The Earth…Was The Designer Loaded?

September 23rd, 2006 Long Cut Posted in News |

DURING THE COURSE of many CrEvo debates, we on the Evo side are confronted frequently with a form of “the Argument From Incredulity” that goes thus…

“The Earth is so perfect, so well-suited for life, how could it NOT be designed?”

My answer is, “Have you looked at it recently?

Since this fallacious “Argument From Incredulity” (simply, “I can’t see how it could have happened, therefore it must have been supernatural…”) pops up quite often, I thought to perform a bit of a thought-experiment. Why not examine the very planet we live on, the Earth (or “Terra” if you prefer) and see what, if any, indications of “design” by an intelligent entity it demonstrates.

I like to break things down, make them easy and manageable, so I’ll actually toss out totally the historic geologic evidence that has been aquired, at least for now. Creationists claim you can’t understand past events unless you’ve seen them, anyway, and stick on these data points all the day. I’ll also toss out archaeology, cosmology and radiocarbon dating. We’ll just go with what we can observe and measure TODAY, in the 21st century.

Anyway, here, for reference’s sake, is a topographical map of the planet known as “Terra”…

…with all its feature, including those under the surface of the oceans, displayed.

As we observe this surface, we note several things immediately.

1. There are no straight lines, nor perfect circles, nor squares, nor, indeed, ANY “regular” features. It gets even worse if we “zoom in” to minute details.

2. The surface is 7/10 covered in water.

3. The surface is, in no portion, “smooth”…rather, it is “rough” and festooned with everything from mountains to deep-ocean trenches to plateaus to, well, you get the idea.

4. No recognizeable shapes of any kind (for example animals, symbols, etc.) can be discerned from any of its features.

Applying further what we do know of the Earth’s surface apart from that which a map can tell, we also know that…

1. Many of its environments are hostile to the survival of a great pecentage of its lifeforms.

2. It is changing. Continents are drifting, islands are forming and dying, mountains are building, and oceans are growing and shrinking. These facts are all the result of current, real-worl measurements.

3. It “wobbles”. Terra’s axis of rotation shifts and wobbles in an iregular fashion, as does its magnetic pole.

4. Its weather patterns, whilst offering some regularity, defy any atempts at accurate prediction, beyond a few days, even with themost advanced technology available.

5. There are indications on its surface of both cataclysmic and gradual events.

That is a very abbreviated list, of course, but it will suffice. Now, let’s apply it to the possibility of it all being “designed” by some intelligent entity. Immediately, questions arise.

- Why not use simple, straight (and presumably easier-to-construct) lines and angles and circles in the design? This would also maximize the available space.

- Why cover a planet ostensibly designed for humans (who have no gills) mostly with water? And non-drinkable seawater at that?

- Why arrange it so that a good percentage of the land area is uninhabitable, or at least, so uncomfortable for humans that they do not choose to live there?

- Why arrange the continents so that they move? Why not simply anchor them, and leave the whole thing unchanging? (very few items designed by humans in their history change their form once complete. They either decay or are recycled…by humans.

- Why is only the surface inhabitable? why not make the interior hospitable as well? Using the interior surface of a sphere doubles its useful area.

- Why have so much of the surface covered with deserts, rocks, mountains, valleys, and rivers in such an irregular and unpredictable manner, which only impedes travel?

- Why have it so dangerous? Between volcanoes, earthquakes, mudslides, hurricanes, blizzards, and, ell, sharks in the seas, why use all this energy to mess things up? Why have so many species, including viruses and bacteria, that prey on humans?

- Why put so many tiny, useless islands all across the seas?

- Why put mountains under the seas? Few if any will ever see them.

- Why vary the terrain and environments to such a great degree? Surely it would have been more economical to limit the environs to a few, hospitable, median ones, instead of the vast diversity we see.

- Why expend the enormous amount of energy necessary to have the weather vary as wildly as it does? Wouldn’t it have been easier to simply have four fixed seasons (or less) worldwide and never changing?

- Why place so many useful minerals and elements so deep in the crust that their extraction is a danger-fraught, expensive evolution?

I could go on and on, but you get the point. In no way does the planet Earth demonstrate any of the features that we would expect from an object that exhibits intelligent design, and that’s even using a cursory inspection. How much worse would the case for ID become were we to include our studies of geology, for example? Of nuclear physics? Of radiocarbon dating?

Now, consider how irregular, diverse, difficult, dangerous, unpredictable, and flat-out crazy living things are. Especially humans.

Think about it.