Bananas: The Atheist's Worst Nightmare
From SkepticWiki
[edit] Definition
"Bananas: The Atheist's Worst Nightmare" is a particular variant of an argument from design which describes how the banana's features reveal its true cosmic origins. The argument traces back to Ray Comfort and former Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron's evangelical Christian talk show, and it is summed up as follows:
- Note that the banana:
- 1 Is shaped for human hand
- 2 Has non-slip surface
- 3 Has outward indicators of inward content:
- Green-too early,
- Yellow-just right,
- Black-too late.
- 4 Has a tab for removal of wrapper
- 5 Is perforated on wrapper
- 6 Bio-degradable wrapper
- 7 Is shaped for human mouth
- 8 Has a point at top for ease of entry
- 9 Is pleasing to taste buds
- 10 Is curved towards the face to make eating process easy
- To say that the banana happened by accident is even more unintelligent than to say that no one designed the Coca Cola can. [1]
[edit] Discussion
The argument is of such dubious quality that it could very easily be mistaken for a parody, and hardly merits serious discussion at all. However, in the rare instance that you come across a creationist sufficiently starry-eyed to fall for it, then it could be helpful to keep in mind some of the problems of this argument:
- Wild bananas are inedible by humans and contain large seeds, this fact would appear to be contrary to the belief that bananas were designed with humans in mind. [2] Seedless bananas, while preferred by humans, are useless to the banana plant, which, being sterile, has to be artificially cultivated by vegetative cloning (i.e. taking cuttings).
- Cultivated bananas were not designed by cosmic intervention, but were produced by humans using artificial selection. Bananas are one of the first fruits domesticated and cultivated by human beings a little more than 7000 years ago [3] Humans have bred bananas selectively for smaller seeds and a tastier banana, in much the same way we have cultivated seedless grapes and watermelons.
- The modern banana is the result of a well-documented chance mutation during the nineteenth century:
- Those first bananas that people knew in antiquity were not sweet like the bananas we know today, but were cooking bananas or plantain bananas with a starchy taste and composition. The bright yellow bananas that we know today were discovered as a mutation from the plantain banana by a Jamaican, Jean Francois Poujot, in the year 1836. He found this hybrid mutation growing in his banana tree plantation with a sweet flavor and a yellow color—instead of green or red, and not requiring cooking like the plantain banana. The rapid establishment of this new exotic fruit was welcomed worldwide, and it was massively grown for world markets. [4]
- If this argument were really given serious consideration, then it is really a wonder why many other edible fruits and seeds have thorns or tough husks. These are perfectly reasonable features to expect as a product of evolution, but quite incredibly awkward when considering as a product of divine design.
- As is typical with design arguments, it is unjustifiably anthropocentric. In particular, as much as the colors of a banana would serve as an indicator of its inner content to humans, it very likely served as an indicator to animals. In this case, the colors of the banana are a product of evolution, not foresight into future human consumption. In nature, it is beneficial for soft fruits with tough seeds (like the wild banana) to have an attractive exterior. This encourages animals to eat them, spread their seeds and allow the fruit to reproduce (see our main article on Means of Dispersal for more information). This would indicate that the fruit's appearance is nothing more than natural selection at work, rather a divine designer trying to impress us with shiny surfaces.
- Further anthropocentric bias is the remark that bananas are shaped for the human hand, and shaped for the human mouth. There is no reason to believe that the banana is intended for human mouths and hands any more than it is intended for monkey mouths and hands.
- Much of the evidence for design cited are superfluous, such as pointing out that the banana has a biodegradable wrapper (what makes the banana any more special than the billions of other organisms that biodegrade in nature?).
- The comparison between soda cans and bananas is a false analogy. The theory of evolution does not address the origins of things that do not reproduce.
- There is an amazing array of things much more wonderful and complex than a soda can, for which we need not assume any intelligent design or purpose. They all share this property at least: a billion-year evolutionary heritage. Lacking this, the soda can does not belong in this class, and we must admit another explanation.
- And finally, for those with a mind in the gutter, the argument is ripe (so to speak) for parody value. The author of GodlessBastard.com has put together a telling parody about the banana fruit as a perfectly engineered sex toy [5].
