Often raised question by many Atheists, when presented with the design argument, is the issue of undesirable design. They claim that since the design is ‘not perfect’ and there are signs of ‘unintelligent’ design in the universe, and in life, this is a proof that Universe and Life is not Intelligently Designed.

For example, on the “Centre for Unintelligent Design“, Keith Gilmour, offers a list of features from life and nature that he says show “unintelligent design” which in fact can be better referred to as  “undesirable design.”

So do these undesirable designs provide evidence against Intelligent design?

Casey Luskin, Research Coordinator at the Centre for Science and Culture, Discovery Institute and a proponent of the Theory of Intelligent Design, argues in his article, Undesirable Intelligent Design is Still Intelligent Design, that it does not.

I’m writing this on a PC using Windows; this PC has crashed probably a dozen times in the past two weeks. Right now, I hate my PC. I consider it poorly designed, full of imperfections, and very undesirable. Does that mean it wasn’t designed by intelligent agents? No. “Undesirable design” and “intelligent design” are two different things. “Undesirable,” “poor,” or “imperfect” design do not refute intelligent design.

He clarifies that

As a science, ID doesn’t address theological questions about whether the design is “desirable,” “undesirable,” “perfect,” or “imperfect.” Undesirable design is still design. Gilmour just doesn’t like it because (in his own subjective view) it’s undesirable.

So this makes it very clear that Undesirable design does not refute that Life and Universe has been intelligently designed. However if someone were to ask from the perspective of theology, of why would a perfect, all Powerful, all Knowing God design nature and life that appear to have flaws and raise the question of evil, then this we have answered in our religious section under ‘why did God create mankind on earth’ in our article ‘Purpose behind creation end existence of evil’.