A comment in the Intelligent Design thread has started me thinking.
It seems to me that there are many instances where the design of the human body is obviously - not to put too fine a point on it - downright wrong. There are of course different trade-offs in any design, so it's not really a valid criticism to point out that, say, humans are much slower than cheetahs, because we're optimised for a different set of parameters. However, there are obvious instances where either the design of the body is clearly not thought out, or where a superior design element exists in nature. The classic example of the latter is the difference between human and cephalopod eyes; simply routing the nerve connections round the back of the retina in the latter is not only obviously superior but also exists in reality, so one can't realistically come up with an excuse for the blind spot in humans, where the optic nerve is routed through the retina, in claiming intelligent design.
An example of the former, it seems to me, may be the urinary tract. There are two completely separate excretory systems in mammals; the alimentary canal extracts nutrition and water from food and drink, and the kidneys take up some of the water ingested to remove waste products from the blood. The urinary system wastes water; not a problem for an organism living in water, but quite an inconvenience for one living on land, because we're reliant on sufficient water to keep hydrated and to maintain kidney function. If the urinary tract were routed into the alimentary canal, which is already set up to separate waste from water, wouldn't it be a more efficient design, and quite a realisable one?
A couple of questions, then:
From someone whose knowledge of biology is better than mine (I'm a physicist so I admit I don'tvalue understand biologists biology ;)), does that sound like a reasonable criticism?
And:
What other good examples are there of obviously poor design (rather than questionable trade-off choices) in biology?
Dave
Quote:
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Originally Posted by PartSkeptic (Post 12079989)
Some people think that humans are very badly designed. But they do not have a better one.
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An example of the former, it seems to me, may be the urinary tract. There are two completely separate excretory systems in mammals; the alimentary canal extracts nutrition and water from food and drink, and the kidneys take up some of the water ingested to remove waste products from the blood. The urinary system wastes water; not a problem for an organism living in water, but quite an inconvenience for one living on land, because we're reliant on sufficient water to keep hydrated and to maintain kidney function. If the urinary tract were routed into the alimentary canal, which is already set up to separate waste from water, wouldn't it be a more efficient design, and quite a realisable one?
A couple of questions, then:
From someone whose knowledge of biology is better than mine (I'm a physicist so I admit I don't
And:
What other good examples are there of obviously poor design (rather than questionable trade-off choices) in biology?
Dave
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2mP4I8z
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