Intelligent Design?

Some proponents of Intelligent Design use the eye as an example of God’s intelligent design that is irreducibly complex, which had been created intact as it is today. No component of the eye, by itself, could have been of any use. Therefore, evolution could not have produced an eye, only a creator with a design plan.

Richard Dawkins has argued that any progressive evolutionary stage of eye development would be an improvement over its previous stage for survivability of the species, so it doesn’t need to be an all or nothing—impaired vision would be better than no vision.

There are many species that have highly developed senses of sight. This shows the forward evolutionary progress of the eye, but are there any examples of the reverse evolutionary process, where the eyes have regressed to being unuseful?

Through eons of evolution, the blind mole rat, Spalax ehrenbergi, only has the remnants of eyes and ears, which are covered with skin and fur and do not respond to light stimuli.

Blind mole rats appear eyeless and earless, as the functioning remnants of these structures are covered by fur and are therefore not visible. The tiny eyes are hidden beneath the skin, and the external ears are reduced to slight folds. ^[1]

Here we can see an evolutionary regression of the eyes and the ears due to disuse, becoming non-functional. What would be the designed purpose of having eyes to only have them to be not useful for sight?

The eye rudiments of this rodent are located under the skin and are not able to detect light flashes. The morphologic characteristics of this vestigial eye are grossly abnormal, but a differentiated retinal layer is still present. Although photic information can hardly be envisaged to reach the retina, it appears that the mole rat eye is still involved in photoperiod perception. ^[2]

We could say that this is an unintelligent design, as the blind mole rat couldn’t possibly use its eyes, because they are completely covered and not useful for vision. At some point in time, it is completely possible that they will evolve to not even have eyes and ears.

Although, the eyes of the blind mole rat have no purpose for visual imagery, to which we normally ascribe the purpose of having eyes, they may still provide another purpose for the blind mole rat, photoperiod perception. Even though, the mole rat’s eyes cannot perceive light, it still may be able to sense when it is daytime.

This illustrates that staged, adaptive development has a purpose. Although, one would say that without a full functioning eye, the eye is worthless and could not have developed in stages. The mole rat gives us an example of how a partially developed eye could be useful. Perhaps, the eye began its development for a purpose entirely different than vision and through adaptive stages developed visual capabilities.

After the fact of a having a fully developed eye, it would be difficult to attempt to look back and see what functions a partially developed eye might have. It is entirely possible that early formation of the eye may not entirely have been for vision. The regressive evolution of the mole rat’s eyes could give us some insights into the purposes of the eye, in early development. Gary Marcus, in his book Kluge, relates neuroscientist John Allman’s analogy of evolution by comparing it to upgrades to a manufacturing plant, by building new systems on top of the old systems. For example, having computers control and operate manual switches. ^[3]

Sometimes this produces sub-optimal systems that are “good enough” and are not the best design, if one was starting from scratch. An example of this type of development would be the human spine. Originally, the human spine developed for when our distant ancestors walked on all fours, but has been adapted to support standing upright. As an adaption, built on an old system, it produced a spine that would be good enough to fulfill the purpose of upright walking.

As Bill Cosby once said in one of his famous comedy routines, “I told you that story so I could tell you this one,” I move to the undeniable winner of unintelligent design—the rabbit’s digestive system.

Among herbivores, there are ruminant and non-ruminant digestive systems. Cows are an example of an animal that utilizes the efficient ruminant digestive system. Cows employ regurgitation and a multi-chambered stomach to breakdown ingested plant material.

However, animals with a non-ruminant digestive system have a far less efficient digestive system. Rabbits and horses are examples of animals that have non-ruminant digestive systems. With rabbits, the fermentation chamber, called the caecum, is below the small intestines, too far down the digestive system to breakdown fiber before passing through the small intestines. This means that food passes through the intestines, without being completely broken down, which leads to little absorption of vital nutrients. Many non-ruminant animals excrete much of what they eats, because of this very inefficient digestive system. One can plainly see that non-ruminant digestion is vastly less efficient, by comparing cowpats to horse dung.

Rabbit have evolve an interesting solution to this problem. Rabbits ingest some of their food twice, once to breakdown the food and a second time to absorb the nutrients from the food after it has been broken down. They cannot regurgitate their food, so they must re-ingest it after it has completely passed through their digestive system. Rabbits produce two types of feces, a soft round pellet consisting of broken down food, and the second is the hard feces that is the final result with little food material left. This process is called caecotrophy. These soft nutrient rich round pellets are called caecotrophes and a rabbit will re-ingest these soft pellets straight from the anus. ^[4]

Sure, there is a reason rabbits do this, but is this really an intelligent design? I am pretty sure if I was an all-knowing and all-powerful god, I wouldn’t create a creature that would have to feed from its own anus. What did the rabbit ever do to God to be cursed in such a manner? Why on earth would a god design such a system, when there are so many other more efficient systems?

I know, we cannot question God’s ways. He has a reason. He works in mysterious ways. Of course, this is all code for, “Hell, if I know. It just has to be so, because that is what I believe.” Which is a very weak argument and belies the hazard of religion to trump science or even common sense and rational thinking.

I am asking no one to abandon their belief in God. Discarding Intelligent Design as fallacious and embracing evolution for the scientific fact that it is, doesn’t ask one to abandon their belief in God, either. All I ask one to do, is restrict one’s beliefs to what cannot be determine through science. Beliefs which do, must always be framed within the confines of science. Science describes how God has created the universe.

The Bible may be a sacred religious document, but it is not a scientific document. God did not explain the steps in which life on earth was created. It is very clear that the creation story is metaphorical. For God to have created life on earth, it had to be through the scientific processes of evolution. Thinking otherwise would be to throw away your God-given intelligence in favor of ignorance, which places all of yours beliefs in jeopardy. The intent of religious belief is not to explain science, but to give people hope and help them live better lives. If religion tries to define science or even say that God operates where science has no explanation, you putting your faith in jeopardy to come crashing down, when science provides an explanation other than “God did it.”

If the digestive system of various species were designed, instead of evolving over time, then most species would have the most optimal digestive system, or, perhaps, the top five, but not to have such a sub par digestive system that would require re-ingesting from the anus in order to survive.