TNRTB Archive - Retained for reference information

Skeptics often point to supposed “bad designs” in nature as proof that the God of the Bible is not directly involved in creating life, and therefore does not exist. One such example is that the bronchial system in the human lung is not optimally designed to provide maximum efficiency in distributing air with minimal dissipation. In fact, the system is slightly oversized. A physicist, a mathematician, and an anatomist joined forces to demonstrate that the “less than optimal” design of the human lung actually is optimal when one takes into account physiological variability, the fact that humans show slight variations in the sizes of their internal organs. A more “optimal” design of the bronchial tree of human lungs would mean that many more humans would suffer from asthma and other lung disorders. Once again, what appears to be an evolutionary quirk or bad design actually reflects the careful, loving work of a Creator.

B. Mauroy, et al, “An Optimal Bronchial Tree May Be Dangerous,” Nature, 427 (2004), pp. 633-636.

http://www.nature.com/ cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v427/n6975/abs/nature02287_fs.html