Intelligent
Design?
by Doug Hawley
Let’s
just see how intelligent the design is. If
you want to verify these claims or investigate
further, just search on “bipedal
disadvantages”.
The mother
penalty is huge. Compared to apes,
human birth is much more involved and fraught
with danger to mother and child. The changes
to the pelvis to walk upright penalize birth
tremendously.
The leg from
hip to knee is much more likely to be injured
than that of the apes. The same
applies to the back.
Perhaps not
directly tied to bipedalism, but humans can get
food down the windpipe because it is connected to
the esophagus. Not true in apes. Defecation
is much simpler for apes.
Humans get
sinus problems that apes avoid.
We can’t
grasp with our feet. I have some
unpleasant personal experience with this problem. Many
years ago while playing tennis; I had an intense
pain in one lower leg. It felt like I
had been shot. The wound healed rather
well, but in the meantime, blood pooled at the
bottom of my foot. Many years later, a
doctor friend told me I had ruptured a planteris
tendon, whose main purpose is to grasp with the
foot. So we have the possible pain of
the foot grasping apparatus, without the ability
to grasp.
We are slower
and weaker than apes. We can’t
brachiate.
How did all of
this come to pass? There are several
theories. One is that we were created
this way about 4,000 years ago. Then,
some think that this happened millions of years
ago when some of our ancestors in Africa lost
their trees and had to get used to living on the
ground. A related theory is that we
are the survivors of ancestors forced to the
ground by weakness. Maybe we just got
away with a random mutation.
My conclusion
is that if we are the result of intelligent
design, the designer came in drunk on a Monday. Don’t
get me started on the prostate or appendix.
So if I’m
so smart, can I come up with something better? Yes,
I believe that I can.
Check out the
centaur model. It has the advantages
of your basic four leg model, while allowing for
the use of one our human advantages –
advanced arms and hands for fine manipulation. Locomotion,
defecation, birth all improved.
Possible
drawbacks – lots of furniture and structures
would have to be redesigned and we’d be
stuck with doggie / horsey style.
A digression
– it has been suggested that the idea of the
centaur came from people who had not seen mounted
horses before, and believed that horse and rider
were one animal.
If I may go a
little bit more radical, I want to suggest a few
more improvements not featured on any living
animal - yet. We are told that pain is
the way that we are alerted to health problems. Let’s
go the route of cars and other machines and
utilize gauges instead. Another
advantage that machines have over animals is
modular construction. Fuel pump goes
bad? Replace it. Our
improved animal model with complete and
simplified modularity – Arm goes bad,
replace it. Wouldn’t it be easier
to move an injured person if it could be done
piece by piece? Hardening of the
arteries – use non-poisonous circulatory
Drano to clean them out. Healthy foods
taste good, unhealthy foods taste bad. Skin
stays flexible and wrinkle free, while being
impervious to small weapons fire. Hair
and nails quit growing when they have reached the
proper length. No appendices
except in books. I’ve just
scratched the surface of truly intelligent design.
Appeared
in Potluck (closed) and Down In The Dirt
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