In-Meh-lligent Design

I never quite liked intelligent design theory completely. It has interesting points but it rationalized things in a vacuum, as we have no other universe to compare statistical notes, or, if we’re feeling actually scientific: no other universe with which we can experiment, observe, conclude, duplicate the results. The theory also implies that God is somehow restricted to creating life under certain circumstances: He had to fine tune the universe for us to live. Or, that life has to reside inside a certain configuration of atoms (humans) instead of whatever God decides to breathe life into (Genesis 2:6-8). I try not to be in the business of telling God what He can and can’t do—though I’d say the Lord breathing life into a hypercube is a really good premise for a story.

Lawrence Krauss, not a believer by any stretch, argues for design but from the opposite direction. He maintains that, if anything, life was specifically designed for the physical conditions of the universe. Either way, it doesn’t matter. You can believe in the “God of the gaps” (it’s not a cop out if you don’t believe we need a material cause for everything) or you believe in some form of multiple universes in which life has an infinite number of attempts to emerge.