Imperfect forms
From PhiloWiki
If there is an Intelligent Designer, why are so many biological forms so imperfect?
Imperfect forms in nature are evidence against Intelligent Design
- "What can we tell about the designer from the design? While there is much that is marvelous in nature, there is also much that is flawed, sloppy and downright bizarre. Some nonfunctional oddities, like the peacock's tail or the human male's nipples, might be attributed to a sense of whimsy on the part of the designer. Others just seem grossly inefficient. In mammals, for instance, the recurrent laryngeal nerve does not go directly from the cranium to the larynx, the way any competent engineer would have arranged it. Instead, it extends down the neck to the chest, loops around a lung ligament and then runs back up the neck to the larynx. In a giraffe, that means a 20-foot length of nerve where 1 foot would have done. If this is evidence of design, it would seem to be of the unintelligent variety...
- And why should the human reproductive system be so shoddily designed? Fewer than one-third of conceptions culminate in live births. The rest end prematurely, either in early gestation or by miscarriage. Nature appears to be an avid abortionist, which ought to trouble Christians who believe in both original sin and the doctrine that a human being equipped with a soul comes into existence at conception. Souls bearing the stain of original sin, we are told, do not merit salvation. That is why, according to traditional theology, unbaptized babies have to languish in limbo for all eternity. Owing to faulty reproductive design, it would seem that the population of limbo must be at least twice that of heaven and hell combined...
- One beauty of Darwinism is the intellectual freedom it allows. As the arch-evolutionist Richard Dawkins has observed, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." But Darwinism permits you to be an intellectually fulfilled theist, too. That is why Pope John Paul II was comfortable declaring that evolution has been "proven true" and that "truth cannot contradict truth." If God created the universe wholesale rather than retail -- endowing it from the start with an evolutionary algorithm that progressively teased complexity out of chaos -- then imperfections in nature would be a necessary part of a beautiful process."
Imperfect biological forms exist because of original sin
Both the squid eye and the human eye are incredibly designed for their respective purpose. Is this supposed to be convincing evidence against a “Designer?”
The human mind is what God is most interested in. He wants your mind to interact with Him and love Him. Your eyes are useful (and they serve you well) but it is the mind that separates humans from other creatures. Clearly humans are superior in that department.
I don’t believe (and the Bible doesn’t teach) that all “structures are perfect” in this world. In fact, the Bible teaches that this is a fallen world in need of redemption. As a Christian, I expect to see imperfections in this world, both physically and morally. The “hypothetical Creationist argument” used in this quotation must be referring to some other religion. It certainly isn’t the Christian worldview.
- Strobel states that Man was created in God's image, but is of flawed design due to original sin [Case for a Creator, p 88].
