bilblogz

I’ve recently had fairly shattering eye problem : after seeing spots and mistiness, I had laser treatment for a torn retina, then a few days later, without any further warning, the eye suddenly went blind: a retinal haemorrhage. It happened in a matter of seconds .

I have since learnt a lot about ocular anatomy, and the causes of my condition: as one gets older, the vitreous humour which fills the main cavity of the eyeball begins to shrink. As it shrinks, it can drag at the retina, tearing the blood-vessels and often pulling the retina away, and causing bleeding inside. This can usually be fixed with laser surgery, and the blood and humour removed and replaced with an inert saline of similar consistency.

But what a bad design! If an ‘intelligent creator’ invented this, then it did a very poor job. Why does the body not stop the vitreous humour from shrinking? If we can produce two litres of saliva every day, why can’t we keep the eye full of fluid? Why is my eye going to take months to clear away the blood that has accumulated inside?

One can ask similar questions about all the various flaws and weaknesses of the teeth, the spine, the kidneys, of childbirth, etc. - the things that go wrong through basic design faults. Logically, if the whole of life had really been designed intelligently, we wouldn’t need medics or medicine, everything would function properly - including the immune system.

On the other hand, evolution muddles along, producing its best efforts, which are inevitably imperfect. Medicine is where intelligence comes in - human, evolved intelligence - to correct nature’s clumsy mistakes.