THE RANDLE REPORT

IN THE BEGINNING

Every major old-time religion was characterised by its own particular creation myth. In the West, we are most familiar with the Genesis tale of God the Builder, though other myths are, of course, available. It’s quite ironic in itself, since it is not Christianity’s myth.

Christians don’t really mind it, but it is not they who keep it in the public mind. For a certain kind of ‘scientist’, it is a godsend (pun intended), because it is so easy to ridicule.

Of course you would be justified in thinking that ridicule would not be very scientific; that, if the said scientists had a better idea, they wouldn’t be any more worried about the thing than the Christians.

Problem is, unfortunately, that Science’s creation myths are even sillier and less adequate.

At least Genesis starts ‘In the beginning’. Science’s creation myth is that there is no creation, so starts after the beginning, when everything already was, and had decided among its inanimate self to go off bang. No life was harmed in the making of the Big Bang, thankfully, because the inanimate matter had not yet, spontaneously, accidentally and more than somewhat miraculously, come to life—not just for a fleeting moment, but long enough to come up with both the idea and the means to replicate and fill the Earth.

We must continually remind ourselves that intelligent design is not to cross our minds at any stage in trying to make sense of this, as our protean blob of suddenly soft and malleable matter goes about its business on a planet surface devoid of vegetation, predators or anything other than rock, other blobs and a lot of water, taking its energy from the sun. At some point, equally spontaneously and miraculously, it becomes conscious of all this, packs up the easy life, becomes a carnivore or a herbivore, (presumably quite quickly) develops clever means of converting its food and picking things up in 3D stereo, struggles further up the beach and sets about inventing evolution.

Manifestly, the single-celled blob has long-since gathered together with other single-celled blobs to create something more muscular and multi-cellular. But why would each of those cells agree to play its small part? How, indeed could it keep the coordinates of where its part should be unless there was one unifying force - someone with a drawing or a blueprint to work from?

‘DNA,’ I hear you say. OK, but where did that originate? Did one blob conceive the thing and talk the others into it? Did the whole party evolve from a big shapeless blob into a fish to counter the survival difficulties of living in the sea by committee?

If so, how many single-celled blobs does it take to make a diplodocus, and is it really worth all that effort to stand up to your oxters in swamp and eat raw veg? How would dear old Darwin or crabby old Dawkins explain the time spent evolving an oversized lizard in need of hip replacements? Survival of the fittest, or the fattest, perhaps?

It might not have been bright, but it was hardly accidental. Perhaps it makes a case for unintelligent design.

From BLINDED WITH SCIENCE available from The Book Depository