Unintelligent Design

What with all the talk about teaching “Intelligent Design” in the classroom, I thought I’d take a look at the whole concept, and I quickly concluded that if God, indeed, had created things the way the Bible says, then he’s done some pretty shoddy work and has a lot to answer to. Let’s take the act of creation itself, for starters.

For reasons I can’t quite fathom, it takes God an entire week to create the universe. Was he using union labor or what? I mean, this is God we’re talking about here, a being who can not only create Himself (And when, exactly, did He do this?), but also everything we can see in the universe. These are, putting it mildly, superhuman acts, requiring knowledge and ability beyond our means, and yet it still takes God 6 days to do everything. One would think that if God were so smart, that He’d have figured out how to do it all in an instant, so that He could get back to whatever it was He was doing before He started creating everything. Apparently not.

Of course, the act of creation was a monumental task and something far beyond our present skills, but this is, God we are talking about, and He’s supposed to be able to do anything (though how He could create a rock so large that even He couldn’t move it is a bit of a mystery) so I’d think that a week was a bit long for Him to be spending on a particular task. Just look at the scale of Creation, and there’s lots of things you have to wonder about when it comes to the amount of time God spent creating things. The next time you’re in the supermarket, pick up a grapefruit, then find a watermelon that’s roughly twice the size of the grapefruit. That is how the Earth compares to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. Not only did God create both the Earth and Jupiter on the same day (which is quite a feat, IMHO), but He created millions, if not billions, of other planets, both larger and smaller on the same day.

It’s when you get to what happens on the sixth day of Creation, that God really begins to look like a slacker. He spends the entire day creating life on Earth. Why, I have to ask, does it take so long? I mean, in a single day, God creates basically the entire universe, stocks it full of planets and stars at an expanse of some fifteen billion lightyears (or more) across, but then it takes Him another whole day to create life on one measly little planet. I’d think that if a being could create something the size of Jupiter, let alone millions of planet sized objects, putting life on one insignificant speck, in one tiny corner of the cosmos, would take less time than a coffee break and not a whole day, but there you have it.

Now, when God gets around to creating humanity, He really starts to screw things up. First and foremost, there’s His choice of materials: dust. Now, God manages to transmute that dust into flesh and bone (which, I presume is some kind of divine parlor trick, used to pick up female deities at parties or impress gullible yokels who’ve just shown up), but pretty much shafts us in comparison to other animals. Insects get an armored external skeleton with which to protect themselves from attackers, while we’re left with an easily pierced bag of skin. This is bad, since lots of other animals have large claws and big fangs, and view humans as a light snack to keep hunger pangs away while they track water buffaloes or whatever they consider to be a meal. Oh, sure, God gave us opposable thumbs and larger brains, but as any animal trainer or hunter can tell you, those things aren’t always enough to even the odds. Hell, even chimpanzees are stronger than us and can easily kick our asses. If humans are God’s chosen creation, then why did we get such short shrift when compared to the animals?

God then realizes that He’s apparently forgotten something and creates woman. Earlier in the Bible, when God’s making every other kind of animal, He goes ahead and makes the female of the species, but with woman, she’s the afterthought to His (apparent) afterthought of man. Talk about your neglectful parenting! Given that the Bible doesn’t mention asexual reproduction, we’re left with a bit of a conundrum. After all, one of the arguments against evolution is that it’s not mentioned in the Bible, and therefore, can’t be true. The bones of extinct animals are, according to this theory, Satan’s doing to throw us off the track, so presumably, anything which uses asexual reproduction is also Satan’s doing. This means, of course, that the microorganisms necessary for the fermentation of wine are, in fact, Satan’s minions. Something to think about the next time you take Communion, no?

Next, God commands Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply”, while simultaneously making it incredibly difficult to do so. Oh sure, it only takes one time having sex to get a woman pregnant, but look at how big a pain in the ass it can be to get a woman into the position where she wants to have sex. If God really wanted us to be “fruitful and multiply” you’d think He’d make it so that all women were nymphomaniacs, or that they could get pregnant from something as simple as a handshake, and not a complicated ritual involving things like flowers, booze, and/or a blow to the head.

Even if you accept all that as somehow being necessary for the propagation of the species, you have to wonder about the whole design and placement of the various reproduction organs. Males, for instance, have rather delicate parts of their anatomy, which in order to function properly must be allowed to flop about in the breeze, as it were. By doing so, however, their reproductive capability is put at great risk even by the gentlest of blows. I’d think that if you were designing a creature to have the highest chance of being able to reproduce, you’d want those organs to be well protected, and not hanging out where they could be easy prey for small children or the snout of an affectionate dog, to name but a few. Then, of course, if a male somehow does manage to keep his “goody bits” intact until he’s old enough to reproduce (And why do we have to wait till physical maturity to be able to reproduce? Seems to me, that if you wanted a species to really multiply, they’d be born pregnant, like aphids, and would start cranking out young almost immediately, and not have to wait a decade or more to be able to do it.) and he survives the exhausting task of seduction, he’s got to be able to develop enough “hydraulic power” to get his anatomy in the proper state to release his seed, then perform a series of strenuous physical acts necessary to convince his sperm that it really is safe to come out now. Afterwards, if he’s unable to drop off to sleep, he’s forced to endure endless prattling from the female about how they’re going to be spending the rest of their lives together, during which, she’ll endeavor to prevent him from doing those things that he enjoys most, and not allow him to complete the act of reproduction with any other females, even though the male is biologically compelled to do so.

Mind you, when it comes to reproduction, the male anatomy is exceedingly wasteful. Not only does it take a tremendous effort to get sperm out of males, but most of that which is excreted is simply wasted. It only takes one sperm to fertilize an egg, but the male organ blithely squirts out millions of the little buggers at a time, letting the vast majority of them to go to waste. Not to mention, if a male doesn’t ejaculate on a fairly regular basis, his anatomy will seek it’s own means of disposal, rather than saving them for those rare opportunities when a female is securely wrapped around it.

Female anatomy isn’t much better. Females are only capable of becoming pregnant a few days out of the month, and there’s no handy indicator to let the male know that the female is fertile, so he may find that all his exertions were in vain. Then, instead of, locating the female organs in a readily accessible place like the hand, they’re tucked up out of sight, making it difficult for males to find. Females also “suffer” from being limited to being pregnant once every nine months. Not only is that a long gestation time, but while a female’s pregnant, she cannot (except in exceedingly rare circumstances) get pregnant again, until she’s rid herself of the first pregnancy.

Both sets of anatomy suffer from having the “snack bar” uncomfortably close to the shithole. As anyone who’s spent time fumbling about in a confined space while trying to commit the act of reproduction can tell you, this can some times lead to an unpleasant surprise when something ends up where it shouldn’t. :eek: Of course, some people like that sort of thing, and while it might be entertaining, it generally doesn’t lead to reproduction. God, it seems, enjoys leaving an awful lot of things to chance. You kind of have to wonder why God didn’t just wire things up so that they only work in the way He intended.

Another problem with the location of the reproductive organs being stuffed up next to the excretory organs, is that if things get really going, one or both members could lose control of the excretory organs and you have one hell of a big mess to clean up, not to mention it can kill one’s mood right quick. Admittedly, there are individuals who enjoy getting sprayed with excrement during the sex act, but let’s face it, they’re perverts and probably aren’t going to be all that interested reproducing anyway.

One thing you have to wonder about, if the Bible’s account of Creation is literally correct, is DNA. Why is it so easy to manipulate? Heck, even on it’s own, parts of it can randomly rearrange itself in undesirable ways. If God wants the form of man to not evolve (it being perfect at the moment of Creation), then why use something like DNA which can be so easily scrambled by things like sunlight, chemicals, and a host of other things? Seems to me, that God, in His infinite wisdom, could have thought of a better system.

Then there’s this whole business of growing old and wearing out. I realize that God did that to us because of something our remote ancestors did, but talk about holding a grudge! Sheesh. God makes the perfect design, and then later on, realizes that He’s got to go back and modify it in such a manner, not only to punish the wrong doers, but also everyone who comes after them. Leaving aside God’s wrathful nature for a moment, this sounds like a design defect. Obviously God’s never worked the Japanese, who won’t put up with that kind of crap.

So it seems to me that if God did create everything exactly the way it’s laid out in the Bible, He’s a moron. Not only that, but we humans had better stay here on Earth and not go any where, since given how piss-poor we’re slapped together (and we are God’s “chosen creation"), the rest of the cosmos must be positively falling apart at the seams.

Standing ovation

Brilliant.

Beautiful, Tuckerfan, and entertaining to boot. applauds

I can think of a whole bunch of additional stuff that doesn’t sound very intelligent to me. (Although I cannot hope to match the rhetoric of the OP.)

The appendix.
Nearsightedness. And the entire mammalian eye is inefficiently designed anyway, with the wrong part of the retinal cells forward. Octopi have eyes that are set up the more efficient way.
The sinuses. The “drain hole” is at the top, where it would work if we walked on all fours. Not so good for bipedal beings.
The spine. A good thing to have, but it doesn’t hold up well. A kind of planned obsolescence if you ask me.
Don’t get me started on pregnancy. The whole placement of the uterus is just asking for trouble. Again, great if you’re on all fours, but uncomfortable and impractical when bipedal.
The ridiculous effort required to give birth. I’ve never heard of any animal that routinely goes through as much effort as human beings do.
Tonsils. Apparently we can get along fine without them, but they are there anyway just asking to get infected.
Ankles are just a completely poor design. One little tweak and you’re crippled for days.

Of course the whole create man and then create woman is confusing. A couple of verses before that part it clearly says “male and female he created them.”

Plus, this allegedly omnipotent being had to rest on the 7th day. That doesn’t sound omnipotent to me…

As an antidote to Intelligent design ideas, one should listen to this NPR report on DNA as software:

As one DNA researcher mentions: “It is the worst kind of spaghetty code ever imagined”

It is called spaghetty code because even the person who wrote it can not undersand it.

DNA is like that because nature has been thinkering with the code like a blind programer for 3 billion years.

Plants use sunlight to grow. Animals (including the epitome of intelligent design, man) have to eat, process what they eat, and then eliminate a bunch of what they’ve eaten, with the elimination product being a frequent source of horrible diseases. You’ve got the technology – why not make all living things capable of photosynthesis? Hunger would be pretty much eliminated. The brutality of one species killing and eating another would be gone. There would be no need for humans to fight and kill each other over food resources.

Of course, humans would probably still go to war, because we are aggressive power-hungry beasts. But why design humans that way? These traits make sense if they were needed for some humans to persevere over others, creating a “survival of the fittest” scenario. If survival of the fittest is not occurring, why make humans so aggressive? It results in a lot of suffering.

Outstanding. I am in awe.
Speaking of intelligence, at the time this is posted the Google ads are selling real estate in Jupiter, Florida. ooo-kayyy…

Thanks. I whipped most of this out when I didn’t have net service and just got around to polishing it up and finishing it today. I would have liked to included some of things that others have mentioned, but I was worried about it getting too long.

If there was intelligent design, there would be no “Lite Beer”. Among other things…

And certainly no “no carb” stuffing at Thanksgiving.

Tuckerfan, that was superb.

Can someone please explain the platypus?

God invented it, right after he invented and sampled ergot.

Thank you! I’ve always said that is an insult to God. As a product of evolution, my body is a wonder. As a product of “intelligent” design, I must have been some junior angel’s 5th grade science project! And I doubt they would have gotten a good grade.

In addition to the issues mentioned (particularly that lower back of us bipeds), why the heck do we use the same tube for breathing, speaking, and eating. Surely there’s a better design that would allow us to eat and talk at the same time without causing a choking hazard. And why only one heart? Shouldn’t we have a backup for such an important organ? I find it amazing that cells generally know when to multiply and when to stop. But why design it so that mechanism breaks down occassionally and causes cancer?

God must have wired the automatic, human pilo-dermal heat-transfer regulation system arse-up.

Instead of hairs on our body lying flat when it is cold, in order to trap heat close to our skin, they stand up, thus releasing the heat. Similarly, when the person is hot they should stand up to aid cooling.

But I suppose evolution would explain this apparent design flaw.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to deny that God is strangely opaque for an ostensibly omniscient being. Even His own promotional material reveals Him as remarkably clueless. This, after all, is the Guy who created beings with no ability to distinguish good from evil, and then was utterly scandalized when they failed to obey Him. From this we can conclude that God is not as smart as Isaac Asimov.

And who did God trust with the knowledge of good and evil? A tree.

God just has no idea what He’s even doing most of the time.

Or even Isaac Hayes.

(my highlight) - This is the part that really gets me. Why are you shocked and angry, God?! You made me like this. Sigh.

…and you knew we were going to nail your son to a cross and yet you sent him anyway.

[QUOTE=MLS]
I can think of a whole bunch of additional stuff that doesn’t sound very intelligent to me. (Although I cannot hope to match the rhetoric of the OP.)

The appendix.
Nearsightedness. And the entire mammalian eye is inefficiently designed anyway, with the wrong part of the retinal cells forward. Octopi have eyes that are set up the more efficient way.
The sinuses. The “drain hole” is at the top, where it would work if we walked on all fours. Not so good for bipedal beings.
The spine. A good thing to have, but it doesn’t hold up well. A kind of planned obsolescence if you ask me.
Don’t get me started on pregnancy. The whole placement of the uterus is just asking for trouble. Again, great if you’re on all fours, but uncomfortable and impractical when bipedal.
The ridiculous effort required to give birth. I’ve never heard of any animal that routinely goes through as much effort as human beings do.
Tonsils. Apparently we can get along fine without them, but they are there anyway just asking to get infected.
Ankles are just a completely poor design. One little tweak and you’re crippled for days.
QUOTE]

Ankles? Try knees. A weight-bearing structure that consists of sticks held end to end with rubber bands. Try avoiding an F in an engineering class with that brainstorm.

Wisdom teeth. WTF? Why have more teeth than most of us have jaw room for? “Wisdom” indeed on the part of the intelligent designer.