The human body is the most poorly designed piece of crap imaginable

I’m in school now to become a massage therapist, hooray! So we study the parts of anatomy relevent to what we’ll need to know: skeletal, muscular and peripheral nervous systems mainly. And as I behold the glory of God’s handiwork I am moved to declare: “What a piece of Junk is Man!”

The main inspiration for this diatribe is the muscles responsible for moving the head, neck and torso. You might imagine that you have one main set of muscles for, say, turning your head to the left. Nuh-uh. So far the list of muscles that directly or indirectly contribute to this humble movement is about 10 (depending on how you break down sub-groups). Nothing having to do with the movement of the spine is simple. Imagine trying to learn to be a mechanic for a car that to make a left turn you would have to say “Primarily the front wheels determine which way the car turns; but also the back wheels to a lesser extent, and the drive train, and how fast the engine is revving, and what gear you’re in…”

Intelligent Design my keester! The body is about as well designed as an airplane that was modified from a bicycle.

I thought this was going to be about my ass.

Yeah, but have you ever tried saying, “You know, I don’t think I’ll fill my car with gasoline today…I think I’ll just put in CornNuts and CheeseDoodles!”

(And, yes, I speak from personal experience, having once eaten 5 pounds of CornNuts over 8 days…and I’m still alive to tell about it!)

Actually, this is exactly true - if you’re driving a car as fast as you can, all of those do matter to a considerable extent, and you can add in “how hard you’re braking or accelerating, and how the suspension was set up, and what the road surface is like”

Heh. I’ve been working on (and in) bodies for over two decades now, and I have to say that the human body is one of the most subtle, sophisticated, flexible and adaptable engineering marvels I’ve ever run across. Try building a device without wheels which can run up steps, climb ropes, swim, forage for its own energy supply, flee from danger, engage in reproductive activities, and experience ennui, all in the same afternoon!

[QUOTE=Qadgop the Mercotan]
the human body is one of the most subtle, sophisticated, flexible and adaptable engineering marvels I’ve ever run across./QUOTE]Yet it lacks a simple knob for adjusting the size of ones turbinates! I’d like something with a few more bells and whistles, if you please.

Yeah, ok, but while we’re on the topic, I have a few other questions I’d like to ask whoever designed us.

  • Why does pain continue past the point where it does any good? Pain supposedly exists to inform us that there’s a problem. I can see where this is necessary: hand on hot stove = OUCH = removal of hand before significant damage occurs. But then, three days later, after you’ve cleaned the burn and applied ointment and a bandage, the damned thing still hurts. What exactly is the point of continuing to remind me that I burned myself three days ago?

  • Why do the foods that are the worst for us, nutritionally speaking, always seem to taste the best? Granted, things that are inedible generally strike us as such (you wouldn’t try eating sand, for example), but of the things that our system can process, foodstuffs with high levels of fat and sugar – arguably the two least beneficial substances that still qualify as nutrients – appeal the most to us, while things like fresh veggies, which contain multiple necessary vitamins, taste the worst. I’ve heard arguments that a lot of this is societal, but given the number of kids who refuse to eat broccoli despite parental insistance that “it’s wonderful!”, I ain’t buyin’. What’s up with this?

There are a few others (I’ve compiled a list in the past), but I can’t seem to think of them right now. That’s ok, though, these will do for now. So, who do I complain to? Anybody got the toll-free number?

Note for the deadpan-impaired: the above complaints are approximately 80% tongue-in-cheek in nature. I understand that both of my questions have plausible answers, so please refrain from posting a diatribe informing me of this. Thank you.

God! The arrogance! We are one of the most adaptable and sophisticated biological mechanisms ever assembled by a blind and random universe. Bitching because we don’t have hydromatic transmissions seems kind of ungrateful even to a foxhole athiest like me.

For those of you who are amazed at the miracle that is the human body, I have 2 words for you - KIDNEY STONE !!!
Anyone of you ever have a kidney stone attack? Well I’ve had ***plenty *
** !!!
How could something about half the size of a pencil eraser cause so much pain?
Well, I’ll wait to see when one of you folks gets a kidney stone attack and comes here to say “yes but I can still climb stairs, and experience ennui”.

Qadgop, on the one hand, I hear what you’re saying. And on that same hand, I have great respect for you as a poster.

But on the other hand, as an ultimate frisbee player, I must say that whoever designed the hamstring should have his license revoked, or at least be hereafter prohibited from crafting body parts while inebriated.

-P

IANAD, but: the tissue there is still healing and still vulnerable. That pain is there to tell you not to mess with that tissue until it’s done healing.

You are aware that fat has the highest caloric content per gram of any of the four major groups (fat, sugar, carbs, protein), yes? Vegetables such as broccoli may taste masty because they are not cooked properly (adults who boil the ever-loving daylights out of vegetables until they are VINO - Vegetables In Name Only - are partially to blame for this) or because they are presented as lone dishes, whereas your average pasta will have some sort of redeeming sauce or other tasty component to it. Try eating a bunch of raw pasta some time and see how good it tastes. Better yet, try some raw wheat that hasn’t had the chaff taken off yet.

Hope you didn’t consider this a diatribe;)

Climbing stairs puts me in a state of ennui, which is probably why my subtle, sophisticated, flexible and adaptable engineering marvel is carrying extra ballast.

I haven’t been physically sick a day since I was 13. Never broken a bone. Never had cavity. I’m as strong or stronger than anyone I know. I’ve been injured many times and have always healed very well. There are even a few times when I probably shouldn’t have lived and did.
All of this aside…you say: “The body is a poor design.” without linking to any photos, and believe me I thought about it. I’ll just say, you don’t go to the beach very often do you. :dubious:

Try this one anyway and see what ya think.
I kinda like the design on some of those crappy human bodies.

:wink:

The original specs on some of those bodies were lacking the supplemental silicone buffering devices.

As aftermarket modifications go, though, yowsa.

Copious amounts of beer will help counteract any negative impact of CornNuts. You did wash them down with enough beer, right? :dubious:

I couldn’t build one. But I could find a subtler, more sophisticated, definatly more flexible, almost as adaptable one pretty easily. I’ll just look under the bed (where said device is curled up in a ball apparently suffering from ennui.)

The human body is a pretty amazing thing…I’ll certainly give you the brain, and the hands as marvels. But (and yeah, ironically,often due to greater use of brains and hands) we have some major design flaws. The most obvious; not even being able to give birth without dying half the time (at least not without a lot of help). That’s a pretty serious design flaw.

If I could design homo sapiens from the start again, the one feature I would include is duplicate vital organs. The current model does include many duplicates - eyes, ears, breasts, lungs, kidneys, ovaries, testicles, etc - and it can continue to function fairly well if one is lost or damaged (and, in some cases, both). But there is only one brain, heart and liver. Doesn’t make sense.

HALF the time? I’m gonna have to pull out a “cite” on that play, pal!

The human body is, yes, incredibly complex, and yes, a miracle of design. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t use improvements. Knees, for example, are both amazing and heinous.

But they work, most of the time, and if they didn’t, we wouldn’t have them in the shape they’re in - the “poor design” would’ve been selected out genetically. It’s this silly standing upright thing we insisted on evolving. Knees work much better if they’re not held in a straight line (look at that miracle under the bed.)

Oh, and as for the “bad food tasting better” argument. Come on. Diatribe or not, I have to point out that if we stopped being chemical engineers and using fossil fuels to power processing plants - if we only had our two hands and legs to get and process food - then high fat and high sugar are just what you want to eat. Chase down and kill a fat buffallo, gorge on the fat after cutting up all the meat into little strips to save for later, and your caloric ratio is pretty ballanced. Walk three miles to the blueberry patch to fill your basket (which you wove yourself out of some grasses on your walk) and then eat to your heart’s content. Haul it all back to mix with some of that dried buffalo meat and a little of the fat, and you’ve got a travel food to rival Lambas bread.

When getting and making food is hard work, the work of getting and making food means you can eat fat and sugar as often as you can find it! When I can jump in my car to get to the corner store and walk 20 feet to pick up a packaged Little Debbie’s which I didn’t work to make, the calorie in: out ratio’s all screwy.

So don’t blame the body, bub, blame processination (made up word, don’t care)

As far as “nature” is concerned, we *should * be fat, pop out as many babies as we can and then die either of coronary disease or when we hit menopause so we stop taking up resources. Nature doesn’t give two squats about asthetics or what shape you want to be in.

OK, that was a little diatribe-y, and I apologize. But I’m still gonna hit submit.

The reason why our bodies seem weird is, we are mammals. We were not originally designed to walk upright. Just standing without falling over is an engineering marvel. The price we pay is back pain and other things. Other creatures do have better systems in some ways. Sharks never have to worry about cavities or tooth aches. They have an assembly line that keeps making new teeth to replace old ones. Apes have more powerful muscles. Cats have more coordination and those really cool claws. Horses and dogs can run practically forever. Eagles have better vison. The price they all pay is specialization. If everything in their world is not just right, they disappear. We just change our world to fit us. Still, it would be pretty cool to have some of the other things like super strength, bitchin fangs, and oh, I dunno, fur for when it really gets cold.

Nope…Call me crazy, but I don’t even like beer.

Well, okay, I’m with you on this one having passed several kidney stones myself. It does amaze me that something like that can be so painful and yet not life-threatening or even particularly bad for the body (except in those rare cases where it leads to a bad infection). I think the best quote I ever saw about kidney stones was “The good news is that it probably won’t kill you. The bad news is that you’ll be wishing it would!” But, hey, it is nothing that large doses of Morphine or Demerol (taken intravenously) can’t fix!