Atheist Armaments

The argument

A banana is so perfectly formed to human consumption due to shape, comestic characteristics, and mechanical aspects, it is self-evident of the existence of an intelligent designer.

[ Watch the Video ]

The Counter

The biggest, and most obvious, flaw in his argument is that cultivated bananas (the yellow, phone-handset shaped variety you buy at your local market) are the result of decades, centuries even, of selective farming. Cultivated Bananas, or Musa Sapientum, are a sterile byproduct of two other species of banana/plantains. This effectively means they are the “mule” of the Musacae family. Being sterile means that the banana that you and I eat, and that Ray Comfort shows in the video above, can only be produced by man. The “intelligent designer” here is man himself, through “manual selection” of crops over the ages.

Then there’s the issue of the coloration/discoloration process; Nature giving us a signal as to when it’s best to eat the banana. The actual reason behind the color fade is a little more complicated than it would seem. Pre-ripe bananas are still rich in chlorophyll, which grants them their green hue, much in the same way as virtually every other plant organism on earth. As the banana ages, it ripens due to a chemical known as ethylene. (C₂H₄) Ethylene is a very natural hydrocarbon, and has a number of benefits to the plant releasing it. The Ethylene works in conjunction with the oxygen in the atmosphere around it to ripen the banana at an exponential rate. (As an experiment, take 2 bunches of pre-ripe bananas that are the same age and place a single ripened banana with one group. All else being equal, the group with the ripened banana should all ripen noticeably sooner due to the presence of elevated ethylene gas.)

One of the other arguments Comfort makes (yet another Post Hoc fallacy) is regarding the shape of the banana: it’s size, curvature, and shape all make it easier to eat. While I believe this to be mostly due to the cultivation of the plant over the years, I’d also like to point out that there are a number of thing that are the correct size to insert into our mouths (but probably isn’t a bright idea): pine cones (uncomfortable to eat), mandrake roots (poisonous), smaller cacti (obviously uncomfortable without a lot of preparation), sea cucumbers, moles, etc. etc. And there are plenty of other fruits that are very pleasant to eat (and good for you!) that are extremely challenging to extract the fruit from: pineapples, cocounuts, dorians, chestnuts (technically a legume, I believe), pomegrantes — there’s a rather entertaining youtube video that I’m cribbing from a little here. He cites some very specific examples on this topic. (Including my favorite: the onion, whose vapors react with the tears in our eyes to form sulfuric acid. Yikes!)

In any case, I would almost call a debunking of this particular argument a straw man attack, but it’s a good starting point.