Unintelligent Design
August 31, 2010 § 6 Comments
The human body is testament to the absence of determinism in the evolutionary path of animals. And there are several vestigial examples of evolutionary leftovers within the human body. Couple this with the imperfect state of the human eyeball (complete with a blind-spot at the back of the retina), and we have plenty of examples of the way that evolution works. Bodies are not redesigned every time an evolutionary change in a species occurs. Adaptations only hold on if they are advantageous, or at a minimum not harmful to the creature or plant.
The recurrent laryngeal nerve is an odd example of evolution that due to the evolutionary path of mammals takes a much longer journey than it should if evolution were about being efficient then things like this would never happen. Humans seem to be much more like a crammed together mess of spare parts than a divinely designed being.
And there are countless other examples of odd evolutionary quirks. Watch Dawkins’ dissection of a giraffe’s neck to reveal the epic journey of the recurrent laryngeal nerve.
Atheist Climber 
Ummm respectfully I’m not sure exactly what you are saying here? We are a dumb design or the whole universe is a dumb design, that determinism is nonsense because we are flawed somehow?
Hey that’s cool, thanks for the respect. š I am refuting a couple of theistic claims that have been made to me before, namely being created in god’s image in which case he must be flawed, and also the idea that humans are somehow the end of an evolutionary ladder. Among other things. It was just really conversation.
“Ummm respectfully Iām not sure exactly what you are saying here?”
You’re a bit confused, aren’t you? He is stating the obvious fact that there is no “intelligent design” or “creation” by “god” anywhere in nature. There is only evolution, which is not perfect, it makes mistakes and unintelligent designs that no “intelligent designer” would ever do. Many of those evolutionary hickups remain in our genes because they haven’t caused any direct harm either so selection pressure hasn’t cancelled them out.
AC…ta muchly.
Anon…starting a response telling me I’m …….whatever is ummm a cranky way of communicating isn’t it? I love reading these posts.and seek to understand others opinions. Thats it.
I think the author is successfully pointing out the inherent flaws in the “Intelligent design creationist God did it it all by magic” fabrication; based on scientific evidence of imperfection, directly observed with our pathetic excuses for ocular orbits.
We evolved, quite fortunately, to a point where we are physically and mentally able to observe and (mostly) understand the phenomena that brought us into existence, it is absolutely an abomination that people still choose to blissfully ignore that.
” Adaptations only hold on if they are advantageous, or at a minimum not harmful to the creature or plant.”
Or if, despite harm they provide an additional benefit which outweighs the harm during times of breeding competition. (I’m thinking of the 10% of white European-descendants around the world like me who are carriers for Cystic Fibrosis. Our CF carrying ancestors were resistant to cholera due to the same genetic defect that causes CF in dominant form. Okay, geek out over.)