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Home » Why » Opinion » The Evolving Banana
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The Evolving Banana

The Evolving Banana

So, at some point you’ve probably seen that absurd clip of Kirk Cameron and some Aussie preacher arguing that the banana is “the atheist’s nightmare,” because its perfect adaptation to human food needs implies a divine creator. This would be a hopeless argument under any circumstances, of course. (Obvious first question: Then why aren’t all foods this convenient? Is this proof God meant for us to subsist entirely on bananas?)  But as one of Andrew Sullivan’s commenters points out, it’s actually even worse than that: All the features cited in that clip as proofs of divine providence are not features of the wild banana, but were (ahem) selected for by thousands of years of domestication.

The Evolving Banana by Julian Sanchez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.juliansanchez.com.

Photo courtesy of 
Darren Hester at flickr.com

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