An interview with Don Wise, creator of “incompetent design”:
Don Wise, professor emeritus of geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is the nation’s foremost proponent of ID. No, Wise isn’t getting ready to testify on behalf of the school board in Dover, PA. Rather, he advocates for a different version of the acronym: “incompetent design.”
Wise cites serious flaws in the systems of the human body as evidence that design in the universe exhibits not an obvious source of, but a sore lack of, intelligence. Seed asked him to chat about his theory, reactions he’s received to it, and the anthem he penned to rally people to his cause.
[...]
So is there intelligence in the design?
Yes! No, no there isn’t. The thing that perhaps is closest to all of us is our own skeleton, and there are certainly all kinds of stupidity in our design. No self-respecting engineering student would make the kinds of dumb mistakes that are built into us.
All of our pelvises slope forward for convenient knuckle-dragging, like all the other great apes. And the only reason you stand erect is because of this incredible sharp bend at the base of your spine, which is either evolution’s way of modifying something or else it’s just a design that would flunk a first-year engineering student.
Look at the teeth in your mouth. Basically, most of us have too many teeth for the size of our mouth. Well, is this evolution flattening a mammalian muzzle and jamming it into a face or is it a design that couldn’t count accurately above 20?
Look at the bones in your face. They’re the same as the other mammals’ but they’re just squashed and contorted by jamming the jaw into a face with your brain expanding over it, so the potential drainage system in there is so convoluted that no plumber would admit to having done it!
I’ve been a bit under the weather since I returned to Dallas, but I ran across this article after reading a civil engineering joke.
And it also reminded me of how some engineers think that biological neural networks are inferior to silicon based parallel computing, therefore it is futile to heavily invest resources into these biosystems (i.e. silicon does not need the continued maintenance that human brains do and can be reproduced relatively inexpensively).
I’m doing a lot of reading right now (and the obligatory movie watching as well), in the mean time here are some suggestions I posted as a comment at another blog many moons ago.
I think the simple yet detailed features used by Facebook are a great beginning. I’ve used it for about a year now and think they could have a serious killer app if they moved into a couple other areas. The most notable are:
1) Take on Roommates.com by adding the ability to say what you are looking for, what you are offering, etc. I used Roommates.com successfully 2 years ago and see no reason the features cannot be incorporated into Facebook.
2) Take on Monster.com and others. You can even add restricted viewing so employers can only see a cover sheet, resume, CV, work history, references, etc. Again, this can be easily incorporated into the Facebook framework as is.
3) A central marketplace to hawk your wares. If nothing else, add the ability to buy/sell/trade books and lab materials to others. This ties in with a couple other ideas regarding classroom specifics.
4) Take on PickaProf.com. In addition to simply listing the classes you are enrolled in currently, have a permanent page that shows each semester schedule you have had in the past. This not only allows you to see your progress (or lack thereof) but it helps build the all-important social rolodex you can use later for business contacts (i.e. you can see who is specialized in a certain field with you even if you weren’t friends at the time).
5) Now that this permanent list of classes has been created, you can go on to say who you had for a prof, rating them in the process (hence the tie-in with PickaProf). In fact, adding the ability to list the books you used in the course could give Facebook devs the ability to link to Amazon.com and receive referral compensation.
These are the main things that stick out right now. I’ve goofed around with all the other major sites (including MySpace, Friendster, Orkut and Xuqa) but still come back to Facebook due to simplicity and elegance (I am certified to use that word).
Note: It’ll be interesting to see how Google integrates the Dodgeball service into Orkut, perhaps this is something Facebook devs can work on as well. In fact, in the long-run I wouldn’t be surprised to see a social networking site combine a blog, an RSS reader, email and a social networking framework all into one standardized GUI.
Also, the devs of Facebook recently added a feature called “Pulse” which allows you to see what the most popular TV shows, books, etc. are at not just your own campus, but at other schools as well. Here is the current list at A&M:
Music
1. Coldplay
2. Jack Johnson
3. Country
4. DMB
5. Incubus
6. Pat Green
7. Green Day
8. John Mayer
9. The Killers
10. Maroon 5
Oddly enough, the blues singer “Jack Johnson” makes the top 10 list not just at the large southern schools, but also Stanford, Berkeley, NYU and Harvard.
Movies
1. The Notebook
2. Napoleon Dynamite
3. Old School
4. Boondock Saints
5. Wedding Crashers
6. Anchorman
7. Gladiator
8. Lord of the Rings
9. Fight Club
10. Braveheart
Television
1. Family Guy
2. Grey’s Anatomy
3. Friends
4. The OC
5. Desperate Housewives
6. Nip/Tuck
7. Lost
8. Gilmore Girls
9. Simpsons
10. Laguna Beach
Books
1. The Bible
2. Harry Potter
3. The Da Vinci Code
4. Angels and Demons
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
6. The Notebook
7. Catcher in the Rye
8. The Great Gatsby
9. Pride and Prejudice
10. Lord of the Rings
The only final point I will make is that by-and-large, of the 10 schools I compared A&M to (Caltech, MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, Texas, Notre Dame, USC, UPenn and NYU), the top 10 lists were very similar (different orders of course, but at least half of the items made each list). Oh and as cosmopolitan as Berkeley has a reputation of, the top 10 cities that the student population draws from: not one is out of State… not that A&M is much different.
Apparently I’m falling behind on intarweb facts as a couple of my friends were spouting unknown random Chuck Norrisisms at a meeting last night. If you’re familiar with the ‘Fun Facts about Vin Diesel‘ then you can imagine what is in store from the man who made grizzled into a fashion and roundhouse kicked people that cut in line at the DMV (here is the Norris generator). Below is a list of some I found online. Proceed with caution (some suck):
Chuck Norris used live ammunition during all shoot-outs. When the director said he can’t, he replied, “Of course I can, I’m Chuck Norris,” and roundhouse kicked him in the face.
If paper beats rock, and rock beats scissors, what beats all 3 at the same time? Answer: Chuck Norris.
If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can’t see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.
Biologically, Chuck Norris is his own step-father.
When his martial arts prowess fails to resolve a situation, Chuck Norris plays dead. When playing dead doesn’t work, he plays zombie.
It is common knowledge that there are three sides to the force: the light side, the dark side, and Chuck Norris.
Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother’s womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.
Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
Chuck Norris drinks napalm to quell his heartburn.
Chuck Norris’ roundhouse kick is so powerful; it can be seen from outer space by the naked eye.
Chuck Norris burned down an entire forest when he was experimenting with water.
If you want a list of Chuck Norris’ enemies just check the extinct species list.
Chuck Norris has never blinked in his entire life. Never.
Chuck Norris can believe it’s not butter.
Chuck Norris once shot a German plane down with his finger, by yelling, “Bang!”
Chuck Norris doesn’t need to swallow when eating food.
If Superman and The Flash were to race to the edge of space you know who would win? Chuck Norris
Ironically, Chuck Norris’ hidden talent is invisibility.
Chuck Norris owns the greatest poker face of all-time. It helped him win the 1983 world series of poker despite him holding just a joker, a get out of jail free monopoly card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green number 4 card from the game Uno.
Chuck Norris invented a language that incorporates karate and roundhouse kicks. So next time Chuck Norris is kicking your ass, don’t be offended or hurt, he may be just trying to tell you he likes your hat.
Chuck Norris invented water.
Chuck Norris went looking for a bar but couldn’t find one. He walked to a vacant lot and sat there. Sure enough within an hour an a half someone constructed a bar around him. He then ordered a shot, drank it, and then burned the place to the ground. Chuck Norris yelled over the roar of the flames, “always leave things the way you found em!”
Contrary to popular belief, Chuck Norris, not the blue ringed octopus of Eastern Australia, is the most venomous creature on earth. Within 3 minutes of being bitten, a human being experiences the following symptoms: fever, blurred vision, beard rash, tightness of the jeans, and the feeling of being repeatedly kicked through a car windshield.
Chuck Norris does not use spell check. If he happens to misspell a word, he simply changes the actual spelling of it.
In the original pilot for Star Trek Next Generation Chuck Norris can be seen powering the USS Enterprise warp drive with his roundhouse kicks.
Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.
When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.
Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK’s head exploded out of sheer amazement.
Chuck Norris recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned beverage. We know this beverage as Red Bull.
Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of “beard”. Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus’ obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of roundhouse kick related deaths.
The original theme song to the Transformers was actually “Chuck Norris–more than meets the eye, Chuck Norris–robot in disguise,” and starred Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger who defended the earth from drug-dealing Decepticons and could turn into a pick-up. This was far too much awesome for a single show, however, so it was divided.
To prove it isn’t that big of a deal to beat cancer. Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and acquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.
Chuck Norris has yet to get a Jeopardy question wrong. Jesus has missed two.
The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima rather than the alternative of sending Chuck Norris. His reasoning? It was more “humane”.
Chuck Norris found out about Conan O’Brien’s lever that shows clips from “Walker: Texas Ranger” and is working on a way to make it show clips of Norris having sex with Conan’s wife.
Hellen Keller’s favorite color is Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris was working out in the gym with one of his daughter-in-laws. In an attempt to impress Norris, she started to train really hard. When she asked Chuck if he was impressed, he replied with “Weights don’t hit back” and broke her neck with a roundhouse.
Chuck Norris took my virginity, and he will sure as hell take yours. If you’re thinking to yourself, “That’s impossible, I already lost my virginity.”, then you are dead wrong.
Chuck Norris once tried to sue Burger King after they refused to put razor wire in his Whopper Jr., insisting that that actually is “his” way.
Chuck Norris has every copy of National Geographic in his basement. He also has the ability to lift every single one of them at once.
Those aren’t credits that roll after Walker Texas Ranger, it is actually a list of people that Chuck Norris round house kicked in the face that day.
If you unscramble the letters in “Chuck Norris” you get “Huck corn, sir.” That is why every fall, Chuck travels to Nebraska and burns the entire state down.
Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.
You get what you pay for. That is usually the pat response I give friends when they ask me about whether or not I am upset over something that occurs at a public school (e.g. shootings, sexual debauchery, skewed, impractical and mundane education).
Today’s lesson plan can be filed under “Someone Has The Case Of The Fundies” (read its entirety for some nutty quotes). However, that moral pep rally is not the prime focus of the post, but rather: ‘evil evolution - evilution.’
The Economist (the magazine) posted an interesting article from its print edition regarding “[t]he struggle against superbugs.” In essence, various bacteria - Staphylococcus aureus in particular - have built up immunity against numerous antibiotics. While scientists and commentators point fingers at culprits responsible for the immunity (such as overuse or improper use of drugs), the fact remains: the bacteria mutated, changed or otherwise evolved due to environmental conditions.
How do these two issues relate?
When the school board for public schools in Kansas redefined science last month, residents were simply getting what they paid for (i.e. collectivistic education run via politicized ‘interest groups’). On the one hand, it would be interesting to learn what these ‘intelligent design‘ proponents might use to counter the case of evolving bacteria. Or for that matter, gestating fetuses — after all, it does take around 9 months for a embryo to fully develop and evolve into a baby and another 16+ years to physically mature into an adult.
But then if you bite the lure, you would be missing the bigger picture: the main issue that is overlooked during these sensationalistic hearings is that public education is simply that, public. If the industry was deregulated and privatized altogether, the issue as to what should or should not be taught would then be a personal, private matter left up to individual households — and not up to a committee of biased individuals (from either side).
Just like ‘social security,’ instead of having money taken from your paycheck and then distributed via public policies, individuals should simply stop funding State education… and eventually the State itself.
Note: Admittedly, I’m partial to a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Don’t Piss Dad Off This Holiday, Or Kiss That 360 Buh-Bye, Kids:
