Evidence for lack of intelligent design in humans

However, this is a poor piece of evidence. The human body contains numerous flaws that most people could have done a better job at design.

The retina of the human eye is inside out - there are blood vessels in front of it, blocking light, instead of behind it like in some other animals.

And there's the nerve responsible for the sensation of hitting your funny bone. The nerve goes along the outside of your elbow, exposed, when it should be located more internally.

In the male, the urethra passes right through the prostate gland, one prone to infection and enlargement. How many people would put a collapsable tube in the middle of something that tends to expand?

Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box"

This book is a biochemist's attempt to provide argument for God using the familiar 'Pocket Watch' method devised by William Paley (who wrote 'Natural Theology - or Evidences of the Existance and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature'). He argued that a watch is more intricate than a stone. Therefore, 'works' of nature are obviously designed objects since they in turn are more complex to '..a degree which exceeds all computation'. Another famous argument is the airliner-from-a-junkyard one invented by Fred Hoyle.

However, Behe's book relies almost entirely on 'I can't understand it so it must be down to God' principle. Although I would love to use this in exams ('I would answer this question, but unfortunately only the Supreme Being has the answer') It doesn't really pass muster.

A better read by far is, of course, Richard Dawkin's 'The Blind Watchmaker'.

As for Squid being the chosen species, I prefer to think Octopi are the Maker's choice since they are highly intelligent but have 8 arms. How cool would that be?

If the human mind were designed perfectly, it would not be susceptible to this kind of throwback behavior. This can be used to imply that the human organism as it is today is the result of evolution, and that this evolution is still in progress.

The electrical engineer said that God must be an electrical engineer. "After all," he said, "look at the nervous system. It's all electrical."

The mechanical engineer said, "No, God has to be a mechanical engineer. Who else could have designed this kind of skeletal and muscular system?"

The third guy, a civil engineer, said, "You're both wrong. God was a civil engineer."

The other two looked at each other funny and finally asked why.

"Well," said the civ E, "Who else would run the sewer through a recreational zone?"

Is there any direct evidence for lack of intelligent design? No. Not only is there no direct evidence for lack of intelligent design, but it is inconceivable that a set of beings on a planet could consititute direct evidence for lack of intelligent design. However, we do happen to have a set of creatures which allow either an intelligent-design or evolutionary interpretation. The latter is an incredibly heavy constraint on the structure of the creatures, and that it has been satisfied suggests that it is the case... but this indirect evidence is in no way convincing to those who do not wish to believe it.

Here is a storage for an old rebuttal which worked so well that what it was rebutting disappeared:

It has been proposed that the flaws in the Human body are because God wished to be efficient, and kept in mind the maxim, "The perfect is the enemy of the good". This is ridiculous, in that it implicitly proposes that God, the Omnipotent, had a budget and time constraints. The argument that getting something to work at all is better than aiming too high and getting nothing, is a good one for mere mortals.

However, suggesting that God be bound by the practical is claiming its nonomnipotence. And suggesting that God intentionally made an imperfect body is disturbing in itself; to assuage that, what purpose can be attributed to it? On the other hand, claiming to know that is tantamount to claiming knowledge of the ways of God, which is often considered theologically untenable, and for good reasons (not insurmountable).