Look at a mole. They have eyes, but they are small, and often

[Holocene]

Look at a mole. They have eyes, but they are small, and often completely covered by fur. I'm not a biologist, but I'd venture to guess that many are completely blind.

If this is a design from an intelligent being, all I can say is WTF?

 

[Moridin]

What about the species that have vestigial eyes? Those are even better. Even human eyes are quite imperfect and suboptimal. Poor design is a good counter to intelligent design creationism.

http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-09/design.html
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/11/denton_vs_squid.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_poor_design#Examples

My personal favorite is the recurrent laryngeal nerve in giraffes, shared ERVs or any atavism at all.

 

[f95toli]

There was another good example in New Scientist a couple of weeks ago: Goosebumps.
It is a vestigal reflex that doesn't make much sense anymore since we no longer have fur...

 

[Holocene]

One book I really enjoyed reading was "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins.

In it, he talks about how some humans have had the lenses completely removed from their eyes. He talks about how these people are left unable to distinguish images, but can still detect movement or sense when they are about to walk into a wall.

Now imagine if you had these lenseless eyes, and were competing against humans with no eyes at all. You'd have a significant advantage.

I really love reading about stuff like this. It just makes me laugh when creationist try to argue about "irreducible complexity" or ask questions like "what good is half a wing".

Perhaps ask that question to a penguin, who has fully developed wings, and yet lives its entire life hobbling around.

 

[Moridin]

Speaking of Dawkins, he addresses both wings and eyes in two separate chapters in "Climbing Mount Improbable".

Here is one of my threads on intelligent design creationism that has a lot of good links to videos and the like:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=190610

 

[binzing]

There was another good example in New Scientist a couple of weeks ago: Goosebumps.
It is a vestigal reflex that doesn't make much sense anymore since we no longer have fur...

That depends on who you're talking about...my uncle...whew, that man has back hair like a bear.

 

[lisab]

That depends on who you're talking about...my uncle...whew, that man has back hair like a bear.

 

[Chi Meson]

I'd like to point out the incredible design flaw that is the human knee! :(
(at least, MY human knee is!)

And the funnybone!