intelligent design of what?

Based on the symptoms of Rohan’s cold, we started to believe that he might have developed an ear infection. Besides the constant ear tugging -- which could be attributed to a number of things -- he was very irritable at night and whenever we laid him down.

Owing to the very short Eustachian tube of an infant and the fact that it is nearly horizontal in reference to the ear and mouth -- kids ears get infected fairly easily. The tube gets blocked and as a result the fluid cannot drain. Consequently an infection develops behind the ear drum. As the infection worsens, the pain increases behind the drum and makes everyone’s lives a lot more painful.

With all the discussion surrounding intelligent design these days (I'm convinced it is the flying spaghetti monster) it begs the question of what was he/she/it thinking when this system was developed. If I were going to design something of the like -- i might make it less susceptible to infection. Why not give the newborn some instinct on how to prevent it from happening, alleviate the pain, or just communicate what is going on? much like a dolphin knows how to breathe and swim when born – why are humans unable to clear their eustachian tubes? Oh well…maybe Darwin was right…

Nevertheless, we took a trip to our friendly (backup) doctor who confirmed that it was in fact a mild infection. Score one for our library of resources – though we could have made the diagnosis at home if we had that little ear flashlight thing....But then he waffled. Between making us believe that it should go away on its own in a few days, he also gave us a prescription for an antibiotic. Sooooo...what to do? wait for it to clear on its own? or start the kid on drugs early. We are electing to wait it out...Undoubtedly; many sleepless nights lay in store...

When pressed on the question of the follow up visit, said doctor stated that it did not really matter provided he is coming back for his next round of shots anyway…umm, okay. Needless to say, the backup doc is not on our list of ones to recommend or visit again.