Friday, June 10, 2005

The Real Intelligent Designers

The Real Intelligent Designers
by James Pinkerton (Tech Central Station)
But it’s a fallacy to argue that just because one person—or even all the people of an era—can’t figure out how something works, therefore such mysterious workings are beyond any human comprehension, ever. To take one humble example, years ago I saw Siegfried and Roy perform their tiger-based magic in Las Vegas, and was frankly astonished at some of the illusions they generated at the aptly named Mirage casino. I had no idea how they did their tricks, but since I knew that they employed mechanics, not metaphysics, to do their show, I was content just to enjoy it, marveling all the while at human ingenuity. And of course, if one waits long enough, he will get a peek behind the conjuring curtain, learning how tricks are done and also that like the rest of us, Siegfried and Roy suffer from Murphy’s Law, too. And so it is with science: eventually, some scientist will figure out how the “trick” of the bacteria’s flagellum is done.

The piece talks about Scientific Intelligent Design (SID)—not an oxymoron in this case—an ongoing discipline with an exciting future.

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