The "Perfection" Of Biology

Creation Argument #5: The "Perfection" Of Biology

This argument goes something like "Nature is so complex, and works flawlessly with all its various parts, that it must have been created."  At first glance, this would appear to have some merit of truth.  Things do appear complex in nature and many things must work together in order to properly function.  However, a closer inspection reveals that things are far from designed and even farther from being designed well.  There are numerous instances that are explained well with evolution, and not explained at all by creation.

As a quick aside, I must talk about what it means to "explain" something in a theory.  As I said previously, a theory is just a story that comprehensively accounts for all observable data.  For data not yet observed, a theory must also be predictive, in that what the theory predicts for one situation must predict something similar for a similar situation, even if data has not been observed for it yet.  For example, before humanoid fossils were discovered, back in the time when Darwin first proposed his theory, his theory still predicted their existence at some point in history.  Whether we find the fossils or not is irrelevant, because most things do not fossilize.  But it does predict something that we should be looking for, and indeed we have since found them.  That is a powerful theory.  The hypothesis of creation fails at this point, because it does not explain data, nor is it predictive at all.  I'll explain some instances where nature is not optimal, where it is far from perfect, and where the prediction of a creator or designer fails.

Let's start with something very complex - the human eye.  Many creationists will argue that the eye must be created, for what is the use of half an eye?  With just briefly addressing this point to say that "half an eye" actually could and does retain and evolutionary survival advantage, what is important here is to realize that the photoreceptors of the eye are actually backwards.  If it were designed, it would have been designed in the least optimal way possible.  Evolutionarily, we can say that it is a "mistake" but one that conferred some advantage to the organism, and thereby retaining the genetic code for an eye (or proto-eye).  Thus, the mistake was kept, and slowly improved upon, until the genetics were able to completely compensate for the original mistake.

As you can plainly see, the rods and cones are furthest away from the light as possible.  The light actually must pass through the nerves (ganglion) to get to the receptors, which then are excited by the photons, and transmit their signal back through the nerves, down the optic nerve and into the brain.  However, since the receptors are inverted, the optic nerve must travel through an area at the back of the eye, thereby creating our blind spot.  This could all be avoided if the receptors were facing the "correct" way.  In addition, after the optic nerve travels to the brain, it actually splits and crosses with the optic nerve of the other eye.  This is surely do to the evolution of our brain to handle such information, but is a poor design nevertheless.

Here's another example: the brain produces a fluid called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which flows around the brain.  It is very important for maintaining hydrostatic pressure and problems can cause hydroencephalitis, both through infection as well as congenitally.  The only problem is, this fluid, so critical to the brain's function flows out through the cerebral aquaduct, which is a tiny little hole buried deep in the brain in between the two hemispheres.  This spot could not be in a worse place, nor could the hole be any smaller to properly function.  No rational designer would have put it there.

Example #3: The vague nerve (especially in giraffes).  This nerve goes to the thyroid, but one of the nerves actually makes a huge detour all the way down and around the aorta, before returning back to its destination.  In giraffes, this detour is huge!  Why would any designer make this happen?  They wouldn't.  Of course.  Evolution would explain it simply by saying that the evolutionary cost to extent the nerve was less than the cost of redesigning it completely.

Example #4: A protein in the human body called HIF-1.  This protein is made, only to be immediately degraded in normal oxygenated conditions, and functions only in hypoxic conditions.  No designer would built something to be torn down, just so that in the rare event of needing it, it would be there.  Evolutionarily, there must be a tradeoff between the energy spent to have it versus the cost of not having it.  In this sense, it is possible that local hypoxic conditions occur with enough frequency to retain constitutive expression of HIF-1.

I could go on and on, but the point has been made.  Things function, but that is a far cry from saying they are designed.  Evolution favors improved function, not necessary improved design.  In other words, the design could actually get "worse", or farther from what would be ideal if designed from the ground up, but is better in the sense that it conveys some benefit in function from the previous version.  We see this exact thing with the internet now.  If we were to look at the internet today, we would say that it is far from what would be designed, if someone was designing it right now.  But it was present in an original form in the '70s, and has subsequently been modified.  Now, the internet is far too complex for anyone to go back and redesign it, because that would take far more energy than making constant small improvements.  This is the same for evolution, because evolution works by a series of gradual modifications of an original form.  The idea of creation does not favor any change at all, because a designer would have (should have) already supplied the organism with the most beneficial gene set possible.  Anything less would require an imperfectly beneficent designer.  As with all other areas, we see change, we see improvement, and both of these ideas are not explained by creation at all.