Feed
's: 
There's been a lot of discussion on the subject of intelligent design (ID) on the Internet for quite a while now, and I'd like to settle the debate once and for all by offering up proof that babies are a sure sign that there is no intelligent designer.
My proof will be presented in the form of a short, easily-digestible, multi-tasking-reader-ready, bulleted list of between 3 and 12 items (as is the preferred format for so many successful articles and BLOG entries these days).
Without further adieu, here are five critical design flaws in babies that prove, far beyond a reasonable doubt, that there is no intelligent designer:
- Mother's milk: the IDs perfect food, designed specifically for the baby to supply the baby with all of the nutrition that it needs to grow. So why does mother's milk give babies so much gas? Everyone knows gas is the enemy of newborns, it causes endless discomfort and pain. If the ID designed milk to be "God's Perfect Food" (GPF), then why does it have this glaring design deficiency? GPF, if it indeed existed, would produce no gas (among other "artifacts" of milk ingestion). Note that this could be regarded as a design flaw in the mother and/or a design flaw in the baby.
- Teething: babies are born with teeth on the wrong side of their gums, such that they have to go through 6-10 months of searing pain and throbbing while their teeth cut through their gums. And for what? Where is the design advantage in this? There are several other designs for the introduction of teeth which are far better than the current one (one of them being: don't introduce them at all, have them in place right from the beginning), suggesting that the ID wasn't on top of his/her game (which is by definition impossible) when designing teeth.
- The fourth trimester: babies come out three months too early. The best way to provide comfort to a newborn is to try to emulate the womb as best as possible for the first three months. What kind of designer releases a product before it's been manufactured? It would be like Henry Ford allowing people to take possession of their cars when they're only 3/4 of the way down the assembly line. Can you imagine? A bunch of people driving cars with no hoods, fenders, doors, tires, and windshields... preposterous! A well-designed baby would be released only when fully assembled.
- Spit up: Those who have looked after young babies know that they spit up all the time. This is apparently a result of a design flaw in the esophageal tract, in combination with a different [unrelated] design flaw in the stomach (e.g.: it's the size of a walnut when they're first born) and allows for the regurgitation of mother's milk (aka: GPF). Feeding a baby is one of the most important functions a new parent can fulfill, and the design of the baby means you're going to lose 10% of effort (or more!) to spit-up. A well-designed baby would trap every drop of GPF in her stomach for digestion to ensure s/he got the most nutrition possible.
- High maintenance: Young babies require a staggering amount of hand-on care and maintenance. If babies were indeed well-designed, the opposite would be true, as it's beneficial to the overall family unit if the parents are able to perform essential tasks like purchasing groceries, diapers, and pacifiers. As well, there is little to no time for parents to take care of themselves, specifically in the form of getting enough sleep so as to prevent walking out in front of a bus on the way to get a quart of milk, a stick of butter, and a loaf of bread at the local market. Well-designed babies would sleep for 22 hours per day so their parents would have sufficient time to mow the lawn, pay the bills, buy groceries, and walk the dog. The required maintenance is clearly a design oversight.
There are many, many more. Time permitting, I'll fill some of them in. In the meantime, parents should feel free to offer up your own, as you've undoubtedly noticed the many design flaws in the human baby.
Next article: Why Babies Are Bad for the Environment.
PS: Requisite ID vs evolution links are below:
