Depends on how you think about it. The commonality can mean a same-designer. One would expect that from a personal-being. Eg.: Someone's music writing style can be said to be the "same" (eg.: you can recognize the Beatles, the beach boys, elton john, etc... ) as distinct "designers". Ie.: so why WOULDN'T there be "common tail-bones" blah blah if the designer were "in common" ?
So in the same way you see it as "random", someone else could infer "design".
But I don't see it as being random at all. There are easily observable patterns in life today. There are less easily observable patterns in the fossil record of life. We can connect the dots while admitting that not all of the dots have been found.
If a theory describes life evolving toward more efficient designs over a long period of time, I'd argue that diverging branches of life sharing common features that are effective would be proof. Bilateral symmetry and endoskeletons seem to be the way to go once an animal is over a certain size. It doesn't mean that it's smart, but it does imply that it works, and it's been working for a long time.
I can't speak for an intelligent designer but if I were tasked with designing a multitude of animals, I'd be inclined to recycle the features that worked well while discarding other features that added nothing to the effectiveness of the design. The human tailbone is completely useless. It's a waste of calcium and mass. I could apply that same mass of bone somewhere else where it would be more useful, or I could delete it entirely to save a little weight. I would not include it just because I was the "tailbone guy." There are other ways to put your name on a design without compromising it.
If I were omnipotent, I'd know where things were going and I'd plan ahead for that. I'd know that humans would eventually be consuming large amounts of refined carbohydrates and I'd work out their livers a bit better so that they all didn't wind up as fat diabetics from that diet...that is, if I truly cared about them. Or else I'd remove refined carbohydrates from the equation entirely and not make it an option. That is, if I cared about the well being of the things under my care, which is why my cats eat that fancy grain free cat food. I know what they should be eating and I have control over their food source, so I make sure that they eat what they should be eating, and not corn.
There has been AMPLE "evidence" floated, to show that no treasure is on Oak Island. But it will all just be dismissed in the game of "wack-A-mole" that the faithful will play.
Indeed. There is a way of thinking that involves simply throwing circumstantial evidence at the problem. It's difficult to argue against. When a person provides me with ten pieces of circumstantial evidence, my initial impulse is to work my way through them, debunking them one by one. This is exactly the wrong way to do it. By the time that I've addressed #10, we're back to #1 again. I'd argue that a better way to address this method of debate is to trim off the fat, and simply to ask, "Give me your best single piece of evidence arguing that this is the case." (If you want to be kind, extend this to two or three.) The logic here is that if you have some really compelling evidence of something, you won't need much of it to change my mind, so lead off with your winning card and make me a believer or not.
I should really take my own advice, but I've been trained and conditioned to go after the details, which is how I've ended up in multiyear debates here.
Oak Island has been tossed more times than Paris Hilton.
This made me chuckle.
Here's exactly what you are doing:
b3yOnd3r : I want cataloged evidence, hard scientific proof, that leprechauns don't exist . And unless you can prove that (to my satisfaction) then we must therefore conclude, that leprechauns HAVE to exist. Eh ?
As Tom has said, it's not that skeptics are lazy or don't have solid arguments, but rather it's that it's very difficult to prove a negative.
Scenes for the next 5 seasons of nothing,then another season or recaps of the last season of nothing
