Unintelligent Design

Last month, doctors removed an astounding 232 teeth from the jaw of a young boy in India. The teeth, which ranged in size from small flecks to marbles, were the result of a rare disorder called “complex composite odontoma” and were removed using a hammer and chisel, since the size of the growth precluded simple extraction. When all the fragments were removed (along with a normal molar affected by the tumor), the boy’s jaw was sewn up and he went happily on his way.

By normal standards, this is a strange case, but these peculiar tales crop up on a fairly regular basis. It seems the human body is always devising bizarre ways of expressing itself, like the eighty-seven-year-old woman from Switzerland whose esophagus would twist into a corkscrew every time she ate, or the nineteen-year-old Iranian boy who had a tumor removed from his eye when it started sprouting hair - an apparently normal response for limbal dermoid tumors, which have also been known to grow cartilage and sweat glands.

These stories represent odd conditions in which the normal structures of the body have gone awry. But you don’t have to search far and wide for biological oddities. Our bodies contain a number of strange and nonsensical structures that no intelligent designer would include when drafting the model Homo sapiens, and I have spent considerable time imagining alternative arrangements, some of which I’ll share with you today. So let’s take a look at a few of these anatomical anomalies.

Let’s start with our eyes. There are numerous problems with the design of the eye, which is ironic, since many creationists use the intricate construction of the eye as proof of a creator. If that were the case, why would our retinas be inside out? Why would our photoreceptor cells (the rods and cones) be displaced by the optic nerve and vessels, resulting in a “blind spot”? And why the hell do so many of us have to wear glasses?? If only we had the eyes of a gecko… Nocturnal geckos sport zig-zagged pupils that make for excellent night vision and their little wandering orbs are about 350 times stronger than ours.

And what about our throats? It’s a sad state of affairs that our esophagus and trachea originate in our mouths. That small flap of cartilage known as the epiglottis, whose sole purpose is to slam shut to prevent food and drink from “going down the wrong pipe,” fails on a regular basis, resulting in many a fatal choking. A better design would be two separate openings: one for air and one for food. If only we had a blowhole, we could breathe and swallow in unison. No wonder dolphins are always smiling.

Since we started our story with teeth, let’s address the problem of dental crowding. The majority of humans can no longer accommodate the full set of thirty-two, forcing many of us to have our wisdom teeth yanked. We’d be better off if we simply did away with the third molars. We can obviously survive just fine without them. Despite having mine removed, I’ve gone on to lead a full and healthy life, yet was relegated to two torturous years of braces to correct the crowding they left behind.

And how about our nipples? How did they end up so high on the chest? They would be far more practical at waist level, allowing mothers to simply nurse their infants from their laps. And why do men even have them? Aside from a tickle during foreplay, they really serve no purpose on you boys.

And speaking of sex… vaginas are another issue, especially when it comes to childbirth. Because of the route the vagina takes through the base of the pelvis, our bigheaded infants must pass through the tight confines of the pelvic outlet. This arrangement can make childbirth a dangerous venture. We’d all be much safer if the newborn was simply expelled via the umbilicus. Or better yet, if we could transform ourselves into marsupials and carry the little bugger around in a pouch. When it was ready to emerge, it could simply scuttle up to the nipple (and if they were waist high, our little joey wouldn’t have to scuttle nearly as far!).

The human body is full of idiosyncrasies, proof that we did not arrive fully formed. Nor are we models of perfection constructed by an omniscient designer. Our bodies are the result of millions of years’ worth of evolutionary tinkering. Natural selection has tweaked our structures to provide greater adaptability and an evolutionary edge, yet our flaws are numerous, our quirks abundant.

So embrace your oddities and keep in mind they are part of our complex evolutionary legacy. Besides, perfection is overrated. See you next week!

Here's an awesome read on the subject!