Intelligent Design?

Useless Eyes
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Why do "blind" cave-dwelling animals have eyes? They're degenerated
eyes, too; they're in sockets or on stalks as usual, all fully-formed,
but missing some parts. They wouldn't work anyway even if there was
light to see. What's the point of these?

Night Eyes
-=-=-=-=-=
There is a membrane in most nocturnal vertebrate eyes (cats are the
best-known example) called the tapetum lucidum. It reflects light and
gives the retinas a second chance to pick it up. Why do only some
nocturnal animals have these and not others? Why doesn't, for example,
the nocturnal tarsier have them? This is especially puzzling since their
adaptation to low light conditions appears to be to grow truly massive
eyeballs--to the point that they're fixed and the tarsier has to swivel
its head to change its field of view.

Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This one is a stumper: generally nerve signals for bodily motion come
from the brain and travel straight down the spinal cord, the branch out
to where they're going. This makes perfect sense. The RLN comes off the
spinal cord too, but instead of going right across the neck, it goes
down the next and into the chest, then loops up past the heart, THEN
comes up to the larynx.

This wouldn't be SO weird if it were just a human thing, but this
happens in giraffes, which necessitates another 10-15 feet of nerve just
for this to work. This is not intelligent design: this is jury-rigging.

Two Tubes, One Mouth
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
WHY do human breathe and eat with the same opening?! We have to have
our swallowing motions cut off the trachea, else we aspirate food or
worse. This is a general mammal thing, but whales and dolphins seem
recently to have evolved the problem away...by, basically, migrating
their noses up onto their scalps.

Ear-Moving Muscles
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Obviously these are useful to animals with larger ears, but if we were
designed separately, why do we [still] have them? This is what you would
expect to see if we evolved, not if we were specifically designed or
created.

One if By Land, Two if By Sea. And Vice-Versa.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Salamanders are land-dwellers from birth, but have to lay their eggs in
water. Conversely, sea turtles are aquatic, but have to lay eggs on
land. This is bad design, especially because of how vulnerable the
turtle eggs are when left on land like that.

I Hope You Can Hold Your Breath...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Returning to whales and dolphins, their body shapes are clearly adapted
to swimming. So why aren't their lungs? You'd think an all-knowing,
maximally-great creator would at least give them a set of working gills.
Again, this looks like what you'd expect if whales evolved from
land-dwelling animals.

Hemoglobin Gas Affinity
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Hemoglobin has about 60 times the affinity for carbon monoxide (CO) than
oxygen, which it is designed to transport. This is why carbon monoxide
poisoning is so dangerous.

Snake Lungs
-=-=-=-=-=-
Snakes have only one functional lung. The left lung is vestigial and
very small. And as if this weren't weird enough, Amphisbaeneans ("worm
lizards" to you and me) have the exact same problem, only with them it's
the right lung that's reduced.

Snake Legs
-=-=-=-=-=
More primitive snakes still have bits of bones like pelvises, hip
girdles, and hind legs embedded within their bodies. What good do these
do a legless animal? Also, occasionally a snake *will* be born with
limbs, providing even more proof that the legless design is
evolutionary.

Whale and Manatee Bones
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Similarly to snakes, whales and manatees have free-floating remnants of
pelvic bones. Even if these serve some other function, WHY specifically
them?

Panda Thumbs
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Actually, these aren't thumbs at all; they're elongated spurs of
wristbones (the radial sesamoids, specifically). Pandas have the usual 5
fingers, but in a standard bear-paw shape.

Reproductive Waste (Every Sperm is NOT Sacred)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Reproduction in sexual species is often incredibly wasteful. Everything
from plants and trees (HOW many acorns does an oak spread, again?) to
humans (millions of sperm in a single ejaculation, but only one
fertilizes the egg) shows almost perverse waste.

And speaking of fertilized eggs, a significant percentage spontaneously
abort. This would make God the most prolific abortionist of all time, if
you think of it a certain way.

Hyena Reproduction
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This is about equal parts tragic and bizarre. Female hyena genitals are
almost indistinguishable from males'. Their labia are fused shut,
looking like a male's scrotum, and they have massive, fully-erectile
clitorises--through which the birth canal runs. Hyena birth is like
delivering through a penis.

As you can imagine, this is an incredibly painful and dangerous process.
The end of the clitoris can't stretch far enough to accomodate the baby,
which *claws its way out.* To make matters worse, the umbilical cord is
shorter than the birth canal. In a species where births can take more
than two days, this makes it likely that the newborn will suffocate or
otherwise be stillborn.

The upshot of this is that some 3/4 of firstborn hyena pups die in
captivity, with veterinary assistance; without it, odds are good that
many of the mothers would go with them. Many wild hyenas die at 3-4
years, which is the usual age of first birth.

Manatees Again
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
There are...toenails...on manatee flippers. Why?

Quollable Quolls
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The quoll is a species of Australian marsupial carnivore. Imagine
carnivorous mouse with a cat-shaped body and the reproductive habits of
a kangaroo and you're on the right track.

The thing about marsupial birth, the key thing, is that they're born
massively underdeveloped. They're basically tiny, pink jellybeans with
limbs. They crawl from the mother's vagina to her pouch, find a nipple,
and attach permanently to it. That means once a nipple is claimed, it's
not going to be let go of until weaning.

Quolls have 6 nipples. Quolls have up to 30 young at a birthing. Do the
math. Not only is this not intelligent design, it's cruel to the utmost.

Fetal Teeth
-=-=-=-=-=-
Baleen whales and anteaters, to name two species, have no teeth...after
birth. But as embryos, they form teeth, and then reabsorb them. Why?

Dolphin Embryo Legs
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Similar to the baleen whales and their teeth in utero, dolphin embryos
start growing hind limbs. These, too, are reabsorbed. What's the point?

The Coccyx (Stop Laughing)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The human tailbone starts as several suspciously vertebrae-like bones
which then fuse. They also have a muscle attached which *would* flex
these bones, if they weren't fused. And to top it off, the coccyx's
development is controlled by the same genes that make tails in other
mammals.

Vitamin C, Ye Scurvy Cur!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Apes and humans need vitamin C. Most mammals are able to synthesize
their own, but humans and apes can't. What's odd is that we have the
gene that all other mammals do, but it's broken...and in precisely the
same way in both apes and humans! The identical mutation in all great
ape and human species is what deactivates the gene. So nice of a loving
God to make His pinnacle creations almost uniquely vulnerable to
scurvy...

And if you think that's weird, there's another mammal that has a broken
C synthesis gene: the cavy or guinea pig. But unlike apes and humans,
the cavies' C synthesis is broken because of a different mutation on
that same gene.

Cats Don't Get Sugar Highs
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Cats can't taste sweet things, so they have no interest in them. This in
itself is no disadvantage for an obligate carnivore, but it turns out
they actually do have the genetic machinery for it that all mammals
do...except that one of the two receptor genes is broken by mutation.

Even stranger, this exact same sequence is found in tigers and cheetahs,
which means the creator specifically broke them identically across
several types of cat.

Kiss My Grass
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Plant-eaters can't digest cellulose on their own; it's up to their gut
microflora to do it for them. Why wouldn't a designer that specifically
designed them to eat grass at least give them their own
cellulose-digesting enzymes?

Actually, come to that, grass is pretty terrible food in a number of
ways. First, it's been beefing itself up with silica (read: SAND) to
discourage herbivores from eating it, so it wears down their teeth
quickly. Second, it's so poor in other minerals that herbivores are
compelled to look for "salt licks" and other sources of minerals.

Take A Deep Breath...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Mammal respiration, the "tidal system," mixes fresh with stale air.
Birds have what's called "flow-through" respiration, which does not.
Flow-through respiration is an order of magnitude more efficient. And,
oddly, although bats fly (and the Bible even calls them birds!), guess
which respiratory system they use...?

Mitochondria
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Mitochondria have their own DNA and reproduce separately from the cells
of our body. And they have a lot of biochemical and structural
similarities to parasitic bacteria (though of course this is an example
of mutualism, not parasitism).

Flatfish (Or, the Duke of Sole)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Flatfish swim along the sea floor. It makes sense that they do it
sideways, since fish are already flattened this way, but WHY are they
born with skulls that would place one eye permanently against the
seabed? They get around this by having one eye migrate up and over the
top to the other side, complete with grotesque distortions of the skull.
Does this look like an intelligent design to you?

The Prostate
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ahh, the prostate. The male urethra runs through the prostate, which is
prone to swelling and infection, and can very easily squeeze the urethra
shut. This is very poor design.

This Is Spinal Tap
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I'll get right to the point: human spines are not meant for walking
upright.

Sure, bipedal mammals exist, but they tend to lean forward and balance
with a long tail. They don't stand straight up like we do, which puts
massive compressive stress on the spine. That sort of stress is best
dealt with by rigid pillars with joints, and in fact we have two good
examples; we call them legs.

This flawed design in the back causes almost 150 million sick days in
the US alone, costing some 50-100 BILLION dollars in lost wages and
medical care per year. More than 4 in 5 people will be affected by back
pain at some point. Pregnancy causes backache because of the extra
weight putting stress on the spine in unintended ways.

I Gannet Smell A Thing
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Gannets are a family of diving birds. They have no external nostrils,
which makes perfect sense...until you look closer and discover they have
everything BUT external nostrils they'd need to breathe through their
beaks. In other words, they have nasal passages, but they're blind. This
is not what you'd expect of an intelligent designer; this is what you'd
expect if they evolved nasal seals.

At Least It's Not Written in Java *shudder*
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Come to think of it, even the genetic code itself is an argument against
an intelligent designer.

First of all, a truly benevolent, all-knowing creator would make it so
that mutations do not occur in transcription, period. If that creator
really wanted separate, immutable "kinds," making the code at least
internally consistent would be a large step toward that end.

Even Francis Crick (one of the discoverers of DNA) was able to think of
a more robust coding mechanism, one that avoids frame-shift and slippage
mutations and has exactly as many states as there are amino acids to be
coded for (oddly, life uses only a small portion of the possibilities).

Then there's "junk" DNA. We're finding that a lot of what we used to
call "junk" actually does have some function, but still more of it does
not and by definition cannot. The major examples here are what are
called "pseudogenes," sequences of DNA that look too much like known
genes for it to be a coincidence, but do not code for any proteins
because of missing parts...like a "start transcribing here" codon.

Then there are "satellite sequences," which are repeating sequences of
bases that just seem to be good at getting themselves copied. The
much-studied fruit fly has about 40% of its genome taken up by three
satellite sets seven bases long, repeated MILLIONS of times.

If nothing else, using much, much more material than needed is poor
design. Take ten points off for poor judgment.

Misplaced Gene-ius?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Horses have a single toe on each leg, but they have (normally
non-functional) genes for multiples. Birds have no teeth, but they have
the genes for them.

Here's the kicker: if these creatures were designed as they are out of
whole cloth, WHY do they have genes for features they would never have
had to begin with?

Boneheaded Mistakes
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Ostritches have hollow bones, which are an adaptation for flight. But,
as everyone knows, they are flightless.

Bats fly, but they have solid bones.

Arrrrrgh!

God Loves Lesbians, Since He's Male and Almost Certainly Straight
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Exhibit A: the whiptail lizard. These are parthenogenic (meaning they
give birth as virgins) and are all females. However, they are much more
fertile if mounted by another female, and they do this spontaneously.

The lizards' closest relatives are sexual in the usual way, male and
female, and sexual behavior also increases their fertility. So it makes
sense that it does for the parthenogenetic female lizards too. But,
given how down God is on homosexuality (cf. Leviticus and Romans), WHY
would He allow this to happen?!

My best guess is, as the title says, that God is a straight male and
likes lesbians as much as the rest of them do.