A Few Questions for the Intelligent Design Crowd
If we are indeed made in the image of God, and that evolution is a lie, then we have to ask some serious questions that no intelligent design proponent has been bothered with:
Why Are We So Genetically Similar to Other Mammals on This Planet?
It makes no sense to claim that we are directly designed by God and are unique but essentially share so many characteristics with other life forms on this planet. Let me explain this for a second by way of sharing an observation. It may seem a little crude, but it's precisely because of what came to mind that I offer it up.
Not too long ago, I saw some nature program about a particular kind of plant that manages to thrive in an extremely inhospitable desert environment. Now, I don't remember the name of the plant, but when the time arrives for reproduction, the plant will literally thrust out its seeds onto the desert floor: the explanation was that wind would carry the seeds to keep the species going. Okay, I am sure I am getting some of the salient facts wrong, but here's the part that stunned me: when the plant expelled its seeds, it honestly looked like an ejaculation. Yes, yes, go ahead and reread that line or guffaw all you want, or say I have a dirty mind, but I was just shocked. And right then and there, I thought "Ah ha! Maybe life really is all connected!"
If human beings are so intelligently designed, then our very structure should be so fundamentally different from anything else on Earth. We shouldn't look like we evolved here; we ought to appear as though we were planted here, consonant with the setup in Genesis, when a human being is fashioned from dirt (!) and given life when God breathes into it. All of our genetic makeup should leave no doubt that we are unlike other mammals; we should *not* share 99 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, or be able to use fetal pigs for medical research because of the similarities to human beings (much less transplant a pig heart into a human!). Hell, even a human zygote should look nothing like others, but I've seen an illustration comparing that to a dog, a chicken and yes, a pig. If they weren't labeled, you might never know a human being was there.
Am I cheapening what it is to be human? That a dog is a chicken is a pig is a human? No, what I'm getting at is that if humans are intelligently designed by an all-powerful being, why must we look like its other creations? Aren't we supposed to be the apex of all life on Earth? How can we be made in the image of a divine creator but remain indistinguishable on a cellular level from other creatures?
Why So Many Eggs?
A female human child is born with all the eggs she'll ever need to reproduce. But generally speaking, a human woman can only give birth to one child at a time. Even the most prolific bearer of children will *never ever* use all the eggs she's born with. In fact, she'll lose more eggs during her fertile years than she will use making more humans. Where is the intelligent design in having so many eggs? And then there's the man: millions of sperm? For what? It takes only one to fertilize an egg. That's a lot of potential human life that's wasted, to be honest. I can certainly grant that a lot of sperm cells are to fight off other sperm cells from different donors (ahem), but millions of them to struggle to find the sole prize? Lots of expended energy, needlessly.
Why Are We Sexually Mature at Too Young an Age?
Most children know right and wrong at very early ages, but no teenager in the world is ready to be a parent at 13, 14 or 15 years of age. Yet our bodies become mature before we know how to handle all the emotions that go along with the hormone changes. Wouldn't it be easier and far more efficient if we sexually matured at a later age when our brains are near finished developing (what is it, 22 or 23?) so that impulsive encounters with the pretty farmer's daughter aren't as likely to happen? Why should we mature at a young age like other species do to, you know, start reproducing as much and often as possible because the survival of a species not guaranteed? As divinely created creatures, our biological imperatives should not fit any patterns that we see in nature.
Now, you might think I'm obsessed with sex and want to ridicule intelligent design proponents, but the truth is, the ID movement is intimately concerned with biology and that subject alone. I never see anyone saying that we need to present "both sides of the story" when it comes to mathematics, physics or chemistry. I don't see school boards arguing that we need to include the study of astrology with astronomy because it's an alternate explanation of heavenly bodies that kids need. Nope, it's always biology because it's always about sex. That's why I asked these questions and I asked them seriously: if we are so unique, why do we look and act like so many other species on this planet? I don't want to be told that it's all a test of faith because that's just another way of saying "I don't know and don't bother me." In short, it's not an answer at all. Either human beings break the pattern of what we describe as evolution or we are actually beings with distant ancestors who were not planted in a garden with a talking snake.
And don't get me started on cancer...