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02/08/2005: Thought for the Day:
As I wrote in my piece at http://www.textbookleague.org/id-hx-1.htm:"Living things certainly exhibit countless adaptations that are marvelous, even stupendous, to behold -- but living things also exhibit countless structural, physiological, developmental and behavioral features that are clumsy, maladaptive, wasteful, or plainly useless. Think of the cave-dwelling fishes that bear puny, useless eyes, incapable of responding to light. Think of the island-dwelling insects that sport wretched little wings, incapable of lifting the insects into the air. Think of the ground-nesting marine birds that pack themselves so tightly into their rookeries that they trample their own eggs and young. Consider how a halibut acquires its lopsided anatomy, with both of its eyes on the same side of its head: First the halibut develops a head that is quite symmetrical, with an eye on each side, but then it resorbs and rebuilds some of its bones in a way that allows one eye to migrate through its skull. Recall that a baleen whale builds and then resorbs a useless set of teeth. Recall that a woman produces and stores hundreds of thousands of oocytes, though only a few hundred will ever become eggs and enter her fallopian tubes. Recall that a man develops nipples! Recall that the channel which carries air to your lungs intersects the channel which carries food to your stomach -- an arrangement so awkward that it literally can make you choke."
Biologists have a cogent explanation -- descent with modification -- for such things. The ID fraudsters and other creationists never mention such things, lest they be challenged to explain why their Intelligent Designer did so much third-rate work, or why he designed so many kludges, or why he didn't invent a more intelligent way to get both of a halibut's eyes onto the same side of its head, or why he decided that frigate-birds, which never swim, should have webbed feet.
--William J. Bennetta [SKEPTIC mail list]
Len on 02.08.05 @ 06:54 AM CST