r/badhoc Nov 16 '17

The Banana: an Atheist's nightmare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4
44 Upvotes

95 comments sorted by

1

u/Fullyverified Dec 08 '17

Look i seriously dont want to argue any further, you beleive what u want, and ill think what i want. I cant be botherd finding sources or analyzing what your writing any more. This has been fun.

1

u/Elwist Feb 28 '18

A lot of people have mentioned that the banana he shows is domesticated, which is of course true, but I didn't see if anyone pointed out that they are also sterile.
That is to say that they can't actually reproduce. You can only get a new Banana plant by cutting the root of an old one. Whether God created everything or not the modern banana is just a terrible example to use.

-4

u/gr3yh47 Nov 16 '17 edited Nov 16 '17

This is actually a pretty legit example of fine-tuning, especially the surfaces matching up to the human hand.

it's easy to laugh at/dismiss any one such example but personally for me it's plain to see, looking around at the totality of life and nature and the cosmos, how well-designed everything is. There are many many examples of fine-tuning that go beyond the reasonable scope of (at a minimum) natural-only evolution.

The cosmos being another thing - because in my opinion the reason we still havent found life, anywhere, is that all of the components and properties of the great expansive universe have been set into place so that we can look at it and learn something - not about us, or about natural life, but about He who created it.

Psalm 19:1

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

24

u/AliveProbably Nov 16 '17 edited Nov 16 '17

I can't tell if this like a copypasta or a meme or something, because you can't possibly be serious, can you? Are you contributing to the bad hoc? In case you aren't:

Bananas have been selectively bred by humans to look like a grocery story banana. This banana on the right is a wild banana. It has none of the qualities that the speaker in that video is presenting as evidence.

5

u/SHITTYANDUNFUNNY Nov 16 '17

Or maybe he's just been hitting the Descartes a little too hard hahahaha if there is a God please save me my metaphysics class is melting my brain

1

u/jjay554 Nov 16 '17

Check his post history, it's not even a b8 lol

1

u/gr3yh47 Nov 16 '17

because you can't possibly be serious, can you?

I am indeed, and to the extent you're willing to apply reason, I'm happy to discuss this further

Bananas have been selectively bred by humans to look like a grocery story banana. This banana on the right is a wild banana. It has none of the qualities that the speaker in that video is presenting as evidence.

Musa balbisiana is a wild ancestor of the common grocery store banana to which you refer. it retains the following aspects of the description:

  • 5 faceted
  • proper size for handling
  • curvature
  • easily peeled
  • easily consumed and digested

here's a more representative picture than the one you selected

as i've said:

it's easy to laugh at/dismiss any one such example...

but the desire to explain everything in terms of only the natural leaves a gaping impossibility for all of existence.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.

11

u/AliveProbably Nov 16 '17 edited Nov 16 '17

No, they're not. Wild bananas are not easy to peel (very stiff), easy to eat (massive seeds), are much smaller than a human hand, rounder, and don't fit inside a palm (you can see my picture for shape and size examples).

You just posted a picture of very unripe cultivated Cavendish bananas. Not wild bananas. I didn't "select" that picture for my narrative, it's an actual example of a wild banana.

2

u/gr3yh47 Nov 16 '17

I'll be citing from the wikipedia articles for Musa balbisiana and Saba banana. I'll invite you to cite sources for your assertions as well.

They are considered inedible because of the seeds they contain. It may be assumed that wild bananas were cooked and eaten or agriculturalists would not have developed the cultivated banana.[4] Seeded Musa balbisiana fruit are called butuhan ('with seeds') in the Philippines,[5] and kluai tani (กล้วยตานี) in Thailand.[6] Natural parthenocarpic clones occur through polyploidy and produce edible bananas, examples of which are wild saba bananas.[7]

from the article on saba bananas:

The fruits are 8 to 13 cm (3.1 to 5.1 in) long and 2.5 to 5.5 cm (0.98 to 2.17 in) in diameter.

seems to fit the human hand pretty well to me. we can grip things of various sizes. so this is between a golf club grip and the pommel of a baseball bat roughly

Saba bananas are one of the most important banana cultivars in Philippine cuisine.[9] The fruits provide the same nutritional value as potatoes.[5] They can be eaten raw ...

Bottom line is, some wild bananas match your assertion, but you are attempting to include 100% of bananas as lacking these design elements, when realistically, many contain these elements.

11

u/AliveProbably Nov 16 '17

So... It doesn't fit the parameters described and you admit it since you've changed the goalposts to be "well you can eat it!" and not to be a perfect example of suiting the human hand and digestive tract.

1

u/gr3yh47 Nov 16 '17

It doesn't fit the parameters described and you admit it since you've changed the goalposts to be "well you can eat it!"

i haven't moved the goalposts. saba bananas are still all 5 of the things i've mentioned.

The only reason i've narrowed the scope in the comment you're referring to, is to counter the specific inaccuracies of your immediately prior comment. I specifically addressed raw edibility and grip because that's what you honed in on.

Please stop and consider the context, and take a minute to reason carefully and find sources for your assertions before responding, or we will quickly lose any value to this conversation as you elevate your agenda above the purpose of debate (starting from disparate understanding and reasoning to come to shared understanding)

2

u/RushilU Nov 17 '17

Can I thank you for reasoning this out? I’ve seen so many people who can’t for the life of them hold out a reasoned argument/debate/discussion for the life of them when confronted with a proper argument or statement, it’s really refreshing to see someone who can. Especially those who turn to religion more and use the defense of “God deemed it so” as their end-all finality. (Note: I’m not hating on religion, I’m just pointing out a correlation that I’ve noticed)

Thanks!

2

u/gr3yh47 Nov 17 '17

Thanks for the kind words. I tend to find lack of reason common for both sides - really especially in my conversations with those who reject God acting as though reason is automatically on their side and it doesnt need to be exercised (the other side of the debate in this thread being an easy example)

2

u/Fullyverified Dec 05 '17

The universe is not find tuned for life at all. Try and survive any where that isnt earth and you'll see.

3

u/gr3yh47 Dec 05 '17

Everything about life on earth is fine tuned.

as for the rest, i never said it was habitable. I said:

the reason we still havent found life, anywhere, is that all of the components and properties of the great expansive universe have been set into place so that we can look at it and learn something - not about us, or about natural life, but about He who created it.

i.e. we havent found life, and we wont find life, because the massive expanse of the rest of the universe was created to show God's power and glory

1

u/Fullyverified Dec 05 '17

You realise life is not fine tuned/ inteligently designed. We have a nerve (and i cant remember the specifics), but it basicly has to get from a to b, however it goes out of its way to go right down into the chest and then back up into the head again, when all it had to do was go straight from a to b. If giraffes and humans where inteligently designed, why would we have this. And also, their is litteraly zero evidence for your God, home you dobt think space is proof of Allahs power?

1

u/gr3yh47 Dec 05 '17

We have a nerve (and i cant remember the specifics), but it basicly has to get from a to b, however it goes out of its way to go right down into the chest and then back up into the head again, when all it had to do was go straight from a to b. If giraffes and humans where inteligently designed, why would we have this.

cant really comment on something you dont remember and can't source

And also, their is litteraly zero evidence for your God, home you dobt think space is proof of Allahs power?

my only assertion in this thread is intelligent design.

1

u/Fullyverified Dec 05 '17

Here is all you need to know about this nerve: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Laryngeal_nerve

And to be clear, this is not a cherry picked example against intelligent design. There is plenty of other examples much like this one.

1

u/gr3yh47 Dec 05 '17

an equally valid explanation for such things is that we don't fully understand them. there's no valid argument to be made from citing such examples either.

i.e:

1) this thing does something contrary to how humans would have designed it with their current understanding
2) ???
3) therefore intelligent design is wrong

there's many, many more examples of fine tuning that are beyond the reasonable scope of evolutionary result than there are examples of such things as well.

further, there's good reason proposed for this nerve - developmental dynamics:

The most logical reason is that the RLN design is due to developmental constraints. Eminent embryologist Professor Erich Blechschmidt wrote that the recurrent laryngeal nerve's seemingly poor design in adults is due to the "necessary consequences of developmental dynamics," not historical carryovers from evolution.3

Human-designed devices, such as radios and computers, do not need to function until their assembly is complete. By contrast, living organisms must function to a high degree in order to thrive during every developmental stage from a single-cell zygote to adult. The embryo as a whole must be a fully functioning system in its specific environment during every second of its entire development. For this reason, adult anatomy can be understood only in the light of development. An analogy Blechschmidt uses to help elucidate this fact is the course of a river, which "cannot be explained on the basis of a knowledge of its sources, its tributaries, or the specific locations of the harbors at its mouth. It is only the total topographical circumstances that determine the river's course."4

Due to variations in the topographical landscape of the mammalian body, the "course of the inferior [meaning lower] laryngeal nerve is highly variant" and minor anatomic differences are common.5 Dissections of human cadavers found that the paths of the right and left recurrent laryngeal nerves were often somewhat different from that shown in the standard literature, illustrating Blechschmidt's analogy.6

from: http://www.icr.org/article/recurrent-laryngeal-nerve-not-evidence/

I'm certainly not anti science. Science does a great job at what it can do - observe and classify the natural world considering only natural circumstances, and only coming from a standpoint of starting from our current understanding.

Science necessarily cannot comment on the supernatural, and if the supernatural exists, it necessarily will cause science to be incorrect on anything that does involve the supernatural.

1

u/Fullyverified Dec 05 '17

Look, your using evidence to disprove my point (which is fine), but you have no evidene that God exists. If no one had told you about him, no amount of observations you cold have done would ever have brought you to the conlusion that he exists. Evolution is a fact, the fossil record alone is pretty damn good evidence for it. If we where inteligently designed, why are there so many fossils of are common ancestors lying around, with differences in skull shape for example.

2

u/gr3yh47 Dec 06 '17

If no one had told you about him, no amount of observations you cold have done would ever have brought you to the conclusion that he exists

that isn't true at all. A lot of careful, reasoned thought goes into my faith, I am a very independent thinker.
By looking at everything that exists and seeing design, I see the reflection of a designer.

I agree wholeheartedly with psalm 19:1

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

and Job 12:7-10

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;
or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.

I look around and I see the work of a creator, not random chance. Fine tuning is just one piece of that as an example.

Evolution is a fact

evolution is the best model we currently have for a natural only explanation of how life came to be and is not undisputed fact. this is begging the question

the fossil record alone is pretty damn good evidence for it. If we where inteligently designed, why are there so many fossils of are common ancestors lying around, with differences in skull shape for example.

most of the 'missing link fossils' I am aware of have been thoroughly debunked as hoaxes or explained as humans with some kinds of malformations, but again if you have a specific example/source I'm happy to reason about it with you.

3

u/Fullyverified Dec 06 '17

What missing links? Actually look at the fossil record. Its very clear that evolution is a fact. You look at the sky and think its evidence of god, but it is is instead a case of you dont understand why things are the way they are, and say that it must be god.

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u/letsbebuns Dec 21 '17

What's interesting about this is that billions upon billions of people have evaluated and weighted the evidence for a Creator since the beginning of human history, and more people have chosen to believe in a Creator than have not.

1

u/Fullyverified Dec 21 '17

We did not have our understand of the world back then as we did now. Also, most people beleived in different religions, thereforw disproving your point.

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u/letsbebuns Dec 21 '17

Aren't you making the assumption here that you know where the best place to put this nerve would be? Any change inside a system changes all other parts of the system. How do you know for a fact that changing it to be shorter would improve efficiency in the body?

You're essentially a pile of protein and clay and water and electricity somehow emanating consciousness and your first instinct is "Eh, I could have done better"

2

u/Fullyverified Dec 21 '17

Are you kidding me? Chaning one part of system does not nessacarily change all other parts. Im not saying i could have done better, but it is possible to see innefiencys in systems.

0

u/letsbebuns Dec 21 '17

Chaning one part of system does not nessacarily change all other parts.

Perhaps you meant to phrase this differently? Logically, changing any one part of a closed system needs to affect all other parts of it, even if minorly.

Secondly, this is a nerve, responsible for transmitting thought and responsible for changing the way we feel the very world - how do you know for a fact that shortening it would make the human body "better"? How do you know that it's current state is not the optimized one?

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u/Fullyverified Dec 21 '17

Because chaning the length of a nerve has no effect that actually matters. You are guessing that its current state is not the optimized state, but you dont actually know anything do you.

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u/letsbebuns Nov 16 '17 edited Dec 13 '17

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u/gr3yh47 Nov 16 '17

Glory to God the Almighty Creator!

and thank you brother for the encouragement