Mimicking Materials and Structures In Nature

eldavojohn writes "From special organic molecules to organic surfaces with special properties to organic concrete, MIT's Technology Review takes a look at inspirations in nature that materials scientists are currently mimicking for human purposes. You may be able to name other fields that have turned to evolution for inspiration as well."

Re:Biomimetics

[JoshuaZ]

Convergent evolution is an example where it isn't the same thing at all. Why would an intelligent designer redesign the same thing for multiple lineages instead of using the same lineage? That's precisely what makes sense under evolution. It doesn't make sense for an intelligent designer to go through all the work again. It makes perfect sense for these to evolve. And note the original context we were discussing about really clever biological materials that aren't reused. This actually provides a perfect example; despite bats converging similarly to birds (albeit with very different muscle and skeletal structures you would expect from evolution), bats still don't get feathers. And nocturnal birds don't get the whole sonic radar system.

Besides, intelligent design is not creationism (though creationists tend to use it as a sort of disguise, hence the confusion). ID simply says that an intelligent wossname helped guide evolution. Depending on how you formulate it, it's either the weak form: a nice thought but not really provable either way (the approach the Vatican takes, FWIW), or the strong form, which says evolution couldn't happen without a guiding hand.

People may use "intelligent design" to mean something other than strict young earth creationism, but the term was made specifically to disguise to get creationism into the American public schools. In 1987, in Edwards v. Aguillard, the US Supreme Court ruled that "creation science" was the same thing as "creationism" which couldn't be taught in public school biology classes because it violated the First Amendment. Then the creationists decided to start talking about intelligent design. Indeed, the very next draft "Of Pandas and Peoples", a creation science textbook that was in the works did a search and replace for every single use of "creationists" or "creation scientists" or "creationism" and replaced them with the correct form of "intelligent design." However, in a truly ironic step, they screwed up in the next draft and actually left a transitional form of "cdesign proponentsists". This strange hybrid of "creation scientists" and "design proponents" was corrected in the next draft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdesign_proponentsists#Pandas_and_.22cdesign_proponentsists.22 [wikipedia.org] However, this draft, which remained unpublished, was disclosed during the Kitzmiller v Dover trial where it was decided that intelligent design really was just a cheap disguise for creationism. The decision in the Dover trial is really worth reading. The text can be found at http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf [uscourts.gov]. It includes a lot more very clear evidence that ID was made solely as a term to disguise creationism and get it into our public schools.

Re:Biomimetics

[ShakaUVM]

>>Despite how you try to slant it, ID only exists as a facade that the creationists put up to try and present a "theory" to throw at evolution. It is of little use except as an example of quackery.

While I agree it is probably often used as a facade, it is a testable (and therefore a scientific theory) that someone rigged the dice during evolution. You can make statistical tests for loaded dice - gaming commissions do this sort of testing all the time, in fact.

Of course, it's not really very popular to say as such here on Slashdot, where everyone is supposed to just go along with the atheist-anarchist sheeple and be followers who are so proud of themselves for their individuality.

>>Bold mine. The -only- people who use that phrase are those who, for some reason, have a bone to pick with those who oppose creationism and fight against attempts to introduce ID into schools.

I use the term 'evolutionist' only to describe people who, for some reason, have a bone to pick with Christians who propose God could have had anything at all to do with evolution. Usually because they can't handle the notion if it was true.

Read up on Hoyle and the development of the big bang theory. You might find it illuminating. People like Hoyle rejected the big bang theory out of what you might call an atheistic faith, because he couldn't handle the notion of a finite universe, because it would imply God was real. These 1940s versions of Richard Dawkins attacked the theory as 'closet creationism' and spewed quite a fair amount of vitriol in the process.

There's a close parallel between it and the modern evolutionists. If you want to watch a temper tantrum, propose testing ID as a scientific theory to your average Slashdot Dawkins clone.