Refuting Bad Design Claims of Human Foot and Ankle
Misotheists and other evolutionists frequently use dysteleology arguments, which basically mean that they think something was the product of bad design, therefore, no Creator. The human eye and the panda's thumb are two of their favorites.
Not too long ago, we considered similar claims about knee joints. This time we go a mite lower and dispense with bad design arguments about the human foot and ankle. Like knees, feet and ankles give us problems. The Master Engineer cannot be blamed when people do not use them in keeping with their design.
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| Feet and ankles, Unsplash / Jan Romero |
Professor Nathan Lents wanted to slap leather with creationists and Intelligent Design proponents (and possibly to bolster the faith of fundamentalist evolutionists). Like other evolutionists, he apparently argued from ignorance instead of knowledge of the subjects he discussed. Lentz wrote a book about the things that are supposedly products of evolution, no designer need apply.
It did not go well.
Before we go further, some other things need to be mentioned. A common atheist lie is that ID folks and creationists do not publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals. They do. But they are blackballed when they try to present information refuting evolution, supporting recent creation, affirming the global Genesis Flood, and that sort of thing. (Then they have to write in other peer-reviewed publications.) The secular peer review process is saturated with problems, but there's no time for that now. Search this site or click on the "peer review" keyword for articles about that. But I will say that it's no secret in the science communities.
Lents was given responses from ID people. They cheered how Professor Stuart Burgess, (a notable creationist scientist, a part they left out), met the challenge. Burgess pointed out something others have said: Critics' dysteleology arguments come from ignorance of the subject matter.
In a peer-reviewed paper published in BIO-Complexity, Bristol University engineering professor Stuart Burgess explains “Why the Ankle-Foot Complex Is a Masterpiece of Engineering and a Rebuttal of ‘Bad Design’ Arguments.” Brian Miller has previously covered Professor Burgess’s arguments in a lecture, but those are framed as a response to arguments from ID-critics such as Jeremy DeSilva and Nathan Lents. Those critics claim that the human foot-ankle complex is sub-optimal because it reflects an unguided process where evolution attempted to convert a skeletal structure adapted for quadrupedal locomotion to bipedalism. Burgess argues in response that the ankle-foot complex “show a very high degree of complexity and fine-tuning” and “masterful engineering.” Moreover, “Engineering insight reveals a close relationship between form and function in the ankle, a relationship seen in its multiple bones and the layout of those bones” and the “five midfoot bones are needed to form the optimal kinematic and structural interface between the hindfoot and forefoot.”
You can read the rest at "Peer-Reviewed Paper Answers Claims of 'Bad Design' of the Human Foot/Ankle." If you want to see a response to a failed rebuttal of Burgess by Lents, visit “'Pointless Bones'? Nathan Lents Bites at Stuart Burgess’s Ankle." A video of Stuart Burgess explaining these things is embedded in that second link.