Since courts almost everywhere put the brakes on creationists’ attempts to get their Biblical beliefs introduced into science classes as an “alternative” to the evolutionary view of species creation over billions of years (or as rational people everywhere call it, “the facts”—and what do we call an alternative to fact? Hmm, let me think…oh, right: fantasy), those creationists have had to improvise, revise and generally tap-dance (in a not-at-all entertaining kinda way, like all tap-dancing) (what? It’s just banging on the floor with your feet) to get their views into classrooms. This improvisational spirit has led in the last decade to something called “Intelligent Design”, or Creationism Lite™. (“Now with 70% less evidence!”) If you’re unfamiliar with this line of—oh, let’s call it argument, because I watched a little Fox News this week and have gone over my quota on saying (or screaming) “bullshit”—it goes a little like this: “Animals have really complicated things in them, so Someone must have designed those things to work so well, okay? It couldn’t have just happened. And we’re not going to say that that Someone is God, but that Someone is totally God. Squid’s eyes! Birds’ wings! It’s science but not really! Or at all!” Here’s the thing, though: you don’t have to look much farther than little old us, the human race, to see that if Someone did design us, that someone wasn’t very intelligent. In fact, I’d suggest that he or she (oh hell; for those people, the Supreme Being is totally not a she) spent most of his time in Deity School eating paste and peeing himself. “Teacher! Yahweh had an accident! And now He’s destroying the Canaanites!”
Take walking. Walking is a fantastically stupid way to get around; it’s essentially falling and catching yourself, over and over and over. What God thought that was a good idea? Why didn’t God invent the wheel? Back in the day, people used to say, “If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a cart.” No! She’d be a better-designed human. If we had wheels, we could even indulge our human desire to decorate ourselves and show everyone else who’s in charge by the clever use of rims. Higher ranking types could have rims with lots of spokes, or possibly rims made of gold. Hipsters would use rims to stretch their wheels, and maybe their wheels would have ironic mustaches. I’d totally have those slow-spinning rims. Because that’s how I roll: slowly. Oh, yes, I’m very slow.
“But, Floyd,” I hear you cry (and you’d better stop that, or I’ll give you something to cry about) (I’m practicing being a horrible parent and person) (you don’t get as good at it as I am without practice), “What about rough terrain? Isn’t walking better for that?” I have two simple little words for you, my friend: retractable tank-like treads. Sure, that’s actually three words, one of them of pretty fair length and another one hyphenated, but I think you see my point here. No? Okay, then, it’s this: if God designed us, he should have given us retractable tank-like treads. And if you’re going to outfit something with tank-treads, why would you not slap a cannon or machine gun on that puppy? (Or, you know, on that human.) Be a damned shame, I say. You’d also have to add a catapult, in case we felt like flinging a rock or let’s say a dead armadillo. How can you call humans intelligently designed when we don’t have catapults? What are we supposed to do with our dead armadillos? Just let them lie there?
And you know what? I’m not even going to talk about squid’s eyes or why your ever-so-brainy Designer made them so much better than our eyes, because that would just be shooting fish, or possibly squid, in a barrel. (Mmmm, squid. Note to self: barrel-shot calamari for dinner tonight.) I will not piss and moan any more about the ways that human eyes work poorly, though, seriously, you’d think—if an intelligent deity had designed us—that if you started life nearsighted, at the very least old-age farsightedness would compensate instead of making you unable to see anygoddamnthing at all. (I’m not at all bitter; indeed, I’m minty fresh.) No, no, I’ll just ask a very simple question: why didn’t that intelligent Designer give us X-ray vision? I mean, X-ray vision was something that the DC Comics guys who dreamed up Superman in the 1930s thought of—and those people back in the ‘30s suffered from depression, indeed Great Depression, making it very hard for them to think up anything at all, except maybe having another World War—but your Designer couldn’t conceive of it? He had all eternity to think shit up! And while I’m at it, why not heat vision? Do you know how much I spend on matches every week? Those very manly scented candles I own do not light themselves.
Also? An intelligent Designer would have made penises prehensile. Think about it: most of the time, they just hang there, useless. Think how awesome it would be to, I don’t know, dip chips with your dick. Of course, everyone would need their own individual bowl of chips. And dip.
And yeah, an intelligent Designer would have put a bottle opener somewhere. I mean, come on. Craft beer caps do not twist off. An intelligent Designer would have foreseen that.
I understand, even sympathize with, intelligent-design believers. I really wish we had had an intelligent Designer. If only we were as well-designed as, say, a Louis Vuitton bag; we’d last forever and we’d totally go with any outfit. I guess we’d be pretty expensive to clean, though, especially when we got a calamari stain.