Intelligent Design: An Engineer's Perspective

So I've tried to stay away from this bubbling morass, but I feel I can no longer stand silent. The link above is to a story about Cornell's president denouncing the idea of Intelligent Design as science. However, I feel that to be as effective as possible we need to attack on common ground. The typical response from the scientific community is "It's not science, leave us alone you morons". And they are right. However, we also saw how effective logic was in other arenas ("It wasn't about WMDs, leave us alone you morons").

On that note, I will now give my argument against intelligent design by attacking the foremost premise that supporters use: structures appearing in nature are too complex to have randomly occurred. For my case study, I will use the human body as an example. So without further adieu, here it is:

A Rebuttal of Intelligent Design

Dr. Duke Nukem, Ph.D, Engineer, Computer Scientist, All-Around Nerd

As an engineer, it is preposterous to me that some may be so bold as to say that the complexity found in nature is an argument against evolution. On the contrary, I believe that one of the most complex structures found in nature -- the human form -- is so innately flawed that it practically condemns the idea of an 'intelligent designer' from the start. Let't take a look at some specific points of interest.

1. Failure Modes/Lack of Redundancy - Any good engineer knows that SPFs (single points of failure) are the worst design mistakes you can make. Yet look at the human body -- it's chock full of SPFs. From the heart to the brain to the liver, we are without a doubt single-string machines. My question is: are we stripped down versions of some better, more robust system? If there were an 'intelligent designer', why would it hold back on us?
   



2. Unnecessary Complexity - After hundreds of years of trying to figure out the human body and its innerworkings, we still know so little of it. One of the key qualities of a good design is make it no more complex than necessary, and do it in a clean manner. If the human body were so intelligently designed, don't you think we'd be a little closer to figuring it out? And on a related note...
   



3. Lack of Documentation - Any good programmer knows that even the best design and implementation can be rendered worthless in someone else's hands without good documentation. What a rookie mistake! The human body, to me, reminds me of several hundred lines of assembly code, but completely undocumented. Ask any computer scientist how they feel about that predicament and watch them tremble and break into cold sweats.
   



4. Defect Ratio - The real measure of any process is its yield, or the number of acceptable units divided by the total number of units produced. Now some may argue that this point is subjective, but here goes: it seems to me that the number of defective units (with a person being one unit) in service at any given time is pretty damn big. Now, don't you think that said 'intelligent designer', with all the power of the universe at its disposal, might take the time to implement some really damn stringent quality control processes? I mean, if you've got all the time in the world, with every possible resource available to you, and you knew the requirements were right (which is an assumption that I make about this proposed 'intelligent designer'), you'd produce a perfect product. I know this to be true, as does every other proacticing engineer worth half a red cent. And lest you think I'm biased against a particular segment of the population, I'm not. The proof? I consider myself a defective unit.
   



5. Self-Desctruct Mechanism - Possibly the strongest argument against intelligent design. I mean, it is waaay too easy to 86 yourself. Don't you think an 'intelligent designer' would put in a myriad of safeguards to prevent us from pushing the Big Red Button?
   

There you have it. If anyone finds flaw with the arguments, we will be opening a bugtraq queue on this essay, so please document all bugs locally until we can collect them all.

Can't Happen? Yeah, Right

I never thought I'd see it -- B&T'ers hanging in my neck of the woods. I guess all good things must come to an end. I guess that makes me a pioneer -- it was still cool when I lived there. Now it's Disneyfied and safe for yups. I have only one thing to say:

GO HOME YANKEE!!!

STR8 Gangsta

Now I've lamented the death of cool when it comes to artists many times before. Truly, one of the saddest things to witness is your favorite rock band morphing into a bunch of fat slobs in front of your eyes while still trying to pass themselves off as bad ass. Either that, or they become a bunch of PETA-pushing christian vegan pussies who can't write a decent song to save their heads from the chopping block.

...and now this. I don't know if seeing a former hard-core gangsta rapper turn into a slick dressing Puffy-wannabe (note proper capitalization) is any sadder, but it's at least as startling. But lest you forget that he's still a hard-ass, so he has to carry a loaded weapon at all times and conveniently forget it in a hotel room (can you tell that I think it was at least a little scripted?) Really, how long has it been since you've seen Sticky Fingaz in the news? But it's so sad to see them go down like this. I saw Sticky on the street a couple times, and he really was a scary looking dude*(meaning I wouldn't fuck with him). For comparison, if I saw Coolio on the street, I'd fuck with him, as long as he didn't have his posse...oh wait, I did see Coolio in public (Virgin Mega, Times Square), and I did fuck with him, and I almost got my ass kiced -- notice I said almost, meaning I actually didn't. I firmly believe the old Sticky would have killed me.

Although, did we not see it coming? Don't forget that Onyx started out wearing jump suits doing the whole World Class Wrecking Cru thing (yes Dre, we haven't forgotten or forgiven you for that yet). Also worthy of note is that Sticky's partner in crime, Fredro Starr (who lived down the block from a buddy of mine in high school, also an imposing dude) is now co-host of a syndicated afternoon dance-off show. What is this world coming to?

Oh, how the once mighty have fallen...

Aren't People Great Pt 2 - Back to the 'Burgh

It's been a while since we had a good (read: horrifying) PA story. Well, apparently we're approaching a full moon or something, as the imbeciles are coming out in droves...

The best part about this story: this beast's ex-husband who claims "she is pregnant!" First of all, how desparate do you have to be to marry a toad like that in the first place, and then come out and put what shred of credibility you have left on the line by saying some dumb shit like that? Give it up dude. He's even worse than the husband-to-be of the 'runaway bride' who took her back, and in the press no less. Come on man -- pack your bags, move to the forest, become a hermit and live in a shack, cause it's over.


When the bomb's activated/
It mutilated/
Your leg and arm

Aren't People Great?

Fuck.