Andrew Sullivan posted a video yesterday titled "Take that, Dawkins." The basic argument of the video is that the banana is so perfectly designed to fit the human hand and mouth that it must be the product of God's intelligent design. Video follows...
First of all Dawkins is an absolute genius for his originality of thought if not for his entire correctness. In reading The Selfish Gene, I remember well reading his arguments for the process by which genes and sometimes groups of genes are selected or favored and therefor passed down generation after generation. I also remember his unnecessary comments about how all the evidence of gene selection and evolution did not require a God as if that somehow disproved a God. I have not heard any conclusive reason why a God absolutely could not be the reason for such gene selection and perpetuation.
Having said this, I hardly see any evidence in the video above that is conclusive or is even convincing of the direct intervention of God. I do not have any statistics, but I would love to know what percentage of the human diet is comprised of bananas. If God wanted to make a food more easily obtainable and consumable than why is that humans have engaged so extensively in such calorie wasting behavior as hunting for which a human must first seek out materials to design a weapon of some sort, devote the time to creating the weapon, spend hours hunting the animal, kill the animal, return to a communal habitat with the animal, and prepare that animal before the consumption can even begin.
While humans were most likely gatherers initially, substantial scientific evidence demonstrates that a significant contributing factor to the development of human brains has been the protein consumption made possible by eating meat. It is possible that God has made this process difficult on purpose - challenged us for reasons we cannot yet understand. Perhaps in order to make us stronger. But developing a banana to fit the human hand seems like a pretty week, and hardly conclusive, case for God's intelligent design. And I do find it highly ironic that a banana was chosen to demonstrate evidence of God's intelligent design when of all the animals on this planet, monkeys are most closely associated with the fruit.
About Me
- Adam Sherman, GPSS Vice President
- I am currently a law student at the University of Washington. But I moonlight as an advocate for higher education.
1 comment:
I hate to be an asshole cause I like you, you're my brother blah blah blah, but AS was kidding with that post and using it as an example as an extremely poor argument for God's existence.
On the other hand, you bring up a good point about the fact that hunting used to be a biiatch.
PS Notice, that as my work load goes up in school I allow myself to get exponentially more distracted and thus more present in our sherman blogosphere.
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