Saturday, September 1, 2007

Intelligent Design

I am trying to wrap my not so considerable mind around this concept. As you can read here, Intelligent Design is the quasi formal term used for that school of thought which claims that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." As I followed the trail of this topic across the stretches of the virtual landscape, I came across view points of people trying to give theological, scientific and plain logical explanations both for and against. And I thought "Why not join this crowd? I have a medium for expressing my opinions, the means to make it publicly available and more importantly, can come up with an opinion that's as unique as I am". So here goes.

Actually this is not an opinion. What I have to offer are a set of questions, doubts rather, that I want to be clarified. First: If Intelligent Design can explain "certain" features of why the universe is the way it is, what are those features and what about the other features that are not covered by the above tag? Any theory is taken seriously only if it at-least attempts to answer all the pertinent questions, not just a subset of them. Second: If it's Intelligent Design because of which we are what we are and why we are then what about the work we supposedly put in for getting wherever it is that we are? And Third: Going forward, if it will be because of the same Intelligent Design that we will be in whatever position we may find ourselves in, does that mean that irrespective of the input from our end, the result is going to be the same?

Are you wondering where I am leading with these questions? See, 'tis like this. From the time I was a little more than a foot tall and a couple of years old, I have been shown a specific cause for everything that happened to me. When I fractured my leg, it was because I was playing on the road and was in the way of the cyclist who rode over it. When I got grounded, it was because I hadn't obeyed the curfew at home. And this same format of cause and effect has been drilled into me ever since. So much so that, today, I actually believe in things like 'Work hard to be successful' and 'Pay attention to the traffic on the road to stay alive'.

So if the answer to any of my questions even remotely resembles a 'Yes' please let me know. There are a bunch of things I have been believing that I need to start un-believing in a hurry.

2 comments:

N said...

It is by intelligent design that you are questioning intelligent design.. it is this way for you because that's how it is meant to be.

The result at the end will depend on the input in the beginning.. but by intelligent design, you will not know about the result till the end and the result will result in being so because of your inputs in the beginning.

AVP said...

And what about what you said here? Hmm, let me guess. It is by Intelligent Design that I wrote what I wrote and you commented the way you commented. And now, I guess, it's Intelligent Design at work again that I am responding back in the way I am doing right now to the comment you had been Intelligently Designed to make.

Am I right?