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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Imperfect Design

ID proponents claim that only a designer could have created such complex and perfect beings, but they fail to recognize an important loophole in their ideology: Humans are not perfect. Not even close. David P. Barash gives good analysis of our butchered body plan.

There's much more that the supposed designer botched: ill-constructed knee joints that wear out, a lower back that's prone to pain, an inverted exit of the optic nerve via the retina, resulting in a blind spot. And what about the theological implications? If God is the designer, and we are created in his image, does that mean he has back problems, too?

Humans aren't really meant to be bipedal. The transition to upright posture did not coincide with many necessary alterations in skeletal structure. Maybe that's why I am recovering from my second knee surgery and not yet old enough to escape the 'youth' car insurance rate...(due tomorrow...grrr).

The point is that these and other incongruities testify to the contingent, unplanned, entirely natural nature of natural selection. We are profoundly imperfect, cobbled together rather then designed. And in these imperfections reside some of the best arguments for our equally profound natural-ness.