I am getting over a really awful cold, the kind that hits hard, with little warning and then passes just as quickly. I probably caught from all the intimate embraces with family over four days of family holiday gatherings. Whenever I catch a cold, it is always the same - I feel a sore throat, then the next day, complete misery and then the day after that much better (today). During the height of it yesterday, between hacking coughs and blowing the nose, I pondered just how it is that a microscopic whatever can make me feel so sick.
And then I remembered the debate about "Intelligent Design". You know, I understand why some people feel the need to justify evolution in a religious sense. Their brains are telling them that science and evolution make sense, but they cannot give up on the Bible. They feel that in order for such a complex system of materials and life to have been created, an "intelligent force" had to be behind it.
The reality is they just cannot grasp the concept that life on Earth may just be one massive accident, a massive collision of the right ingredients coming together at the right place and the right time. Personally, I believe that this "accident" actually has happened in other parts of the universe, and is probably more common that Intelligent Design enthusiasts care to believe.
An interesting counter theory was put forth by Professor Don Wise of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (my alma mater). See his interview about "Incompetent Design". He says that no competent engineer would have used the existing design of the human body, it is just too inefficient. If there was indeed a "greater force" behind the creation of life and the universe, that force would be incompetent, not intelligent.
If there was an "intelligent" force behind our design, would a microscopic bug cause us so much anguish?
I don't think so.
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