In your Darwinist ignorance, you probably blunder through life thinking the Discovery Institute never produces anything of scientific value. Well, dear reader, prepare yourself for a shock. At their creationist blog, they just posted Doctor’s Diary: No “Butts” About It.
Their author is physician — Geoffrey Simmons. Wikipedia says: “Simmons has written nine books, four fiction, two medical spoofs, and two books about the creation-evolution controversy, published by a Christian publishing house and promotes intelligent design.” In addition to all that he’s a Discoveroid fellow. Here’s their bio page for him.
The last time Geoffrey was featured in our humble blog was The Heavenly Gift of Fear. Now you have the opportunity to learn from him again. Here are some excerpts from his new post, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
“How did human butts evolve to look that way?” [Link omitted.] So asks Darcy Shapiro, a PhD in evolutionary anthropology from Rutgers University, writing at the site Massive Science.
We must admit that we’re a bit — ah — behind in our reading on that subject. Geoffrey says:
Shapiro’s article is intriguing, entertaining, yet falls short. She writes that the evolution of bipedal-walking primates was primarily caused by the shifting of select bones and muscles in the pelvis. Why these bones shifted and changed shape is not clearly stated. But that is just the question. … Whatever the case, the process resulted in the larger, more desirable human buttocks (I mean, desirable in a strictly scientific sense, of course).
Geoffrey seems determined to get to the bottom [Ahem!] of this mystery. He tells us:
Consider the striking and symmetric increase in adipose tissue in each cheek, which is unique to us. [A splendid feature indeed!] Apes barely have this. Their butts are mostly flat. Other differences include the following: many primate butts (not ours) can change at mating time to a violet red color and swell to several times their normal size. [Yuk!] I’ve not seen this phenomenon in humans, not during my four years in medical school, my rotations during specialty training which included OB, nor during my more than 44 years of practice. Some primates can also get markedly enlarged perianal glands, bulging from the rectum and giving the buttocks, I’m sorry to say, a rather unappealing appearance. Fortunately, we didn’t inherit that trait, either.
Humans are so fortunate! Geoffrey continues:
Shapiro comments that our large brains and the use of language with symbols are distinguishing human features, but not nearly as distinguishing as our butt. Honestly? Seriously? Perhaps that is tongue in cheek [Hee hee!], but one can’t be sure. I agree all butts are important, and, as I age, maybe sitting down has become more important to me, but I’m inclined to think that our intelligence remains the most important quality.
Obviously, opinions vary. Now we’re skipping a few paragraphs, which is no loss to you because we know you’ll be clicking over to the Discoveroids to read the whole thing. Okay, we’ve skipped enough. Let’s read on:
In seriousness, Shapiro commits a classic error [Error?]: she identifies a set of features needed for some function, but conflates that with evidence for evolution, constructing a just-so story to account for its origin when that could be equally well explained by intelligent design.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Failing to consider intelligent design is a classic error! Another excerpt:
After all, designers use foresight and goal-oriented thinking to piece together multiple features and components that work in coordination to perform a function. As Shapiro explains, this coordination is exactly what we see in the carefully crafted shape of the bones, muscles, and fat tissue of our butts to allow us to efficiently walk upright, and also to do something that evolution could never have anticipated: sit for long periods of time and do intelligent work at our desks.
Ooooooooooooh! And now we come to the end (so to speak):
This coordination is not evidence of blind and unguided evolution but rather of purposeful action by an intelligent agent. Design is implied, no “butts” about it.
What do you think of all this, dear reader? And please, keep your remarks tasteful.
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