I have written before that the reality of biological systems – in particular, that many if not most of them have significant and obvious design flaws – is compelling evidence against the "theory" of intelligent design. The logic seems to me straightforward: if the "designer" were so "intelligent," why would he/she/it have made such dumb mistakes in putting these biological systems together?
Now, it appears, the righties have adopted March of the Penguins as their new favorite movie – some are even calling it "the Passion of the Penguins." The film is about, among other things, the extraordinary travails that penguins go through to breed. And one Andrew Coffin, writing in the Christian publication World Magazine, has opined as follows: "That any one of these eggs survives is a remarkable feat – and, some might suppose, a strong case for intelligent design."
Sorry Andrew, but WRONG-O! Again, the point is that the penguins have a badly-designed breeding system. This is not evidence of "intelligent design" – to the contrary, it is evidence of a system that evolved over millions of years, and may not work all that well, but works well enough to keep the species going. Even some conservatives have recognized how silly Coffin’s view is: George Will wrote that "if an Intelligent Designer designed nature, why did it decide to make breeding so tedious for these penguins?"
Here’s the plain fact: there is no evidence, none, zippo, for "intelligent design." And, in fact, there can’t possibly ever be evidence for it, because its only hypothesis is that things are just so darn complicated that we can’t figure out where they came from, so some supernatural power must have designed them. If anyone has a way of testing that hypothesis, I’d sure like to hear about it. On the other hand, there is lots of evidence for evolution. "Intelligent Design vs. Evolution" is therefore a stupid debate, and we shouldn’t be having it. That we are in fact having it at all is a huge victory for those who want to replace education with indoctrination.
Some right wing wackos have also been trumpeting the fact that the penguins are “monogomous.” Well, they are, in the sense that they are faithful to a single mate for the entire breeding season.Next year, they each chase a new piece of tail.On a semi-related side note, next time some wingnut points to animals mating as some sort of pro-religious piece, point them to “Dr.Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation : Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex” by Olivia Judson. It turns out that there are members of the animal kingdom who: rape, are homosexual, perform oral and/or anal sex, crossdress, commit incest, bondage, S&M, etc. Pretty amazing, and a great read for non-biologist types. It’s actually written in a sex-help-columnist format, and pretty damn funny.
Um – if the penguins breeding cycle weren’t so spectacularly complex that they have to devote all their attenton to it – wouldn’t they be BORED in the frozen waste?