You understand how this is evidence for, not against, Darwinism.

Harry:

Yes, we'll all have them in a couple generations.

I'm waiting for the gills behind the ears (like Kevin Costner).

We had them in the past

Harry:

Which would make it especially odd to develop them again. Why didn't we just keep such an obviously useful adaptation?

Because tails tend to get in the way of a much more useful adaptation, bipedal gait.

Also people can't resist pulling them

Why?

Tails work as a counterweight. Imagine a crane with the counterweight in the middle rather than at the top, and you may appreciate the awkward dynamics of the situation. It is not impossible to combine bipedal gait with a tail; for example, the kangaroo does it. However, you will note that the kangaroo's upper body leans forward at a significant angle, and that its lower body is comparatively very stout, so as to gain maximum leverage.

Furthermore your argument is flawed, since you cannot postulate the usefulness of a tail when it is precisely the means by which the usefulness of a tail is determined that is under discussion.

(The form didn't remember my name last time around)

Dutch:

That's the point. The reason you argue the tail is a hindrance is because we don't have one. If we did it would be useful. That's the teleology of Darwinism--what is has to be useful, what isn't not..

oj:

Actually I carefully avoided making that argument. It is simple mechanics which dictate that a tail is not very useful given the proportions of our body and the distribution of our body mass.

From that observation we can argue that, maybe, humans don't have tails because natural selection eliminated those humanoids who were equipped with such an inconvenient apparatus.

But that doesn't mean that "what is has to be useful", much less the reverse. It is quite conceivable that we would be better off with six limbs and antennae, or less facetiously, with limbs that have a regenerative capacity, such as exists in lobsters or lizards.

Dutch:

As between a man with a tail and one without which has the advantage? Indeed, why wouldn't a man with wings have an advantage? Why didn't any of the other things that leave us ill-equipped to walk upright evolve away?

oj:

That is exactly the point. An intelligent designer would have equipped us with wings and X-ray vision, so we could soar like angels and ogle the women. Instead we have traffic jams and beach volleybal. Evolution is blind and its produce imperfect.

Orrin, there is no sign that we are developing tails again.

That we lost them due to selection did not mean that the genes were also deleted. It isn't like moving your files to 'Trash' on the computer.

The fact that the genes persist but are not, usually, expressed is probably the single most powerful argument against both Intelligent Design and Special Creation (if, in fact, there is any real difference between the two).

Some babies are born with no arms, but nobody then concludes that evolution is choosing an armless state.

Yes, but it's the failure of evolution to choose (A neat, if unintentional, concession to design there) favorable expressions that argues against Darwin.

oj:

What you call "choice" is in fact the process called natural selection. To use a word like "choose" is to betray a fundamental misapprehension. The significance of evolution theory lies precisely in the crucial substitution of natural selection for "choice".

Natural selection doesn't select the most favorable expressions -- it extinguishes the least favorable ones.

Dutch:

Yes, that's why I found it so amusing that Harry used it.

oj:

No, Harry didn't require that evolution should make a value judgment.

"choosing"

oj:

There's a difference between choosing an "armless state" and "favorable expressions". The latter implies a value judgment.

Dutch:

Yes, that's why I found it so amusing that Harry used it.
Posted by oj at August 24, 2004 03:54 PM

I used the negative. I said nobody says that evolution is choosing.

That is the opposite of saying evolution is choosing.

I know you are desperate, Orrin, and I suspect you are simply willing to make yourself ridiculous with those able to consider the theory in exchange for scoring debating points among those who aren't. But the bottom line is, you are making yourself ridiculous.

Harry:

Don't get mad at me just because you said that evolution chooses. It's an easy enough slip to make because that's how you think of it. Even the term "selection" anthropomorphizes.

I didn't say it