Ask A Genius 1057: Ray Comfort, “The Atheist’s Nightmare”
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/08/02
Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org
Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: About the teleological argument for the banana, the idea is that the banana is designed specifically for humans to eat. This is famously after Ray Comfort, who described it as the, “atheist nightmare,” of course.
Rick Rosner: Yes, so it’s part of a general set of arguments that the naturally occurring things in our world, the features of our bodies and animals’ bodies and plants. It’s spurious every single fricking time within certain limits.
If somebody were to argue that look at dogs, they exist in such a weird profusion variety of shapes. They’re all there and cute and smart. “How could this not be intentional design?” No, I buy that because it is an intentional design. We’ve been breeding dogs for thousands of years.
We did the design on dogs, and there are ways for organisms to co-evolve, the plants and animals to evolve into mutually beneficial symbiosis, or get into arms races where you get cactuses developing or basil developing a stinkiness that keeps some animals away.
But the idea that there’s a creator behind any of this is–I find to be more bullshit, especially when the arguments are the eye. “Look at how complicated the eye is and how well it works; how could that not be a product of God?”
But then you look at the evolutionary history of the eye, and the eye has evolved independently. How many freaking times? I am not an evolutionary biologist, but I know at least a dozen organisms. Evolution generally goes the same way that you have an organism that doesn’t have any vision.
Then it develops a spot that’s sensitive to light that helps it avoid predators, and then that becomes more sophisticated across millions of years. Eventually, you get a full-blown eye, or in bugs, you get some compound eye depending on the organism’s needs and evolutionary budget. Using the eye as an example is super freaking ignorant because the evolutionary record is clear on how eyes can fricking evolve.
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