I've noticed that all I've been writing about recently is football, so I think for the better of my viewers [are there even any to begin with???] I should start writing about something else.

Have you ever felt joy? Joy so great you couldn't find a word to express it? Well that's just it, there isn't a word to express it. So, like the shortcut loving convenience-assuming beings that we are, fall back on words which describe the infinite: limitless, boundless, and my personal favourite, undescribable. Of course it would be undescribable, we are after all, blinkered by our own limitations as a single species, unable to see or describe what we wish to from the perspective of another species, or even another being.

The reason why I brought that little issue up, was to address something which has strongly compelled me to pen this essay [at the expense of a thousand-word report due in approximately four waking hours]. There exists now, dear readers, a new theory, one which threatens to hurl our scientific understanding back two hundred years and once again expose the glaringly soft underbelly that is our sceintific deficiency. It is the theory of intelligent design, a concept which lamely attempts to bridge the disparity between the divided concepts of evolutionary theory and creationism. The basic idea of intelligent design twins the theories of creationism [God went click and everything plopped out of nowhere] and evolution [in the beginning there was nothing, which exploded. And some of everything became something else] by basically saying life has evolved, although it seems to have followed some predetermined intelligent pathway.

To my mind, this theory holds as much water as a south Queensland dam with broken sluice gates. The creationism vs evolution debate has always been viewed as a clash between faith and reasoning. There is very little correlation between the two, and while a whole lot of good reasoning can lead to a measure of good faith, it is more of an issue of blind insanity when reasoning can spring forth from baseless faith. In all honesty the theory of intelligent design is nothing more than a blatant demonstration of Man's arrogance, such as it is that we have forgotten what it was like to not know something, that there are boundaries to our understanding which will forever conceal sections of 'knowledge' from our gaze.

In a way, gaining knowledge can be akin to looking down from a very high hill to gauge the landscape. A lot of details may be instantly provided. Additional information may be surrendered to the observer under closer scrutiny. However there are inevitable gaps in the knowledge we can obtain, and try as we might, no amount of observation could ever deliver the necessary information in order for us to see the full picture. One cannot, for instance, see the mushrooms growing near a distant haystack. Dark woodland may conceal a rider on his horse. Not only that, what we see may not actually be what it really is. In this analogy a road may actually be a plough line in a field. As much as we would like to, there is no way we could ever see what is hidden unless we change our perspective. In effect this would amount to becoming a whole different being, or for the sake of being analogous, stand on a different hill which affords a different view, and in the real world of humanity simply moving into a different position is impossible.

This is why I think the theory of intelligent design blows. We as humans from our human perspective perceive everything according to our standards and our quantified knowledge. We can only adjudicate a situation as best as we can according to the information our understanding and interpretation can provide us. We couldn't really say what we see is right, or if it even exists in the manner we interpret it to. Proponents of the intelligent design theory interpret evolution as following pathways. Not only that, they see a 'form of intelligence' guiding that pathway. I mean look, let's face it, all we have to support this theory is what we perceive as a pathway, and some intelligent being, God help him, laying it down. Let me make one thing clear, the human mind only sees pathways where its mind interprets it to be so. We only think there is a 'path' because in our minds, we can only see from the human perspective. The human mind likes to see patterns, rhythm and order. We like to think everything is joined, repetitive, and in sync. Thus in our deluded state of comfort, embedded safely in the trenches, we fail to see what is beyond the horizon, and thus distance ourselves from the truth. To my mind, all incidences are discrete, and while one thing may lead to another [the central dogma of energy transfer being about the only thing we've gotten totally right in the last 250 years], it is naive to think that there are actual conscious links between evolutionary forebears and proteges.

Furthermore, we like to feel that there is someone, or something, watching over us, who made us in His image and will love us and care for us and save us from all evil. A sort of cushy comfort figure, whom we interpret from our standards, basing our idea of what we think our loving Father who art in Heaven on what we would like to see. And this isn't just some lame George Carlin rip-off rant, I truly feel that when it comes to God, mankind has truly lost the plot. The conceitedness of the human race, to think itself so superior as to have been the race created by the supposed ruler of the Universe! The very idea of God in itself shows the glaring shortcomings of humanity, and we really are a long way away from the beings we say we are. If you're from a theistic religion, are currently reading this and feeling more than a little violated inside, just ponder to ask yourself the following questions. What is it about us that we need to know we have someone to take care of everything? Can we really only feel better knowing that the great invisible man in the sky loves us? How insecure a race of species do we have to be?

As far as I'm concerned, the concept of intelligent design is nothing more than a small part of a greater psychological agenda, meant to be utilised by the struggling mega-powers of nation and religion to re-curry favour with the national public. It is a selfish concept in which beneath its diabetic sugar-coating evolution is a real oversight and does nothing more than to try and give face to an outfit trying too hard to win back its support from a growing number of people who now only know too well. Already there is growing support for an ideology which at first glance appears to benevolently spread its arms to generously encompass both schools of thought, yet is nothing more than a glazed-over, absurdly politically correct guise of creationism, itself a threadbare product of human arrogance and false pride. To a stubborn many, faith in the lordly father figure will always hold precedence over scientific reasoning, which has done so much more to prove itself with tangible evidence, which though admittedly succumbs to the impurity of human interpretation still seems so much more logical than a conveniently spoonfed and packaged philosophy which in no way illuminates the mind to no other cause but blind worship. It is this writer's hope eventually the triumph of reason will prevail.