CHECKING I.D.

There was an article in the paper earlier this week in which an individual who claimed to be one of the principal and primary architects of the concept of Intelligent Design defended the base of the belief. Essentially, as I'm sure you must all well know by now, the claim is that life is too complex to be attributable to chance. These people obviously managed to attain their sheepskins without ever having had to master math or statistics. Seriously, how arrogant is it for us to think that we are too wonderful to be the products of fortuna, even across billions of years (and perhaps billions upon billions)? Are we even sure this is the first universe ever? Given how little we really know, is it not possible that, prior to the Big Bang, there were 10 other or 100 or 1000 others?

Further, to that....why is it not every bit as conceivable to say: "Hey, this universe has been around roughly 15 billion years...and has 250 billion galaxies, each with millions of planets...it was BOUND to happen, sooner or later!"


OPEN LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE DALLAS NEWS:


Subject: Sunday, January 29, 2006: Stephen C. Meyer: "Signs of
intelligence"

Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 22:34:27 -0600

How ironic that an article titled "Signs of Intelligence" would be so completely devoid of any.

Mr Meyer, a Cambridge PhD, no less, would have us believe that biological systems within our world are so complex that the only feasible explanation is Intelligent Design. Mr. Darwin first published his landmark and controversial theory in 1853, the same year in which:

The population of the 31 United States was 20 Million Free Persons and 2 Million Slaves.

Franklin Pierce took over the presidency from Millard Filmore.

Singer just applied for a patent for his new sewing machine.

The Crimean War was being fought.

"Around the World in 80 Days" was still 20 years off!

In the succeeding 150 years, we've established international air flight, envisioned and built the Internet, been to the moon, discovered and conquered disease (remember, in 1853, Louis Pasteur was still trying to convince people to wash their hands prior to sawing people open, and we used leeches in an earnest attempt to cure bullet wounds to our President 10 years later), and have opened our eyes to our universe which is presently estimated to house 250 Billion galaxies. In all that time, though, our only proposal to advance Mr. Darwin's theory is to say:

"It's just too complicated for Darwin's framework. Must have been done by a greater intelligence than our own."

How about this? There are 250 Billion galaxies, each with millions upon millions of stars. The universe is roughly 13 Billion years old. That's a lot of time and a lot of places for incredibly complex things to come about of their own accord. And that's only in our universe. Many scientists postulate that this universe is only one of multiple dimensions. Still others question if universes have been created and destroyed, ad infinitum, for all of time.

That's a lot of gray area to eat into the certitude of attributing all life to a divine intervention. Look how much our own world has changed in 150 years. Isn't it a bit small-minded to rule out the inumerable possible machinations of billions of locations across billions of years?