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Don't Hold Your Breath

Entry 900, on 2008-11-29 at 20:34:45 (Rating 3, News)

This morning I listened to an interesting article on Radio New Zealand where the professor of psychology at New York University, Gary Marcus, was interviewed. He was talking about the structure of the human brain, and how it is a "kludge". To be honest, I haven't listened to the whole interview yet (I will download it as a podcast) but that isn't the point anyway. I was more interested in a comment by the interviewer during the comments at the end.

Several people sent comments after the program - some of which didn't seem to make a lot of sense - but there was one in particular - and in particular the interviewer's response to it - which I particularly enjoyed.

There's one really good reason why the brain is a kludge: its because its the product of hundreds of millions of years of haphazard evolution. Sure, its functional - and that's exactly what the theory of evolution would expect - but its also untidy, needlessly complicated, and unreliable.

Also (and this is the greatest sign that its the product of evolution) there are primitive and modern sections which both provide the same function. The parts that supply the simpler, more primitive form of the function also exist in "lower" species, such as reptiles, but at the same time there is a "higher" section which only appears in mammals.

So getting back to the comment. A person by the name of Liz contacted the program and asked if there could be more material presented from the perspective of intelligent design. After a short pause the presenter responded with something like "don't hold your breath, Liz".

It was so good to see creationist idiots being treated as the pathetic joke they are. Many people would have taken the easy way out and said something like "we interview anybody who has an interest in this area" or "we try to provide balance where practical" or even to point out that they did interview Michael Behe almost exactly a year ago (which I reported on here on 2007-11-29 in an entry titled "ID is Dead").

Yes, ID is dead. Its possible that a new form of creationism might appear in the future but there would need to be major new evidence or theories proposed to even make a new theory worth considering. Sometimes theories just have to be thrown out - it happens often enough in science - why can't the religious loonies learn to move on as well?

Comment 1 (1811) by OJB on 2008-11-29 at 20:49:33:

BTW, the author spells the word "kluge" (both spellings are correct). The web site is: http://klugethebook.com/.

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