Constrained optimization is the art of compromise between conflicting objectives. This is what design is all about. To find fault with biological design - as Stephen Jay Gould regularly does - because it misses some idealized optimum is therefore gratuitous. Not knowing the objectives of the designer, Gould is in no position to say whether the designer has proposed a faulty compromise among those objectives. .William A. Dembski
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Constrained optimization is the art of compromise between conflicting objectives. This is what design is all about. To find fault with biological design - as Stephen Jay Gould regularly does - because it misses some idealized optimum is therefore gratuitous. Not knowing the objectives of the designer, Gould is in no position to say whether the designer has proposed a faulty compromise among those objectives.
However, Gould and others who think like him do not hesitate to apply their own standards of perfection and utility to nature and its products, and then to scoff at nature’s designs. They seem to forget that nature has produced many things far more highly evolved than we can conceive. The predator-prey relationship between insects has been solved by evolution with an efficiency never before seen in history.
The ornithopter, which can fly on three wings, was created by nature on another planet. And the honeybee, the most intelligent animal on our planet, was created by nature on another world even further away from ours.
Source: Signs Of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design
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