OMG I JUST THINK ITS SO SICK OF WAT UR DOING U CANT JUST GO AND SAY THAT GOD ISNT REAL CCUZ OF THAT ONE BABNANA THING WELL I CANT RMEMEBER THE LINK RIGHT NOW BUT IT SAYS THAT IF YOU CAN HODLD A BANANA IN UR HADNA THAT GOD IS REAL!

If I understand you, you're referring to the video in which a man describes a banana's "design" as proof that God exists. The argument is that a banana is just the right shape for the human hand, has a tab at the top so it's easy to open, has a biodegradable "container," turns yellow when it's ripe, and is easy to eat, and since these are all things that are handy for people, God must have designed bananas for people to eat.

Right off the bat, this argument ignores the fact that domestic bananas (the kind most of us are familiar with) are the product of selective breeding. Wild bananas had seeds and, if I remember correctly, were tougher and brown. Saying that God designed the modern banana for us is like saying that he designed dachshunds for us.

Even if we look at wild bananas, any "convenience" they might have for eating by humans could just as easily be the product of evolution. There are many plants that have evolved with fruit that is attractive to animals so that the animals will eat the fruit and excrete or discard the seeds, helping the plant spread to new locations. If wild bananas appealed to primates, they may have benefited in the same way.

I think the most important thing to note, though, is that this chain of reasoning sounds good when it's applied to bananas, but it's a mess when applied to other things. For example:

• Cocoanuts are difficult to open, one must avoid sharp needles to get to cactus fruit, and improperly prepared pork can lead to serious illness. Can we conclude that God designed these things in this way so that we wouldn't eat them?


• Or look at how good a tapeworm has it. Its human host protects it from predators, keeps it warm, feeds it, and has plenty of intestinal length for the parasiteto grow into. Can we conclude that God designed humans as homes for tapeworms?


• Bananas are just the right shape to stick in the tailpipe of a car or abuse in an urban-legend-about-Richard-Gere kind of way. Were they designed for these purposes as well?

Really, this kind of thinking gets us nowhere.

It is an interesting byproduct of their breeding history that domestic bananas are sterile. I'd say that this argument is equally virile.