NOT Designed for Life

Mankind conquering nature in Pompeii

Part 3:  Dominion over all the Earth...

In the first and second parts of this critique of the teleologial / intelligent design (ID) argument; that the Earth was designed for life, and mankind was designed for Earth, I looked at the arguments, the universe, the formation of the Earth, and the rise of life up to Homo Sapiens Sapiens. In this article, I shall address the Earth itself, human biology, and our very place upon the planet.

Still the ID proponent will maintain that Earth is perfectly designed for human life. So, we have homo sapiens sapiens, “thinking man” (HA!), inhabiting this world which is allegedly “perfectly” designed for him, and we are allegedly perfectly designed to inhabit. Except that is for the 72% of it which is covered in water, 97% of which is salty ocean, another 2% of which is polar ice caps, far too cold for human survival. So that leaves us 28% landmass. But hold on, of that area, 33% - a whole third - is uninhabitable desert. We cannot survive permanently at altitudes of over 5500 metres and at over 8000 metres, it may be a great environment for yetis, but impossible for humans to survive in, so that's mountainous areas out. Neither can we live for long periods in rainforest, due to the many dangers which lurk therein.

Have a look at a world map sometime and see just how much of the planet is occupied by humans, and you will find that the inhabited areas make up less than 1% of the landmass. This is no mistake; like any other species, humankind will only concentrate in environments suitable to their survival – see points above about evolution and natural selection. Consider Australia alone, and go have a look at a map of it; the population lives mostly around the coast, while the inland area, the Outback, is almost completely uninhabited. Why is the Outback mostly uninhabited? Because it's bloody uninhabitable, that's why. Better still, look at Egypt; the oldest continuous civilization on the face of the planet, where that civilization has thrived for over 7000 years (someone must have forgot to tell them about Bishop Usher's calculations making the Earth 6000 years old) on the edge of the Sahara Desert – wholly due to a ruddy great river, the Nile, running through it to the Mediterranean coast.

So, let's stay away from all the dangerous areas and stay in largely temperate zones and we should be okay, yes? Hmm. Make sure you are careful about anything you pick off bushes and eat. Likewise, be careful of any meat you should eat, and make sure you cook it first, which of course means learning how to create (and control) fire – also essential for survival. And of course, you will need to wear clothes – the only animal to do so (with the possible exception of hermit crabs) – not only to protect yourself from the elements, but some plants which you may brush up against, which can kill, as well as bites and stings from other creatures, which can be equally lethal. And while we're about that, our prototype human needs to be on the ever careful watch out for predators, of which there are a great many. Of course, the best way our human can protect himself from predators, the elements and many other dangers is to house himself. Early man decided that caves would suffice as housing. Ermm, bears like caves. As do poisonous spiders, snakes, and many other predatory and dangerous creatures. And they offer scant protection from the elements, so mankind had to build his own domiciles to survive.  This perfect environment's looking too good so far, is it?  And we're just coming to the end of the fourth paragraph.

So our guy (let's assume it's a man, because he's so haphazard to the point that a woman would be covering her eyes and shaking her head by now) has to build his own dwelling, instead of relying on his god giving him a perfect environment. He should be safe now, right? Wrong. If he has built in a seismic area, he runs the ever-present risk of earthquakes, sinkholes, landslides, and even volcanic eruptions. Indeed, in volcanic regions, he could be killed by pyroclastic flow, ash, mudslide, or even silently by deadly gasses being released. This is precisely what happened to around 1700 people who perished around Lake Nyos, Cameroon, in 1986, when an underwater landslide released a pocket of carbon dioxide which rendered them unconscious before killing through oxygen starvation. Similarly the dead of the Pompeii eruption of 79 CE were so perfectly preserved because they had been rendered unconscious before being covered in a thick layer of volcanic ash.

Perhaps our chap could live in a coastal region? Then there would be the dangers of flooding and in some areas, tsunami. Of course, flooding does also occur in inland areas, and kill many every year. But even if sufficiently high or protected, our man would still be at the mercy of the winds, which kill thousands worldwide every year. And then of course, there is always the chance of being struck by lightning.

So, perhaps our friend could take all possible precautions, staying out of adverse weather, building a strong enough environment to withstand the elements, high enough to avoid flooding, in a non-seismic area, and stays indoors whenever inclement weather shows. He is already living a completely unnatural life, but whoops, he has to go out sometime, and interact with other people. And because of that, he now runs the risk of contracting a myriad of diseases, many of which, can be easily contracted merely by touching an area an infected person has touched, and can indeed kill. The end of the First World War saw people again beginning to move across Europe, including from Spain into France. Unwittingly, some of these Spanish carried the H1N1 influenza virus with them, leading to the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, which killed up to 50 million people. Consider that by comparison the First World War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history, killed 38 million. Mother Nature can be much more cruel than humanity. But our friend need not even come into contact with other humans or the diseases they carry. Malaria, spread by mosquito bites, is one of the biggest killers of humanity every year, with 438,000 deaths in 2015 alone.

But then our friend is not even in the modern era, and so is prone to every disease going, including not just the myriad of tropical ones, but anything as common as tetanus. It will be thousands of years until his descendants develop vaccines and cures against even the simplest of diseases or infections. Right now, his life is vulnerable to anything as simple as an untreated scratch, and his lifespan is around 30 to 35 years. Why? Because bacteria which causes disease and infection are everywhere. Bacteria vastly outstrip humanity, or any other species on the face of this planet. They were here long before we arrived, they may well be here after our species is long gone. In fact, if anyone was to consider the Earth to be designed for life, then it could strongly be argued that it was not designed for us, but rather for the microbial life which abounds and thrives everywhere.

The God-botherers must be quite irate at me by now. Perhaps they should take a glass of water to calm down – secure in the fact that their treated water contains no disease-carrying bacteria, or for that matter parasites which kill slowly from the inside out.

However, meantime our friend has decided to get away from those deadly mosquitoes and thus has travelled north into Europe, built a house in a non-seismic area, away from coasts and flood plains, strong enough to withstand the elements and keep predators at bay. He's taking all the precautions he can, and he should be safe enough. Well, he will be. Unfortunately his descendants will end up with much lighter skin, will suffer a Vitamin D deficiency, and will be much more prone to skin cancers. The incidence melanoma in white caucasians is much, much higher than any other race. The US Center for Disease Control shows that in 2012 around 25 whites out of 100,000 developed skin cancers. For Native Americans / Inuit, and Hispanics, the incidence was around 5 our of 100,000, with the darkest-skinned peoples, African Americans and Pacific Islanders, way down at 1 out of 100,000. But even if our proto-human were African, living in the north of the planet, he may be safe, succeeding generations of his in the future would not be, for their skins too would lighten with every passing generation, and thereby greatly increase their likelihood of skin cancer. It has happened before, which is precisely why I am white (well, not really 'white' - I prefer to say “peach-flake”), it could only happen again in the same circumstances. That's the way evolution works.

White supremacists who claim they are the “master race” amuse me more than anger me, for if anything it is white people who are an aberration from the original human race; all of us come from black African ancestors (suck it up, KKK, BNP, EDL, etc, etc.). So am I saying that black people are more 'racially pure', or better adapted to life on the planet? Nope. Not for one moment, for African peoples also have their own problems. I mentioned malaria above as one of the biggest killers on the planet. As malaria is a parasite carried by mosquitoes, one would imagine that evolution would have developed a resistance to it, and you would be correct. However, nature can be cruel, and in some people who developed the resistance to malaria, it left a ticking time bomb in the nature of sickle cell anaemia.

Sickle cell anaemia occurs only in black people and is due to a purely evolutionary quirk. Sciencey bit coming. The DNA code tells the gene that tells the body how to make a form of haemoglobin (Hb), the oxygen-carrying molecule in our blood. In some people this gene has mutated through evolution for their red blood cells to carry abnormal amounts of haemoglobin. These form a sickle shape when attacked by the malaria parasite, and pass through the spleen, and being an aberration from normal blood cells, are culled, with the malaria parasite along with them. Clever, no? Those with these mutated genes, haemoglobin sickle (HbS), are sickle cell carriers, who are otherwise perfectly healthy, and who make up some 40% of the areas of Africa hardest hit by malaria. However, while these carriers suffer no ill effects, it takes two HbS genes to cause sickle cell anaemia. Therefore, if a child of two HbS carriers inherits mutated genes from both parents, then the abnormal form of the haemoglobin protein causes the red blood cells to lose oxygen and warp into a sickle shape during periods of high activity. These sickled cells become stuck in small blood vessels, the spleen unable to cope with them, causing a crisis of pain, fever, swelling, and tissue damage that can lead to death. This is sickle cell anaemia.

Sickle cell is what scientists would call “elegant”. The way it works in combating malaria is certainly fascinating, and what is more, it is yet one more proof of that evolutionary biology is factual. Sadly, the payoff is pain and suffering for millions of black people, hours of tiring and destructive chemotherapy treatment – for sufferers in developed countries, no real cure, and ultimately death for approximately 1.2 million black people every year. In 2012 one Chicago woman was successfully treated for sickle cell anaemia with stem cell transplants, but not only does such treatment, just like chemotherapy, remain out of the reach of the majority of sufferers in Africa, as long as stem cell treatment remains controversial with many theists, the deeply religious peoples of Africa – with prompting from the major churches of the world - would be highly unlikely to accept it.

And of course, as the huge prevalence of HIV, Ebola, and many other diseases and parasites in Africa are testimony to, malaria and sickle cell anaemia are not the only infections which many peoples in Africa have to cope with daily. And that's before we even get around to the lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, crocodiles, the fucking scorpions (I HATE scorpions), snakes, elephants in must, and the hippopotami. Strange as it may seem, despite all the predatory animals and poisonous beasties in Africa, the humble herbivore hippopotamus is the biggest killer of humans in the continent. Male hippos are extremely territorial, while females will kill to protect their young. And of course, where Africa is concerned, all the above is before we even get round to crop failures, lack of clean water (another of the continent's biggest killers), and many other natural impacts, without even considering the great many manmade ones.

The overwhelming majority of people who claim that the Earth is designed to be perfect for human life tend to be white, male, Americans, living very comfortable lives in nice air-conditioned and centrally-heated homes, in modern cities - and thus could not be further from the natural life they maintain we and the planet were designed for. They also tend to be mid 50s to elderly, having spent an absolute fortune on healthcare which has kept them alive. Because they see the world through their privileged first world eyes, they fail to comprehend any other kind of world. Because children starving and dying of terrible diseases is so very far away from them, because other US citizens living in poverty and dying of terrible diseases is so very far from their lifestyle, they have a psychological disconnect from those realities, and those less fortunate than them may as well be on another planet. And while they may well live to a grand old age, they may wish to reflect that very few people, even in developed countries, die peacefully of old age; disease gets most of us, one way or another.

The ID brigade can think all they want that Earth is perfect for human habitation, but the fact is that nowhere on the planet is safe for our species. Even putting manmade dangers to one side, there is not one spot of landmass, anywhere on the planet, where humans are not at risk from adverse weather and environmental conditions, predators, poisons, infections and diseases, or natural disasters. If there is any miracle about human beings thriving on this planet, it is just that; that we have managed to survive at all.

Even our bodies are not suited for life on planet Earth. The way we lack hair offers us poor protection from the elements, poisonous and stinging plants, and UV rays from the sun, and we have to cover our bodies with clothes to compensate for this. Our immune systems are so poor that after 200,000 years on the face of the planet, we can still be felled by the common cold, and are prone to a myriad of other infections and diseases just waiting to attack, and we are an open target for just about every parasite going. Even if otherwise perfectly healthy, many of us carry genetic defects which may go back generations.

Our eyes, as complex and brilliant as they may indeed be, are in fact extremely poor in correcting aberration of light. The payoff for this is that our eyesight decreases intensely from the moment we first open our eyes, with the result that most of us need corrective lenses past the age of 40, and some will go blind with age. So much for “irreducible complexity” of the eye – a great favourite of ID proponents. German physicist Hermann Herholtz (1821-1894) wrote of the human eye; “Nature seems to have packed this organ with mistakes, as if for the avowed purpose of destroying any foundation for the theory that organs are adapted to their environment."

Our body temperature operates extremely poorly, and it's failure to keep the body within a few degrees of 98.6 Fahrenheit will lead to us feeling unwell, and in extreme cases, death. And note that there are few places on the face of the planet that will cope with an organism whose survival is assured by staying within that safe zone of body temperature.

As Homo Sapiens Sapiens evolved and became a hunter, the anatomy of the species underwent a profound distinction from the other simians. As our species had to stand upright to hunt and to be alert for predators, we developed an inward-curving spine, instead of the outward-curving spines all other simians (and most other mammals in fact) have. This is great for hunting, surveying the environment, swimming (Homo Sapiens Sapiens is the only simian who can swim), and running on two feet. It is not so great however when it comes to supporting the intestines, for supporting the womb and any foetus it may be carrying, or for that matter just carrying the weight of the human body. Everyone's spine deteriorates with age, from the mild to the extreme. Consider that even in less extreme cases, backache is one of the most common causes of workplace absence. While in the more extreme cases, with age many human beings can become wheelchair-bound or even bedridden for the remainder of their natural life.

If you stand anything upright, gravity will inevitably take it's toll, and mankind is no different from any other body on the planet in this respect. In other mammals, the weight of the internal organs is distributed evenly as they go on all fours. In bipedal creatures, such as our species, suddenly everything is being dragged downwards, and the pelvis suddenly becomes a 'basin' holding our internal organs up. This inevitably puts a strain upon these organs, including arteries, other blood vessels, and even the heart itself. Plus, being bipedal makes for another disadvantage on a planet which abounds with dangers; it leaves our chests and stomachs vulnerable to attack from predators or other humans. Look at how many other mammals under attack will instinctively curl into a ball to protect those very regions. It is not possible for humans to curl into a ball and defend themselves at the same time. We can protect or defend, we cannot do both at the same time.

And while we're about it, if we are perfectly designed, what the hell is it with the penis and testicles? In many other creatures the penis is sheathed within the body, but oh no, not in simians. And as for testicles, there's the poorest-defended part of the male human body, and the part which needs defending the most. So perfectly designed that if the sperm our testes create were in the human body, our body heat would kill them. Therefore the testes have to hang in a bag outside of the human body, where they can stay cooler. Okay, it's great the way we evolved, where one teste hangs lower than the other (no, no choruses of “Do Your Balls Hang Low”), but as a man who has at times caught his coin purse between his legs, even in my sleep, I have to ask if there is a God, why didn't he / she / it / they make the covering somewhat more robust? Some people commonly call testes “nuts”. I sometimes bloody well wish they had the same hard nutshell covering.

There is an old joke about Intelligent Design, that has many forms but generally goes you don't put the sewage plant next door to the amusement park. Amusing it may be, but it also happens to be true. Having the genitalia right beside the anus has all-too-obvious disadvantages for cleanliness and the dangers of spreading disease. And of course, in most male creatures, including those of our species, there is the double disadvantage of urine and semen passing through the same vessel. Okay, urine is mostly pure – it is not that pure, and if a man has a urine infection, then that's going to cause problems in any sexual partner they may have if that infection is untreated. But don't worry, these infections are easily treated with antibiotics. Oh wait, those are manmade – so much again for that perfect Earth perfect human body. In women of course, you have the womb cheek-by-jowl (if you'll pardon the terminology) with the bowels, and 'wrong hole' sexual incidents apart, that presents extreme dangers in pregnancy and childbirth.

In the genitalia of both genders a build up of matter can occur, which can result in infections, which is why genital cleanliness is of utmost importance. And as unlike many other mammals, we can't lick ourselves clean, we have to rely upon manmade cleaning methods. Judaism and Islam thought they got around the male problem by circumcising their sons, which of course remains popular in the USA, even among Christians and even atheists. But if our bodies are so 'perfectly' designed, why should we need to cut any part of it off at all? Is this one of God's (many) design faults? Circumcision does not guarantee cleanliness in any case. Bottom line (wash that too), everyone – male and female – should clean their genitalia every night and every morning. And I cannot emphasise this too much for sexually-active heterosexual men, because one of the biggest causes of cervical cancer is – a dirty penis. If you won't do it for yourself guys, at least do it for your sexual partners.

Another word on the genitalia and sex (yes, I am obsessed with sex – get over it), is that the way the vagina has been formed, one would be tempted to think that if there is a god, then that god must be a woman. For consider the clitoris (it's that little button-like thing, guys, right at the top of the labia minora); it's only purpose is to give sexual pleasure. Sorry to burst your little puritanical bubbles, God Squad, but if your god designed the human body, then the purpose of the clitoris could only have been deliberate. And while you are fuming at that, consider that men can be led to greater arousal by manipulating the prostate gland. And what's the easiest way of arousing the prostate gland? By inserting something up the anus, that's how.  And if you're not fuming enough by now, consider also that many other mammals have a more devloped clitoris - even spiders

On a side note, every man knows that God is a woman; we all know we've done something wrong, but don't know quite what, and when we try to ask God what we've done, She's not talking to us.

I could bang on continually about how poorly-designed the human body is for life on this planet, but I don't have the space, or the time, and you probably wouldn't have the time or the inclination to read it – and there's no more sex jokes. But our from the arches on our feet, to our thin ankles, our spindly legs, our 'basin' pelvis holding up our innards, our poor inward-curving spines, our vulnerable chests and abdomens, our scrawny necks way too weak to support our large heads, the body of Homo Sapiens Sapiens is in fact a terrible design for survival on planet Earth. If this organism was designed at all, just like most other species, the designer would not pass a High School Technical Drawing exam.

If you put these things to the creationist and / or ID proponent, many will immediately come back that Earth and mankind were created perfect before the Fall of Man when Eve, who had never been taught right from wrong, ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and tempted Adam to eat it as well, and that is why the world and mankind are like they are today. This is a complete cop-out.

Firstly, you'll find that the same people never put that caveat in when they first claim that perfectly-designed humans inhabit a perfectly-designed Earth. It is always a fall-back position when they find their arguments on the ropes.

Secondly, it is not supported by the Bible. The Bible certainly states that after the fall, Adam would have to toil for a living, and that Eve would suffer pain in childbirth, but says absolutely nothing the 'design' of the human body (and most other creatures for that matter), or the Earth environment being changed. Of course, some may claim the topography of the Earth changed after the flood at the time of Noah, but apart from that being another impossible nonsense, 1, there is nothing in the flood narrative that can explain most natural disasters, 2, it says little for their God's “bond of peace” with mankind, which he gave Noah after the flood, and 3, it still does not explain natural disasters or most changes in Earth environment.

Thirdly, anyone who uses the 'Fall of Man' argument, and this includes 'old earth' creationists (who accept evolution) and ID proponents', must believe that every word of the Bible is true and accurate. If they believe that, then they must, by definition, also have to believe that we live on a flat, stationary Earth, in a geocentric universe, which is so foolish, they are not even worth debating. And if they do not believe in such things, then they have to admit the Bible is not accurate, and therefore cannot fall back on the Fall of Man argument - nor creationism, nor intelligent design for that matter.

The fact is that no deity ever designed Homo Sapiens Sapiens, nor any other species for this planet. Natural selection adapted us for the Earth environment, to which we are in fact completely alien. Some theists ask if there is no god, then what purpose is there to life? Get ready for a stiff glass of perspective; life has no purpose, and especially not for our species. When you look at any ecosystem on the face of the Earth, you will find that nearly each and every species fulfils a function which works in harmony with nature, for the common good of all other species, and the planet as a whole. Where does mankind fit in with this holistic worldview? Absolutely nowhere at all. We take, take, take from the Earth, and give back nothing in return. We destroy as we go, and once we have destroyed one environment, move on to the next.

In the movie The Matrix, when Morpheus is captured and interrogated, Mr Smith gives a speech which sums up mankind and our place in this earth perfectly;

“I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.”

That's all we are; a virus with shoes. A sorry half-ape, who only arrived here a mere 200,000 years ago, in the 3.8 billion history of life, and in that time we have done more to destroy the Earth environment than every other species combined, taking all life to the very edge of the abyss. And we have the arrogance to think we are 'top' species, who has 'dominion' over all. Behave. As omnivores we are not even top of the food chain; that particular distinction goes to predatory carnivores – who will only kill as much as they need to eat. We are around the middle of the food chain, and food for many other creatures.  And make no mistake about it, I do indeed blame the God Squad for this.  Their 'holy' books taught that their god made man and gave him dominion over all the Earth and all creatures in it.  This has led to a haughty arrogance among mankind that has led our species to believe they can do whatever they want to the planet and the creatures on it, and bugger the consequences.  Doubt that?  I have actually encountered a Christian who claimed that his god gave him the animals to do what he wanted with, and he chose to hunt them for sport (I'm not anti-hunting, so long as you eat your kill.  Sport hunters however are lower than pond scum in my opinion).  Another whose views I was reading online once stated that mankind is "at war with nature".

I realise that all the above is a pretty dystopian view of mankind and our place in the planet. However, let's go back to our proto-human, and imagine he is living safely in a temperate zone, in a nice house, well away from predators and other dangers, keeping himself healthy by eating properly, getting plenty exercise, and having regular health check-ups, and all the while believing he was perfectly-designed for life on a perfectly-designed Earth. And as long as he keeps away from all the hazards, he should be perfectly safe.

Unless he goes out one day and is struck on the head by a meteorite, that is.

And in the fourth and final part of this critique, I shall examine such things, explaining why if this Earth was designed, then the very existence of all life, and the planet itself hangs by a thread, and why if there is one thing Earth does not have, it is a long-term future.