If organisms were flawless, I might perhaps have some sympathy for intelligent design. Study of living creatures, however,…

“If organisms were flawless, I might perhaps have some sympathy for intelligent design. Study of living creatures, however, reveals so many blunders that Darwin’s theory comes out as the clear winner: only the blind operation of evolution can explain these stupid quirks. A parallel argument can be used in psychology. Two competing explanations are always available for the way our behavior fits with our environment. The fit may arise from the effects of evolution on our genetic makeup, or it may come from learning. When behavior seems perfectly adapted, like reading in proficient adults, it is hard to separate nature from nurture. Here too, departures from perfection are particularly interesting. When a child makes a systematic mistake, or on the contrary, displays a competence that goes beyond what he may have learned, we have clear proof that he is relying on tinkered mental mechanisms inherited through evolution.”

–Dehaene, Stanislas.Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention. New York: Viking, 2009. (viacarvalhais)