The Flounder fish

If you look closely, the flounder fish has a rather remarkable head. There's something amiss with the placement of its right eye and the way its mouth opens, as if it was a normal fish like, say the discus fish, that lived a normal life and one day some crazy demented person came along and said, "So you think you are ok? Let's see. I'll drop you on the sea floor and make you drag on your sides on the floor. Yes, you have noticed, haven't you? You are dragging one eye in mud. Well, let me twist your head around to bring it to the same side as the eye facing the sky. Doing that makes your mouth opens like a clipper on the floor but that's the way I like it. Oh, and the fin from the other side...I am not sure about it. For now, I'll tuck that under your armpits - a permanent tickler to pass your muddy days."

If a flounder is what an intelligent designer can come up with, we'll have to give up on the designer. But, what if the force that twisted the face of the flounder was Evolution, a blind but directed process that works with the genetic material available to select the fish for survival and procreation? Well, in that case, we can atleast tell the flounder that it was nothing personal.

When push comes to shove, survival is surely more important than looks.

Taken from the post on Sep 18, 2006.

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