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Commentary; Does God Have Back Problems Too?; The illogic behind 'intelligent design.'
[HOME EDITION]
Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, Calif.
Subjects: Design, Evolution
Author: David P. Barash
Date: Jun 27, 2005
Start Page: B.9
Section: California Metro; Part B; Editorial Pages Desk
Text Word Count: 626
 Abstract (Document Summary)

In fact, the living world is shot through with imperfection. Unless one wants to attribute either incompetence or sheer malevolence to such a designer, this imperfection -- the manifold design flaws of life -- points incontrovertibly to a natural, rather than a divine, process, one in which living things were not created de novo, but evolved. Consider the human body. Ask yourself, if you were designing the optimum exit for a fetus, would you engineer a route that passes through the narrow confines of the pelvic bones? Add to this the tragic reality that childbirth is not only painful in our species but downright dangerous and sometimes lethal, owing to a baby's head being too large for the mother's birth canal.

In addition, as human testicles descended -- both in evolution and in embryology -- the vas deferens (which carries sperm) became looped around the ureter (which carries urine from kidneys to bladder), resulting in an altogether illogical arrangement that would never have occurred if, like a minimally competent designer, natural selection could have anticipated the situation.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
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