Trojan Horse?

On February 15, 2013 a meteor entered the atmosphere and disintegrated over Russia, about 900 miles east of Moscow. People in Russia were inevitably polled and about 50% thought “that the blast was a secret US weapon test, an off-course ballistic missile, a message from God, a crashing alien spaceship, or even an extraterrestrial Trojan horse carrying a deadly space virus to wipe out the Earth”. Twelve hundred people were hurt during the incident.

Once again, Science and Reason are undermined by ignorant opinion.

One thing I will say is that it is pretty good evidence that the universe is not very well designed. Earlier the same day as the Russian meteor there was this news: “The first asteroid [on Feb. 15], called 2012 DA14, had been known to astronomers for around a year. They had calculated that there was no risk of collision. But the 30-metre, 190,000-tonne rock came close: 27,700km (17,200 miles) above the surface, inside the orbit of some satellites. It was the nearest ever recorded for an asteroid that size.”

This made little news but was a clear vindication of the science that allowed it to be calculated as no risk to us. Inevitably, there was no poll taken about this “non-news” event.

I look at the moon through my telescope and see massive craters formed over millions of years by impacts with other celestial bodies. Two years ago I visited such a crater in New Mexico—it was 2 or 3 Km in diameter and quite impressive. A quick scan of Wikipedia shows many such craters all around Earth. We can expect to see this phenomenon on all our planets; indeed, all planets and stars everywhere. The scars are visible reminders that the universe was, and still sometimes is, a chaotic place.

Is this the same Universe that resulted from Intelligent Design? Since it’s the only Universe we know of, it must be. How intelligent was it to design a universe where objects go hurtling about into each other and potentially, or actually, annihilating one another?

This is a macroscopic view surely. On a human scale, how intelligent is it for humans to have a single tube in our bodies for air intake and food intake? Why do we have an appendix? Why are there devastating diseases like Alzheimer’s? Why not death simply by falling asleep never to awaken? Why even design humans to wear out and die? Why would the Designer create a procreation process where as many as 20% of impregnations end in spontaneous abortion? (These are among women who know they are pregnant. For all pregnancies the estimate is much higher.) Are these well-designed or simply punitive? Or better yet, simply natural?

On a microscopic level, why do we need viruses? Why sickle cell? Why DNA mutations? I know why mutations are sometimes beneficial to species—they aid evolution by natural selection. But the ID crowd doesn’t buy into Evolution so I don’t think they would argue their Designer thought it up. Even if they do argue for Evolution, why was it needed? Couldn’t the Designer have designed the perfect human to begin with? Why mess with Evolution for millions of years?

Enough of this. Science has discovered all that we know about the macrocosm, the microcosm and everything on the human scale. An Intelligent Designer is not needed and is not beneficial.

Try this mental exercise. For twenty minutes, imagine where we would be without Science. Then for twenty minutes, imagine the same without God.

The former would put us in the Dark Ages. The latter would put us at peace.