Not-So-Intelligent Design: Evolution’s Worst Ideas

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An interview with the author of WTF Evolution?, a book and blog on the oddities of nature

Sep 16, 2014 | |

The intelligent design crowd likes to point to the elegance of the human body and the complex logic of vertebrate eyes as proof that a master “designer” (that is, God) conceived of and created all organisms. But proponents of this idea need only look at on Mara Grunbaum’s blog for proof that not all of Earth’s organisms seem to have been intelligently thought out. Features on animals such as the , the and the are so silly and unwieldy that they could not have been designed with efficiency, logic or aesthetics in mind. They remind us that natural selection preserves useful adaptations from random mutations, some of which are positively bizarre.

To celebrate the some of the more questionable products of evolution, Grunbaum collected some of her favorite animals from the blog into the new book, (Workman Publishing, September 2014). spoke to Grunbaum about her hunt for the strangest nature has to offer—and why unicorns aren’t real.

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How did you get started doing this?

I had this collection of things like that in my head and I don’t know quite what led me to decide to start putting them on the Internet. I thought it would amuse me and my friends, and it turned out it amused some other people, too, and it took off from there.

Does the blog tend to ruffle the feathers of the antievolution crowd?

If there had been a thought process, the blog is what that thought process might have been. It sort of proves that there wasn’t one.

I’ve gotten comments that this shows that God has a sense of humor. If people want to read it that way, it’s cool with me, too. That’s just not my way of looking at things.

It’s definitely clear that no intelligent designer would have created some of these creatures. Isn’t it hard to believe that many of these organisms ever evolved?

And then isn’t it weird to think that some of these really bizarre creatures are real, but things like unicorns, which seem pretty reasonable by comparison, are pure fantasy?

How many of the animals you profile are endangered?

Do you think your humor allows you to reach audiences that don’t typically engage with science?

I’ve heard from a lot of scientists who read the blog, as well as science writers, students and all sorts of other people. That’s pretty gratifying. The comments that make me the most happy are the people who say, “Oh this blog makes me laugh and then I learned something, too.” I’m like, “Yes!” So I’m going to keep writing the blog—and we’ll see if I ever run out of weird animals. Every time I think I’m going to run out, there’s always more.