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Living Things: Design or Evolution?

 

            Intelligent design is the theory that there's an intelligent creator, who was/is responsible for designing and creating life. This concept is a form of creationism, but differs from it by withholding the suggestion that "God" is the creator and by refuting the notion that there is definitely only one creator. Rather, the theory of intelligent design states that every living thing on earth, as well as the universe itself, was created by something which has much greater power than ourselves - but not necessarily God.
             The theory has a lot of critics, one of which is Jerry Coyne, a biology professor at the University of Chicago, has done extensive studies on evolution. Based on years of research, Coyne wrote the book "Why Evolution is True," hoping to spawn a new scientific and logical debate over the realities of evolution and the inaccuracies rampant in the theory of intelligent design. He rejects the concept of intelligent design, arguing the point that if living things were the result of a creator, why would the earth and the lifeforms living on it, exhibit many elements on bad design. .
             Jerry Coyne makes some valid points, especially when he discusses the poor "design" of several different creatures; one such being the flatness and eyes of a flounder. The fish begins life as a typical, symmetrical fish. But a month or so after birth, the fish begins to flatten, turning on its side and swimming horizontally. Also, one eye of the fish would face the ground, and the other eye moves around the head to join the other eye - side by side. The skull of this fish morphs so that the new placement of the eye can occur. This is an odd thing to occur to an animal and is seen as "bad design."" Similar arguments are made about other features of animals like the kiwi birds wing and the laryngeal nerve in mammals are all deemed too imperfect to be created by an intelligent designer, therefore intelligent design is false.


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