Banana Who?

Dear Atheist Bob,

I present to you “The Banana: The Atheist Nightmare.” Note that the banana:
1. is shaped for the human hand.
2. has a non-slip surface.
3. Has outward indicators of it’s inward contents. Green – too early, yellow – just right, black – too late.
4. Has a tab for removal of it’s wrapper.
5. Is perforated on wrapper.
6. Has a bio-degradable wrapper.
7. Is shaped for the human mouth.
8. Has a point at the top for ease of entry.
9. Is pleasing to the taste buds.
10. Is curved towards the face to make the eating process easy.

Are you stupid enough to say this is all coincidence?

Chad in Charlotte

Dear Chad,

Skeptics and evolutionists first began encountering this argument when Kirk Cameron and Brian Sapient presented it on Youtube as part of their series on nonsense. I will address your points one by one, but I will start by showing you this:

This is a cross section of a banana as they appear in the wild. Note the abundance of big, fat seeds which you may recall are absent from the bananas you eat. Why is this? Because bananas have been selectively cultivated (bred) to be more suitable for human consumption. But even before we came along to augment them for our own needs, natural selection was doing part of the work for us: the reason plants grow sweet fruit is so that animals will pick it, eat it, and scatter the seeds through messy eating or through their leavings. The more hospitable the fruit, the more successful the plant. The bright colors, the ease of extraction, the delicious taste — primordial marketing.

Your points:

1. is shaped for the human hand. The banana probably came about in proximity with primates, as suggested by their handle-like shape. Brachiating primates travel far in the treetops and use their hands to grab and eat fruit — the banana probably adapted to suit these needs, as the tastiest and most convenient fruits tended to be eaten first by primate and hence spread the farthest.

2. has a non-slip surface. Most surfaces on Earth are non-slip surfaces. I suppose you think that’s for mankind’s benefit too.

3. Has outward indicators of it’s inward contents. Green – too early, yellow – just right, black – too late. This has more to do with the our preference for eating them when they’re at their most ripe. Green and black bananas aren’t actually bad for you (with the exception of bananas so old they’re rotting).
Furthermore, cultivated bananas are much brighter and unblemished in color than wild bananas. Humans are mostly responsible for the uniformity of the color-coding system.

4. Has a tab for removal of it’s wrapper. See answer #1.

5. Is perforated on wrapper. Wild bananas are actually tougher and more difficult to open than cultivated bananas.

6. Has a bio-degradable wrapper. Everything humans eat is biodegradable. Furthermore, “biodegradable” is not a virtue; it is a preference which gains utility in proportion to the abundance of non-biodegradable materials in our surroundings. We currently value things that decay because we don’t have enough room for everything to be permanent.

7. Is shaped for the human mouth. No it isn’t. It isn’t even bite-sized. We have to eat it one bite at a time as a result.

8. Has a point at the top for ease of entry. This is really just a third manifestation of #4 and #5.

9. Is pleasing to the taste buds. As stated above, this is part natural and part artificial. We farmed them to be pleasing.

10. Is curved towards the face to make the eating process easy. No it’s not. Only half of all bananas I’ve eaten were pointed anywhere near my direction. The rest I had to turn to eat.