Does Evolution have more Explanatory Muscle than Design?

Which paradigm – evolution or design (ID) – best explains the findings? Not only does each species reflect profound evidence of design, each displays an elegance of functionality. This is opposed to what evolutionist had predicted - a hodgepodge of non-functional “leftover” organs (“vestigial organs”), accumulated from its ancestral life forms. (If an organ has no function, then it would contradict ID’s prediction/assumption that every organ has a function.)

Evolutionists had identified at least 200 human leftover/vestigial organs as proof of evolution. However, as new findings arrived, proving that these non-functional “leftovers” actually have a function, the definition of “vestigiality” had to be revised. Consequently, Wikipedia now makes a claim that is far less bold - that “vestigiality” is not a matter of non-functionality but of lesser functionality:

•  Although structures commonly regarded "vestigial" may have lost some or all of the functional roles that they had played in ancestral organisms, such structures may retain lesser functions or may have become adapted to new roles in extant populations.

However, since these vestigials are admittedly serving some use, albeit “lesser functions” – but perhaps we fail to grasp the fullness of their functions – they can no longer be confidently called “vestigial” or “leftover” organs. Instead, they reflect design by virtue of their functionality. Score “1” for ID!

I think that we have become insensate to the overwhelming evidence for design. Bruce Malone offers the woodpecker as one example of intelligently integrated design features:

• The woodpecker’s beak is unlike any other birds; it is so tough that it won’t shatter when it hammers a tree hundreds of times a minute. The stiff tail feathers create a tripod with its two short legs. The foot of a woodpecker has two toes in front and two toes in back whereas most birds have three toes in front and one in back, allowing the woodpecker to move all around a tree trunk… he has a built-in shock absorber in his head. Special cartilage between his head and beak absorb the pounding… the woodpecker’s tongue is four times longer than its beak. Its long slender tongue is used to probe inside insect tunnels in the tree. When it finds an insect, barbs on the tip of the tongue will poke the insect. To make sure the bug is secure, the tongue is coated with a sticky glue-like substance that glues the insect on. This special glue does not stick to the woodpecker’s beak. (Inspired Evidence)

If any of these features were not simultaneously present, the woodpecker would die. While ID can explain the simultaneity of these features, evolution cannot.

Malone also provides the incredible example of the bat, who finds its prey by echolocation:

• To make high-pitched sounds, a bat has a specialized larynx which makes intense, high-frequency ultrasounds. From these ultrasonic sound pulses and their echoes, bats can determine the distance, size, shape, surface texture and speed of their prey… Within a few thousandths of a second, the bat has built a mental image of its surroundings – much like we do with our eyes.

However, in order to do this, larynx, ears, and brain all have to be simultaneously fine-tuned and coordinated together in a way that staggers our understanding. Nevertheless, this doesn’t prevent the evolutionist from expecting to find a natural mindless explanation.

If we apply the little we know about the products of design and the products of a chance collision of mindless forces, it would appear that the entire biological world reflects the workmanship of an intelligent Designer.