C. Hitchens on Vestigial Eyes in Cave Organisms

http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2195683

What's really interesting here is that Hitchens is unfamiliar with the argument that he is making; he doesn't realize that other people have noticed that intelligent design doesn't do a good job of explaining vestigial organs, a statement often made with particular respect to cave organisms, of which there is much recent interest.

Hard to say if that is a good mark or a bad mark for Hitchens, being on the one hand unfamiliar with what I thought was a fairly widespread argument, or, on the other hand, coming up with that very argument independently. I suppose at first it seems like a black mark, being so vehemently anti-creationism and at the same time being unaware of what could be considered a basic argument against it. But then again, why need a particularly detailed argument against a concept when you've, presumably, already rejected it from other angles anyway?

Anyway, I am not so certain that the idea that vestigial organs shouldn't've been designed argument is all that good of an argument contra intelligent design. Design-infatuated creationists will, firstly and probably correctly state that we don't know the intent of a designer, so maybe 'purposely poor design' or 'nonsensical design' makes 'sense'. Of course, the whole argument pro design is that intent can be detected in the first place, so not sure what that would really all have to say.
Secondly, it could be argued that degeneration is permissible in creationism, that parts of a genome can mutate, and that mutation will, and in fact can only, screw things up. So destroying functions probably wouldn't 'refute' so called 'intelligent design theory' (ignoring that its not a theory and can't be refuted anyway).

Considering this further, Hitchens has realized one of the things that vestigialism tells us. But, in particular, the eyeless salamander case that he sites tells us even more. Because this is not an organism that has had some weird mutation in one of the genes 'for' its eyes and now has non-functional eyes. It has no eyes. It has evolved to get rid of eyes.
In an environment where sight is useless, some organisms that have mutations that make them blind can have an advantage. Natural selection will 'select' for this trait, in so far as it works to get rid of the eye organ, to get rid of the apparatus that maintains the genetics of that organ, and to not 'waste' energy on the development and nourishment of that organ. Not being able to see isn't necessarily an advantage, even in pitch darkness. But not having all the investments with no rewards that an eye represents can be an advantage. So natural selection, I think, should actually be an explanation for complete loss of eyes in cave organisms.
Now, of course, if I recall correctly anyway; many blind cave organisms still have non-functional eyes. So this might all just have been gibbering over-arching.