

Enter the human prostate. This is a gland in human (and other mammalian) males that has a variety of functions.

Perhaps then the question should be could the designer design something fails in any part of it's function.

Or, would the designer, design something to fail ?

No doubt ID ers would claim the latter but under certain circumstances in order to achieve some unknown purpose.

The problem you have is primary function and you will come across some insane reasoning eg perhaps a wing was designed NOT to fly, which I got in this cartoon thread.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Perhaps it would be useful to establish whether IDers believe that their creator, is perfect.

But still you will have a hard time proving imperfection, if primary purpose can be established and agreed upon, then that would help matters.

There is some question as to who the creator of the physical body was. Allow me to explain:

In Ancient Sumer, the sumerian equivalent of the biblical EL and the biblical serpent in the garden, known as Enlil and Enki, both claimed to be creators of the human race.

One claimed he made our physical bodies, for the purpose of slavery. (see enki and ninmah)
The other claimed he made us in his image and he was a spirit being, so logically, this means he created our spirits. (see genesis)

somewhere along the line, both stories ended up meshed together because they describe the creation of the entire human being, who is both flesh and spirit.



[edit on 17-3-2009 by undo]

This behavior of the human prostate is a counter example to the idea of Intelligent Design - any physical system "Intelligently Designed" would not include such a gland, or would have situated it differently or would not include the tendancy to enlarge over time.

So the female breast obveiously defeats ID because women sometimes get breast cancer? That doesn't make sense. And with most disease, it comes from a poor lifestyle. People are getting fat and not moving around much. People used to have to work for their food and now they just go to the store an buy it, so certain human influences are also in effect.

God didn't design the body to live forever...hence something known as "death".

You see this enlarged prostate to be a problem, yet if it had any significant impact on life duration, it would have been eliminated through natural selection. The prostate also secretes antimicrobial substances so it does serve a purpose.

[edit on 17-3-2009 by ghaleon12]

we don't know enough about junk DNA to say conclusively that it's simply a vestige of other species of mammals or what have you, in our evolutionary tree. for all we know, it could be a recording device. after all, that's what the rest of your RNA and DNA does. one contains the data, which it then records (transcribes) in the creation of new information. there's no doubt that these are recording and transcribing devices. junk? i bet not.

[edit on 17-3-2009 by undo]

Originally posted by Open_Minded Skeptic
Is not ID based on the Designer being God, therefore perfect? If that is the case, I at least would expect a perfect Designer to produce a perfect product.

Perhaps the 'failure' of the body part is part of the product fitting perfectly into the plans of the intelligent designer.

The reason the body part fails fulfills the bigger design and purpose of the intelligent designer.

The purpose of life isn't to have a perfectly running body. The purpose is something else all together that requires that body part not to function properly at all times.

But as I said - sometimes I question the intelligence of whoever designed the rhino virus. Failing body parts are irksome and it's sometimes hard to remember that a part failing a a certain time could be part of a bigger design and purpose - of which we don't fully understand.