In both creation stories from Genesis 1 and 2 we read that god created light before he created man [well before he created woman] so if he did create humans he either must need some really strong glasses or is such an incompetent designer that he should be fired.I will list a few of the obvious [some not so obvious] quirks of human anatomy.
These are just a few of the numerous examples I could have listed. I will address each in turn with a short summary of why it is a problem and why it is bad design. Two of them I will discuss with more than just a summary. Last night’s article should have given you fair warning that I am going to look at the circulatory system, in this case the blood vessel overlap. If you didn’t read last night’s article, shame on you. Go read it here then come back.
Human Embryo (7th week of pregnancy)
First up are the six Aortic Arches that form in the embryo. Why am I calling that a problem since it is an obvious holdover from our evolutionary ancestors? In our fish ancestors, these arches were used to form the gills so it is more than understandable why the remain in a human embryo. Only thing is all 4 arches are not needed in a human. Not only are there some cases where the arches do not disappear and a human baby is born with ‘gills’ but apparently the intelligent designer didn’t realize since the arches one, two and 5 disappear bilaterally and arch six disappears one the right side, that there would be an enormous and unnecessary wasting of resources. Then again, this could have been his Rube Goldbergesque joke.
Optical chiasm
The eye, the ’shining’ example IDiots use to show irreducible complexity. There are many, many quirks with the eye alone but I only want to address one. Not even sure I labeled it correctly so I am going to dip into this in a bit of detail and if I don’t use the proper anatomical terms, blame my ex girlfriend down in Texas, she was the optometrist not me. First let me explain our retinas. Each of our retinas have a nasal side and a temporal side. The nasal side is on the nose side and the temporal side is on the side with our ear [just checking to see if your paying attention]. When we look at something, say a vase, the left side of the vase registers on the temporal side of our right retina and the right side of the vase registers on the nasal side of our right retina. Confused yet? Now let’s take a lateral jump to the left eye and we see that the left side of the vase registers on the nasal side of our left retina and the right side of the vase registers on the temporal side of our left retina. Now I am confused so let me trudge on. This is known as crossover. In humans as well as most primates, the crossover is 50%. In the animal kingdom it is usually 100%. You may wonder how our brains actually make sense of this and actually interpret this stereoscopically. If you are familiar with old stereoscopic cameras you are aware that there are two lenses that are slightly offset so they take a picture from slightly different angles and are combined to form one image. Not such a simple and elegant solution for our unintelligent designer. It is necessary for our stereoscopic vision to have the images processed on different sides of our brains otherwise the images are unclear. This can be seen in Albino humans who due to their albinism have less crossing of their axons which they make up for by crossing their eyes. In the animal kingdom all albino animals have crossed eyes. The images from each side of our retinas travels from our eyes to our brains along axons which cross at a spot named the chiasm [named after the Greek letter chi due to its similarity to an X and Xasm sounds like something from a porn movie]. To be more specific, the temporal si de of our right retina crosses with the nasal side of our left retina then continues on for further vision processing in the left side of our vision system and the reverse happens for our retinas other side. This results in the axons from our right and left visual fields being processed by the opposite side of our brains visual center. Any electricians or just plain smart people want to tell me what can happen when wires cross?
Aorta In Red. Inferior Vena Cava In Blue
Now we get to the second longer topic, blood vessel overlap which can have deadly consequences. Inside our body we have our Abdominal Aorta which not surprisingly runs through our abdomen [hence the name]. It is the principal artery in our body. Alongside it, just to the right, runs the inferior vena cava. The first and most obvious question is why is that a problem? That isn’t but what happens is. The inferior vena cava returns deoxygenated blood from our legs and to do so must form a juncture like an upside down Y. Our Abdominal Aorta supplies oxygenated blood to our legs so it to must branch off as an upside down Y. Neither in itself is a problem. Where they branch into the leg there is a problem. As the inferior vena cava branches the Abdominal Aorta does the same only going into the left leg it lays atop the inferior vena cava which can lead to thrombosis and vasoconstriction. This problem isn’t present on the right. And as a medical confirmation of this being a problem just look at Thurner-May syndrome. It is typical for someone with this syndrome to have deep vein thrombosis in the left leg and not in the right. Although a DVT is not a necessary outcome of Thurner-May it is a distinct risk. Now someone want to tell me how loving and intelligent our designer was?
Now we come to ear muscles. Sure they enable us to entertain children by wiggling our ears. They are left over remnants from our ancestors but totally unnecessary for humans. This is an example of something that would only be done by an unintelligent designer.
Epiglottis is #3
The Epiglottis. The epitome of design stupidity and a deadly one at that. The development of the epiglottis is easily explained by our aquatic ancestors. Specifically those that were able to breath both in air and water. The epiglottis evolved as an aid to breathing where it would open when in air allowing breath to enter the lungs but close when in water so water couldn’t enter the lungs but was shuttled towards the gills where oxygen was extracted. In humans the epiglottis serves a vastly different purpose, one which a small piece of cartilage is not made to handle. The epiglottis closes when we eat so our food goes to our stomach instead of into our lungs [which would create myriads of trouble]. Sometimes the epiglottis doesn’t work and that is why things like the Heimlich maneuver were invented. If god did design humans, he eith did so with his eyes closed or did so to give Heimlich something to invent.
Male nipples, the famous question. Why do men have nipples? Mammary glands are the reason we are mammals and all embryos start out as female then either stay female or become male. Wait a sec, doesn’t the bible say man came first? Guess that is another of the millions of dumb mistakes in that book. Anyway back to the question. Where the ‘intelligent’ designer thought creating six Aortic Arches was a good idea then ’suiciding’ some of them, here instead of ’suiciding’ the male mammary glands he chose to leave them in place. Man is he inconsistent besides being an inept designer. Only reason I call it a quirk is that there are medical conditions that happen to the male mammary glands, one is called gynecomastia and that is mostly a cosmetic problem. There is another medical problem and one that occasionally kills. To be fair it affects women also. That is breast cancer. So a loving, intelligent creator gives men mammary glands they don’t need so they can get breast cancer and die?
I just listed six small quirks of human anatomy. Two of them with possible deadly results. All six are perfectly explained by evolution yet none of them are explained by anything resembling an intelligent designer. I guess they could be explained by an unintelligent, sadistic, childlike, cruel barbarian designer but I don’t think the IDiot cult would go for that. Guess I’ll just remain what the Christian’s call a fool and not believe in their god.
Some further reading you might enjoy
- The Silent Genome
- Stem Cells: What And Why?
- Stem Cells And Human Cloning
- Is Life Unique?
- Throat Anatomy: Throat Parts, Pictures
- Why Do We Hiccup?
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