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Supposed design flaws in the human body

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This rubbish was written by a person who still has a human body:

3. A too-narrow pelvis

Problem: Childbirth hurts. And to add insult to injury, the width of a woman’s pelvis hasn’t changed for some 200,000 years, keeping our brains from growing larger.

Okay, so Big Brains (like a whale?) would be some kind of advantage? No insult intended, but what have whales ever contributed to the stock of science knowledge?

Fix: Sure, you could stretch out the pelvis, Latimer says, but technologists may already be onto a better solution. “I would bet that in 10,000 years, or even in 1,000 years, no woman in the developed world will deliver naturally. A clinic will combine the sperm and egg, and you’ll come by and pick up the kid.”

And that would be an advantage to whom and how?

(O’Leary for News) has given birth more than once and it was not that painful. The critical question for the mother is, what kind of support she will receive raising the child, and how and why.

Because children take at least a decade and a half to be independent (better, two decades), that is really important.

Nautilus published this garbage, I can only think, for donor money. Possibly, they have descended into the swamp of pop science.

PS: I remember obstetricians marvelling at the excellence of the design of the human body, with respect to giving birth. They were continually learning about it, after thirty or forty years.

But they are not experts, compared to pop science hacks, right?

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Comments
"whale chicks" WTH??daveS
June 2, 2015
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Womans pain at birthing makes a YEC point. Yes Eve was punished with newly being changed to have pain at birth. Degree and duration. female animals do not have pain by degrees or duration. Not whale chicks or ape females or elephants. on;y our women have this unique pain thing. In fact evolutionists have always had to say its from walking upright and the bigger head of the "fetus" etc. Genesis answers this.Robert Byers
June 2, 2015
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The Unknown Link Between Your Brain and Your Immune System - June 1, 2015 Excerpt: "In a stunning discovery that overturns decades of textbook teaching, researchers have determined that the brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist. That such vessels could have escaped detection when the lymphatic system has been so thoroughly mapped throughout the body is surprising... "The first time these guys showed me the basic result, I just said one sentence: 'They'll have to change the textbooks.' There has never been a lymphatic system for the central nervous system, and it was very clear...that it will fundamentally change the way people look at the central nervous system's relationship with the immune system." Even Kipnis was skeptical initially. "I really did not believe there are structures in the body that we are not aware of. I thought the body was mapped," he said. "I thought that these discoveries ended somewhere around the middle of the last century."... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150601122445.htm
Perhaps if researchers rightly looked at their bodies as fearfully and wonderfully made instead of erroneously looking at them of as just accidents of unguided material processes, then perhaps they would have found this much sooner?bornagain77
June 2, 2015
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A ‘flaw’ is a label of measurement that assumes a standard of perfection at one end of the scale.
Exactly. How can we label anything as flawed unless we have the perfect example to measure against.TSErik
June 2, 2015
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Mung @15 Yours are interesting questions. Thanks for asking. The questions seem to relate to this specific biblical passage:
To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children [...]" [Genesis 3:16 (ESV)]
Here's Matthew Henry's Commentary:
We have here the sentence passed upon the woman for her sin. Two* things she is condemned to: a state of sorrow, and a state of subjection, proper punishments of a sin in which she had gratified her pleasure and her pride. I. She is here put into a state of sorrow, one particular of which only is specified, that in bringing forth children; but it includes all those impressions of grief and fear which the mind of that tender sex is most apt to receive, and all the common calamities which they are liable to. Note, Sin brought sorrow into the world; it was this that made the world a vale of tears, brought showers of trouble upon our heads, and opened springs of sorrows in our hearts, and so deluged the world: had we known no guilt, we should have known no grief. The pains of child-bearing, which are great to a proverb, a scripture proverb, are the effect of sin; every pang and every groan of the travailing woman speak aloud the fatal consequences of sin: this comes of eating forbidden fruit. Observe, 1. The sorrows are here said to be multiplied, greatly multiplied. All the sorrows of this present time are so; many are the calamities which human life is liable to, of various kinds, and often repeated, the clouds returning after the rain, and no marvel that our sorrows are multiplied when our sins are: both are innumerable evils. The sorrows of child-bearing are multiplied; for they include, not only the travailing throes, but the indispositions before (it is sorrow from the conception), and the nursing toils and vexations after; and after all, if the children prove wicked and foolish, they are, more than ever, the heaviness of her that bore them. Thus are the sorrows multiplied; as one grief is over, another succeeds in this world. 2. It is God that multiplies our sorrows: I will do it. God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied. (*) only the first thing is addressed here.
Dionisio
June 2, 2015
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I have to ask. Was their pain in childbirth before the fall? Was God going to increase something that wasn't even present in the first place?Mung
June 2, 2015
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Dr JDD @11
But I also think that the biology was quite different pre-fall.
Agree. Here's a strong hint:
"but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die." [Genesis 3:3 (ESV)]
Even immediately post-fall lifespan was quite long compared to today, but it shrank until just lately it has increased again, but still far from what it used to be according to the scriptures. Lots of biological changes due to different factors during all this time. When we zoom-in into the biological complexity and realize how many things could go wrong, it's amazing that the whole systems work in so many cases.Dionisio
June 2, 2015
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But they are not experts, compared to pop science hacks, right?
No one can beat the pop science hacks on expertise! :) BTW, it took the eco-devo folks a while, but apparently they have finally figured out how macroevolution might have worked (except for a few minor details they have to touch up): https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/a-third-way-of-evolution/#comment-567227Dionisio
June 2, 2015
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Mung,
daveS, There is no necessary connection between “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth” and the size of the pelvis. It is a complete and utter assumption. One might with just as much intellectual rigor ask whether God made the heads of babies bigger or the size of the female pelvis smaller. Perhaps the answer is neither of the above.
Yes, now that I see your point, I do agree. This additional pain could be unrelated to head or pelvis sizes.daveS
June 2, 2015
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Mung: I don't think anyone is saying that the size of the pelvis is definitely the result of God's judgement on Eve and womankind. All we are saying is that if you are going to criticise a "design" Christianity at least is still perfectly consistent with this observation and it seems of all the things quite a silly and naive thing to comment on as a poor design. incidentally, I don't personally believe God changed the size if the pelvis. But I also think that the biology was quite different pre-fall. (Although I accept the vast majority of people here do not subscribe to Adam & Eve or a "Fall" so will find these comments irrelevant)Dr JDD
June 2, 2015
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daveS, There is no necessary connection between "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth" and the size of the pelvis. It is a complete and utter assumption. One might with just as much intellectual rigor ask whether God made the heads of babies bigger or the size of the female pelvis smaller. Perhaps the answer is neither of the above.Mung
June 2, 2015
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Axel - no I don't remember that one, but I'd love to see it if you can find and re-post it again. (... haven't seen Barb around in a while also).Silver Asiatic
June 2, 2015
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Mung,
daveS, to answer your question, no. Logic is a tool and you too can learn to use it if you so choose.
Ok, it's probably wrong of me to say "orthodox". Clearly a lot of Christians believe it is true, however. Do you disagree?daveS
June 2, 2015
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Good point, Silver Fox. I remember Barb posted an absolutely fascinating article on precisely that theme. Do you remember it? I asked her if she would re-post it for me, and she may have done. If so, though, I missed it.Axel
June 2, 2015
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daveS, to answer your question, no. Logic is a tool and you too can learn to use it if you so choose.Mung
June 2, 2015
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One person's design flaw can actually be another's design feature. Design optimization is always relative to the designer's intent for the object. Therefore, it's a rather audacious claim to call out supposed design flaws and/or vestigial structures, especially since we routinely find new functions and design significance all of the time.AdamBGraham
June 2, 2015
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A 'flaw' is a label of measurement that assumes a standard of perfection at one end of the scale. That's one way to reach an understanding of God.Silver Asiatic
June 2, 2015
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Okay, so Big Brains (like a whale?) would be some kind of advantage?
Hmmm, I thought big brains (within reason) could conceivably be an advantage in some environments. But as Dr JDD mentioned, isn't the notion that the Creator deliberately introduced this design "flaw" causing painful childbirth a part of orthodox Christianity?daveS
June 2, 2015
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Never mind the fact that a living, human being, fully replicated inside another living, human being, is emerging into a world to live independently. And all these fools can do is talk about a woman's "narrow pelvis"? Besides, I can turn their talking point right back around at them: if evolution was a tenth as marvelous as they say it is, surely it would've have eliminated painful childbearing, right? After all, only the women with wide pelvises would be selected. Utter and complete fools.OldArmy94
June 2, 2015
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Well if they were a Christian they might recall these words: "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth." Like I've said elsewhere, the observation that we live in a less than perfect world is entirely consistent with certain Designers and what may have been revealed about their design.Dr JDD
June 2, 2015
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