Pass the Monkey Glue

Certain towns in parts of the USA are currently gripped in fervent (and sometimes litigious) debate over a fascinating late entrant into the old creation versus evolution argument, namely "intelligent design". Having apparently sprung out of nowhere, without so much as a big bang, so to speak, this is a movement which claims there is a radical, alternative middle way.

For those who have not heard the case put by intelligent designers, it goes something like this: The natural world is so amazing and complicated that it cannot all have come about by chance (even over a very long time) and in any case some of the things out there suggest evidence of having been designed by an intelligent force. Proponents of this approach claim that it is based on scientific evidence. Many mainstream scientists argue that this new theory is based more on religious conviction than serious science.

School districts here have got themselves into a lather about whether to teach this theory alongside evolution. Some that have attempted to do so have been sued by groups of disgruntled parents.

It looks like this debate will continue to run and run - it has after all been bubbling along on and off since the famous "monkey trial" of John Scopes, a Tennessee biology teacher, in 1925.

Another approach to all this - not so often aired in public because it invloves less arguing and litigation - is that there is no need to plug the gaping dichotomy between religious and scientific thought because the two are not necessarily in contradiction. In this approach, we allow theology to tackle the "why" questions, to which it is best suited ("Why are we here?", "Why should I be anything other than selfish?"), and we allow science to deal with the "how" questions, to which it is best suited ("How did we get here?", "How do things work?").

To put it another way, there is a good reason why scientists and theologians tend to produce different answers - it's because they are asking different questions.

When in doubt on such matters of deep philosophical significance, I find one can do a lot worse than turning to Ohio's post-punk flowerpot warriors, Devo. To quote their seminal "Are we not men? We are Devo!": "God made man, but a monkey supplied the glue". Amen.