Tom writes:

> I don't know too much about the Intelligent Design movement, but I doubt
>  that it is just a "stealth" reworking of Creationism. It does start with a
>  premise ... that there is apparent intelligence behind much of what we see
>  around us. In other words, a particular worldview. Not religion
masquerading
>  as science, but science that doesn't rule out the existence of a Creator.

The core thesis underlying the "intelligent design" argument is that there
exists an "irreducible complexity" to the living designs seen in nature. The
common analogy given is a 747 aircraft: there are simply too many things that
had to come together at the same time for it ever to be "evolved" by random
trial-and-error, step-by-step.

While the "intelligent design" argument doesn't invoke God, it does demand
the presence, at one time or another, of a Creator (if you're willing to make
the distinction between God and a Creator) that can overcome the "complexity
barrier," as a designer might.

I keep threatening to fully explain the movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey"
sometime on the list. It's not about what most people believe it to be:
stunning visions of the future, or control of our own inventions, or sex.
Rather, it is about "intelligent design" (actually "directed evolution" in
this case), God, and the nature of God. In "2001", God is real, and God
exists, but God (the Overmind) does not exist in the manner that most
religions imagine it to be.

If I ever do this, as pre-homework, you must first read Nietchze's "Also
Sprach Zarathustra" and listen intently to Richard Strauss's lyric tone poem
by the same name, which was loosely based on Nietchze's work. "2001" is the
Zarathustra story, retold in a third idiom, but this time by Stanley Kubrick
and Arthur C. Clarke.

Wirt Atmar