Does anyone else find it strange that practically all animals have the same basic system. Brain, lungs, cns, heart, stomach, etc. How did this happen? Does this give support to intelligent design, ie: a “designer” using the same basic layout? Or did all of earth’s creatures just develop with the same basic underpinnings?
I’m not sure where you get the idea that all animals have the “same basic system.” Of course, animals have to be able to do the same basic tasks, such as obtain nutrients, exchange gases, and dispose of waste, but the systems they use are vastly different. For example, terrestrial vertebrates, spiders, insects, crustaceans, and mollusks all use very different systems to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, and their excretory systems are also very different.
Of course, the premise that an intelligent designer used the same basic layout is absurd, since the “designs” usually show evidence of co-opting previously existing systems to do new tasks, rather than being designed from scratch. For example, the lungs of terrestrial vertebrates were derived from the swim bladders of bony fish, resulting in the problematic and pointless connection between the digestive and pulmonary system.
Every living thing on earth is related to every other thing on earth (YOU are a distant cousin to a spruce tree). Current animals have "Brain, lungs, cns, heart, stomach, etc. " not because they were designed, but because these biological systems were developed by an ancestor that everyone shares.
I realize the OP is looking at macroscopic differences, and we indeed have a vast array of diversity here. But looking on the cellular level there is much commonality, I’ve heard it said that humans share about 50% of their DNA with banana trees, and this is because many cell functions are the same up and down the wide variety of life.
Perhaps the OP is better off asking “Or did all of earth’s creatures just develop [from] the same basic underpinnings?” … in which the answer would be yes.
This is more or less self-contradictory: A designer with any real intelligence would certainly make significant changes in the basic layout for two substantially different functions (e.g. automobile vs. washing machine).
The fact that everything is similar is a case against a designer. Let’s face it, if we were created by God we wouldn’t need all of our fancy inner-workings. We could all be like Gumby and He could breathe life into our plastic selves.
I think this is it. If you look at the common features he’s talking about, those are common features of terrestrial vertebrates, since he includes “lungs”. insects, for instance, do not have lungs but they are surely “animals”. Not to mention fish, which are not terrestrial, but many of which are vertebrates.
Comparative anatomy is one of the most important lines of evidence for evolution. Why should the legs of a horse, kangaroo, seal, and bat have the same basic bone structure despite their radically different functions except because of common descent?
This. For more detail along the same lines, read “Your inner fish” by Jerry Coyne.
If there were an intelligent design, would we have an appendix? Would the sperm tube go into the gut and out, leaving men prone to hernias? There is also something I have now forgotten about the nerve that causes hiccups. Everywhere you look, you find things where things were being repurposed. Actually an obvious marker for evolution.
Obviously, I cannot prove that an intelligent designer didn’t set it up on purpose to fool us. 6000 years ago. Or 1 second ago, with all our memories intact. Cannot refute that at all.
Unless the designer or designers have goals other than “perfection at any cost”, just like human designers.
“Hey, Aziraphale, how’s that horse design coming along? The boss wants it tomorrow!”
“Is he insane? No way I can get it ready by then! Look at these specs!”
“Just ignore the bit about originality. Take something lumpy and stretch it. Here. Use the rhino! No one is ever going to do something so absurd as to compare those two.”
I’d say it’s strong evidence against intelligent design. An intelligent designer would create each animal separately with the system best suited for its environmental niche.
The fact that animals all have the same basic system indicates they all developed from a single ancestor that had that system. In other words, they evolved from a common ancestor.
At a deep cellular level, there’s the genetic code. That is to say, each sequence of three DNA nucleotides corresponds directly to some amino acid (the building blocks of proteins), and thus genes correspond to complete proteins. Now, it’s very important that a living thing have a genetic code, but there’s no reason at all that it would matter if two different species had different genetic codes. And the number of possible genetic codes is combinatorically large. And yet, every single lifeform on the planet, from those sulfur-eating bacteria-like things that live in Yellowstone’s hot springs to blue whales, from slime molds to giant sequoias, from amoebas to humans, all use the same genetic code. If not because of evolution, then why?
Trees have no brain, lungs, central nervous system, heart, nor stomach. And granted, trees aren’t “animals”, but for the purpose of the question, I take that to be an oversight. Otherwise it’s like asking, “Hey did you notice that practically all mammals have nipples?” Yes. Yes, they do.
I would suggest that your knowledge of the types of life on the planet and their relationship to each other needs expansion. You’re either omitting life forms that don’t conform to your idea of an “animal” (e.g., the portuguese man o’ war) or not noticing that the animals you are considering are all fairly closely related, so it makes sense that they would have similar physiology.
Yeah, exactly. We get lots of people saying that no intelligent designer would take the same kinds of shortcuts that human designers take every day. (Especially when most people are talking about a designer who is said to have created man in his own image.)
Even without that comparison, arguing that a designer wouldn’t have done it that way is a pretty flimsy straw man. You might as well use the same argument to argue that Microsoft doesn’t exist.
And here I though Microsoft was proof of the fallacy of Intelligent Design.
Evolution is a process of “beneficial mutations”. If a genetic change is beneficial - helps the organism reproduce at a greater rate than its competitors - there’s a good chance it will become pervasive for the species that can benefit from it. So vertebrates, for example, started with some basic “starter set” species. Things stretch or shrink, warp, double up repurpose, etc. Bat wings are webs between very long fingers, for example; whale fins are fingers too. Hoofs are exaggerated toenails or claws. and so on…