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The
last temptation of
Richard Dawkins
Now
Richard was walking in the
garden in the cool of the evening. He saw everything that had
evolved from
an unimaginable amount of energy packed into virtually undetectable
spatial
co-ordinates 13.8 billion years ago whose behaviours are governed by a
set of
implausibly elegant and helpful equations undergirded by a somewhat
depressingly self-destructive entropic principle.
And
Richard saw that it was quite
good (depending on what exactly you mean by good).
Now
the little girl was more
deceptively naive than any other creature in the
garden. Richard said to
the little girl, What is the purpose of these flowers?
And
the little girl said, To make
the world pretty and so that bees can make honey!
And
Richard smiled regretfully
and said, Their purpose is to survive and propagate,
and that is all.
And
the little girl laughed and
said, Silly, that’s the process, not the purpose! Look at the
flower and
taste the honey!
Richard
looked and saw that the
flower was beautiful and the honey was good to eat. He said to
the little
girl, But if I concede the possibility of the
existence of a
non-evolutionary design component I’ll be stuffed.
And
the little girl said, The
design is in the process, not the outputs, you goose! It was made to
make cool
stuff, and then make someone like you who could appreciate it!
And
Richard replied, Ah,
but if a system this complex was designed, the designer must be even
more
complex, so who designed the designer?!
And
the little girl said, Why
should the characteristics of a creator be subject to a logic of his or
her own
making? Surely you can do better than that?!
And
she gave him the honey, and
he ate it while thinking that one over.
One of two of pieces written in response to a display of flower art at the BEAT (Borough of Ealing Art Trail) exhibit at St John's Church, West Ealing in September 2018.
The first three quotations in the dialague are from a real conversation recounted by Professor Dawkins.
© Godfrey Rust 2018, godfrey@wordsout.co.uk. See here for permissions.
