Non-Intelligent Design

You may believe the human body to be a miraculous, beautiful and perfect creation that could only be the work of an intelligent designer. However, I think of the human body as a being a fragile and flawed Heath Robinson contraption that has evolved gradually in a decidedly hit-and-miss fashion. This is what the evidence tells us.

Over a very long period of time evolution has bungled along, often making mistakes and often finding solutions that are imperfect or inelegant. According to biologist Ewan Birney: "...from evolution's perspective it doesn't have to look good in a textbook, it just has to work..."- article by Michael Le Page, New Scientist, 19 June 2010 (Australian Edition).

Consider the expression "non-intelligent design". It fits in somewhere between "intelligent design" and "unintelligent design". Non-intelligent design may be an oxymoron, but it describes the process of evolution quite well. There is no grand plan. There is no design. It only appears that way in retrospect, unsuccessful experiments having fallen by the wayside and disappeared from view.

If there is no intelligent design, does this mean the human body is merely the result of a long series of accidents? Not at all. Individual cells may not be intelligent, but they are sentient, responsive and have to make decisions.