On Design

Lawrence Gage, Amazing Evolution!

I've read the claim about the human spine being "suboptimal" (see the comments for this post by Mark Shea) elsewhere, including Soompi--probably there is something at TalkOrigins--but how can people make such judgments, if they do not have an alternative model to use as a standard? How do we know what is suboptimal without knowing what is optimal? Just because a structure cannot cope with all stresses or problems does not imply that there exists some structure which can. (Or that there is even an alternative structure which makes up for those weaknesses but has others which the one in question lacks--how do we know such trade-offs are possible if we do not even understand development, how structures come to be?)

The same sort of noetic problems arise when critics talk about the "efficiency" and "inefficiency" of organic structures.