"What big ears you have, Grandma!"

Little Red Riding Hood meets the Big Bad Wolf dressed in her grandma’s nightgown and lying in her bed. She says to Wolf-dressed-as-Grandma, “My, what big ears you have, Grandma!”

“All the better for hearing you, my dear” replies Wolf, “All the better for hearing you.”

Will big ears improve my hearing?

When I was 25 I wore a size 7 comfortably. Now at 35 I prefer a size 8. At this rate I will be resorting to stokies in my 80’s - if I last that long. From foetus to grave our extremities continue growing. This is why the older one gets, the bigger one’s feet become or the more out of proportion one’s ears and nose to the rest of one’s face. There may be some advantages for men in the continual growth of extremities, but to my knowledge this hasn’t been studied…

Long before I cuddle my tired dogs in towelling slippers, I will, in all likelihood, be felled by some age related disorder caused by my genes.

Overgrowing bits is one of those taken for granted realities that actually make a good case for evolution as opposed to creationism.

For the creationist there is cause for praising God for the apparently miraculous “fit” of species to their environmental niches. But this natural “fit” is far from perfect. What is the design point of super sized extremities? It makes no design sense to waste energy on peripherals while one’s core structure is deteriorating, not to mention the increased wastage of time pruning nose hair.

From an evolutionist perspective the superfluous growth of my big toe is an indication of the unconscious process of natural selection, which “designs” by accident. Many creaturely attributes could be improved upon by careful, conscious design, like the skew face of a sole. Just as there is no environmental or competitive pressure for the sole to “improve” the design of its face (yet), so there is no pressure for humans to evolve more efficient ear lobes.

The same clutter and inefficiency is visible in the preponderance of genetic disorders among the elderly. At first glance one may wonder why so many people are afflicted with genetic disorders if the principle of natural selection is working well: weeding out such maladaptive traits in the population.

Most disorders manifest later in life because they affect people who have passed their normal reproductive life. As far as natural selection is concerned I am insignificant when I cease to have children – I am already dead. Any disorder that crops up then has already been passed on to the next generation. As long as the disorder remains invisible while I’m “fruitful and multiplying”, no one is going to be choosy about having sex with me because I haven’t yet grown that third eye. Any disorder that does manifest while I am in my reproductive years is not going to swim long in the gene pool (in evolutionary terms that is).

Genetic disorders that manifest later in life are the detritus of evolution by natural selection - as are big ears. We regard such anomalies as normal when in fact they are litter in the otherwise pristine theological framework of creation.

It is therefore fascinating to me that the Jesus theology celebrates a “new creation” as opposed to glorifying creation as is. Jesus celebrates those who will “do even greater things than me” in the future. Much of Jesus’ ministry was about healing people and today we have within our power the ability to heal people of profound illnesses, even those of a genetic source. Medical science has the potential of cleaning up the litter of careless evolution.

With the hope of realising God’s dream of a new creation it seems blasphemous that we are more preoccupied with plastic surgery than we are with healing the world of rampant disease. Medical science has veered toward lucrative cosmetic gerontological study rather than attacking the roots of genetic disorder and endemic disease. The values of those who fund medical research, and those who benefit from it, have become superficial in the extreme. We are inventing ways to prevent wrinkles while we have the power to eradicate epidemics. We are more worried about our big hairy ears than dying from internal decay. Commercial interests mean that medical research is increasingly directed toward drugs that are lucrative rather than significant. Our society is creating an industry driven by sexual interests rather than the miracle of a “new creation”.

“Slice my shnoz, but please, no digital exam!”