Recreating Creation: 5 Ways God Could Have Improved Nature

If creationists are correct, God has a lot to answer for. (I could probably do better.)

Rory Cockshaw
ExCommunications

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You can’t eat that efficiently, you fool. Photo by Sid Balachandran on Unsplash

You know that niggling feeling in the back of your mind where something just doesn’t quite sit right with you?

Somebody gave you a funny glance, or whispered something inaudible as they passed, or perhaps a houseguest has put a pan away in the wrong cupboard and now the whole kitchen needs to be torn apart?

Yeah, same.

I have those feelings about nature, too. So many animals and plants are, on the face of it, amazing and beautiful and awe-inspiring… but so many other organisms, when inspected up close, are just a bit… crap.

To the student of ecology, nature sometimes seems a little like an old rustbucket of a car, engine falling to tatters, wheels wobbling with every rotation. And you’re never quite sure the damn thing is going to start when you need it to.

That’s a little like how I feel about the natural world. Sure, I love it — but I love it in the same way you love your first car, or your spouse after a few decades of marriage in the suburbs.

Nature could do with a little… sprucing up. Here’s what I’d do.

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Rory Cockshaw
ExCommunications

I write about science, philosophy, and society. Occasionally whatever else takes my fancy. Student @ University of Cambridge, Yale Bioethics alum.