# Was It All An Accident...Or Did An Intelligent **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721 "2013-01-19T17:18:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/181 "2013-01-24T03:23:36Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > W-h-o-o-o-a: > > (from link, emphasis added): > > When we reach the point where something may be considered identical > with its opposite then we can prove any hypothesis and win any argument, > can’t we? > > How about getting back with me after you obtain a cite for creation out of > nothing where “nothing” has a bit less flexible a definition. > > And please make extra sure the cite fully accounts for that troublesome > First Law of Thermodynamics. How do you observe ‘nothing’? How do you define ‘nothing’? (i’m being relatively serious here) I think part of the point of the ‘open mind’ part of that quote is that what we consider to be “nothing” is really not necessarily “nothing” in a scientifically/observable way - in other words - even things that appear to be “nothing” are actually “something” else, we would not be able to observe the “nothingness”. (or something like that - I’m sure a more knowledgeable doper will come along to correct or confirm my take on it). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/182 "2013-01-24T03:55:28Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > W-h-o-o-o-a: > > (from link, emphasis added): > > When we reach the point where something may be considered identical > with its opposite then we can prove any hypothesis and win any argument, > can’t we? > > How about getting back with me after you obtain a cite for creation out of > nothing where “nothing” has a bit less flexible a definition. The problem with that is that then you are just stomping your feet on the ground and complaining, what has taken place is that we are finding that many religions and philosophers were dealing with a “nothing” that never existed. Just another day at the office of the now common march of science and the quest of knowledge that makes humans eat humble pie. (IMHO it is the march that goes from “we are the center of the universe”, passing through “Even the Milky Way galaxy is not the only thing out there” all the way to the realization that we are an even more minuscule speck in a dot surrounded with a lot of “nothingness” that many philosophers and religions got it wrong.) > [@colonial](#): > > And please make extra sure the cite fully accounts for that troublesome > First Law of Thermodynamics. IIUC, at a singularity, that was the state of affairs at the Big Bang, all the laws of physics would have broken down, as Stephen Hawking could tell you. The point here is that you are ignoring the extraordinary context when those things took place. [http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html](http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html) > [@](#): > > At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/183 "2013-01-24T03:58:41Z")
> [@simster](#): > > How do you observe ‘nothing’? > > How do you define ‘nothing’? > > (i’m being relatively serious here) > > I think part of the point of the ‘open mind’ part of that quote is that what we consider to be “nothing” is really not necessarily “nothing” in a scientifically/observable way - in other words - even things that appear to be “nothing” are actually “something” else, we would not be able to observe the “nothingness”. > > (or something like that - I’m sure a more knowledgeable doper will come along to correct or confirm my take on it). I define “nothing” as absence of matter- the stuff that can be neither created nor destroyed according to the First Law of Thermodynamics. I do not believe durable creation from nothing can be said to take place in any scientifically meaningful way without violating the First Law. I do believe creation from nothing could be unambiguously attested by experiment, as the transient virtual particles are. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/184 "2013-01-24T04:07:06Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > I define “nothing” as absence of matter- the stuff that can be neither created nor destroyed > according to the First Law of Thermodynamics. I do not believe durable creation from nothing > can be said to take place in any scientifically meaningful way without violating the First Law. > I do believe creation from nothing could be unambiguously attested by experiment, as the transient virtual particles are. “The world doesn’t work based on our a priori reasons.” -Lawrence Krauss https://www.youtube.com/embed/E1pWiefOXAY?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque Pure reason is not the right way to understand the universe, you have to experiment and use new tools to get at the reality of what is happening in the universe as we have to avoid our preconceptions and to avoid fooling ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/185 "2013-01-24T04:21:47Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > I define “nothing” as absence of matter- the stuff that can be neither created nor destroyed > according to the First Law of Thermodynamics. I do not believe durable creation from nothing > can be said to take place in any scientifically meaningful way without violating the First Law. > I do believe creation from nothing could be unambiguously attested by experiment, as the transient virtual particles are. I think **GigoBuster** ’s first response is a better response to this then what I can do at this time. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/186 "2013-01-24T04:28:34Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The problem with that is that then you are just stomping your feet on the ground and complaining, Oh, I think a considerable bit of foot-stomping is called for when someone comes along and tries to tell me nothing = something. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > what has taken place is that we are finding that many religions and philosophers were dealing with a “nothing” that never existed. If so not on account of the citation I was doing all that foot-stomping over. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Just another day at the office of the now common march of science and the quest of knowledge that makes humans eat humble pie. Science and the quest for knowledge are human endeavors and triumphant ones at that, although there are plenty of big questions that still need answering. I have never been able to figure out why we should be so damn humble about our discoveries. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > (IMHO it is the march that goes from “we are the center of the universe”, passing through “Even the Milky Way galaxy is not the only thing out there” all the way to the realization that we are an even more minuscule speck in a dot surrounded with a lot of “nothingness” that many philosophers and religions got it wrong.) I am sick and tired of listening to this silly, useless cliche. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > IIUC, at a singularity, that was the state of affairs at the Big Bang, all the laws of physics would have broken down, as Stephen Hawking could tell you. I mentioned this. See post # 118. It does not do any good for the people who are trying to make a case for the appearance of something out of nothing _now_ that Thermodynamics and all the other laws of physics must be strictly accounted for. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > The point here is that you are ignoring the extraordinary context when those things took place. As soon as I see anyone utter the word “context”-another useless cliche as most often employed- I know he has nothing interesting to contribute to the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/187 "2013-01-24T04:33:43Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > As soon as I see anyone utter the word “context”-another useless cliche as most often employed- > I know he has nothing interesting to contribute to the discussion. Actually the silly replies that you had there do amount to the old cliche of “Putting your fingers in the ears and go LA LA LA” What you really need is a cite from a physicist that does maintain that things like the first law of thermodynamics was working when that singularity took place. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/188 "2013-01-24T05:07:45Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > “The world doesn’t work based on our a priori reasons.” > -Lawrence Krauss https://www.youtube.com/embed/E1pWiefOXAY?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque Krauss, huh?- I’ve heard of him and his something from nothing shell game. This NYT reviewer, also a PhD in physics, will have none of it: [David Albert: On the Origin of Everything](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html) > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Pure reason is not the right way to understand the universe, you have to experiment and use new tools to get at the reality of what is happening in the universe as we have to avoid our preconceptions and to avoid fooling ourselves. Thermodynamics is as firmly gounded in experiment and observation as any scientific phenomenon has ever been, that is, it is a body of knowledge derived _a posteriori_. If you did not know that then you really did not bring a horse to this race. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/189 "2013-01-24T05:15:04Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Actually the silly replies that you had there do amount to the old cliche of “Putting your fingers in the ears and go LA LA LA” If something is worth paying attention to I pay attention. If not I go LA LA LA. That means I am through with your vapid replies after this. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > What you really need is a cite from a physicist that does maintain that things like the first law of thermodynamics was working when that singularity took place. Your reading comp not so hot today, Bubba? I said in post #118: “There is of course a different issue regarding the status of the Laws of Thermodynamics at the moment of the Big Bang. I believe their status was that they and most if not all other present scientific law did not yet exist.” Got it now? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/190 "2013-01-24T05:30:00Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > If something is worth paying attention to I pay attention. If not I go LA LA LA. > > That means I am through with your vapid replies after this. > > Your reading comp not so hot today, Bubba? > > I said in post #118: “There is of course a different issue regarding the status of the Laws of Thermodynamics at the moment of the Big Bang. I believe their status was that they and most if not all other present scientific law did not yet exist.” > > Got it now? I did read it too, you are just being contradictory there, you claim to not to take that into account and then right away you claim you do, only that then you are not happy with that. [QUOTE=colonial] I do not believe durable creation from nothing can be said to take place in any scientifically meaningful way without violating the First Law. [/QUOTE] What is it then? Do you understand that you can not have it both ways? If you do insist that indeed the laws did not apply, one has to wonder why you are claiming that people like me are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/191 "2013-01-24T05:38:35Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1pWiefOXAY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1pWiefOXAY) > > Krauss, huh?- I’ve heard of him and his something from nothing shell game. > > This NYT reviewer, also a PhD in physics, will have none of it: > > [David Albert: On the Origin of Everything](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html) > [@](#): > > David Albert is a professor of \*\*\*philosophy \*\*\*at Columbia and the author of “Quantum Mechanics and Experience.” The evidence here shows who is really not paying attention, he may had been related to physics, but that is not his current profession. In the end the reviewer is not using physics to refute Krauss. > [@colonial](#): > > Thermodynamics is as firmly gounded in experiment and observation as any scientific phenomenon > has ever been, that is, it is a body of knowledge derived _a posteriori_. If you did not know that then > you really did not bring a horse to this race. And this also gives away the game, or you just want to continue to contradict yourself. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/192 "2013-01-24T06:06:06Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > I define “nothing” as absence of matter- the stuff that can be neither created nor destroyed according to the First Law of Thermodynamics. I do not believe durable creation from nothing can be said to take place in any scientifically meaningful way without violating the First Law. I do believe creation from nothing could be unambiguously attested by experiment, as the transient virtual particles are. _First Law of Thermodynamics: The increase in internal energy of a closed system is equal to the difference of the heat supplied to the system and the work done by it: ΔU = Q - W_ – Wiki thingy Are you sure that is the law you mean? Or are you referring to the Law of Conservation? And, “… believe …”? What are you doing bringing belief into a thread about god/not-god? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/193 "2013-01-24T06:19:33Z")
Incidentally, this idea of Krauss of criticizing the classical ideas of “nothing” is not dismissed by other physicists, and this is because reality is showing that what was pointed as “nothing” by many religious minded people before was not really what they assumed it was. > **[The Physics of Nothing; The Philosophy of Everything | ScienceBlogs](https://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/08/16/the-physics-of-nothing-the-phi)** > > "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." -Winston Churchill > It's often said that you can't get something from nothing. And while this may be true for most practical... > [@](#): > > And I don’t just mean some tiny part of it; I mean all of it. When you take a look at the Universe out there, whether you’re looking at the wonders of this world or all that we can see for billions of light years, it’s hard not to wonder — at some point — where it all came from. > > And so we try to answer it scientifically. In order to do that, we want to start with a scientific definition of nothing. In our nearby Universe, nothing is hard to come by. We are surrounded by matter, radiation, and energy everywhere we look. Even if we blocked it all out — creating a perfect, cold, isolated vacuum — we still wouldn’t have nothing. > > We would still exist in curved spacetime. The very presence of nearby objects with mass or energy distorts the very fabric of the Universe, meaning that if we want to truly achieve a state of physical nothingness, we cannot have anything in our Universe at all. > > Physically, that ideal case would be true nothingness. No matter, no radiation, no energy, no spatial curvature. We can imagine existing in completely empty, void space, infinitely far away from the nearest star, galaxy, atom or photon. The spacetime around us, rather than having curvature to it, would appear as completely flat. > > The only physical freedom that such nothingness could have is the freedom to expand or contract, depending on the nature of this nothingness. Recently, Edward Feser picked on me — among others such as Hawking, but me in particular — for using this scientific definition of nothing. (Which yes, I’m fully aware is not the same as philosophical nothingness, which I explicitly stated in the fourth sentence of the post Feser criticizes.) > > Yet it is a form of this very nothingness that I have just imagined with you that — to the best of our scientific knowledge — the entire Universe is born from, and that it will return to in the distant future. > > Here’s how. > > You removed all the matter, energy, and sources of curvature from your Universe. You are left with empty spacetime. On large scales — where “large” means larger than the size of a subatomic particle like a proton — spacetime indeed looks like that flat grid we referred to earlier. But if you start looking at ever smaller scales, this picture breaks down. > > On the tiniest physical scales — the Planck scale — spacetime isn’t flat at all. Empty space itself vibrates and curves, and there is a fundamental uncertainty in the energy content — at any given time — of nothingness. > > This quantum vacuum — on these very small scales — manifests this fundamental uncertainty by spontaneously creating pairs of particles-and-antiparticles for very brief amounts of time. > > Everywhere. All the time. Even in empty space. > > This is not merely some theoretical quantum prediction. > > This is experimental fact. We can artificially create a vacuum chamber (like the world’s largest one, above) that is — while imperfect — good enough to detect the physical effects of these spontaneously created particle-antiparticle pairs. > > Take a vacuum, and inside of it, place two parallel, uncharged metal plates. > > In the absence of these vacuum fluctuations, you would expect the force between the plates to be dominated by gravitation. But if you bring these plates close enough together, you find that these vacuum fluctuations cause the plates to attract one another! This attractive force is purely quantum in nature, and is the surefire experimental evidence — that’s been around since 1948 — that this is the physical nature of nothingness. > > Now, combine this with the one thing this empty spacetime is allowed to do: expand. > > These fluctuations — if the Universe is expanding quickly enough — can get caught up in the expansion of spacetime so thoroughly that they do not re-annihilate, but instead get stretched across the empty spacetime of your Universe! > > If the Early Universe existed in a metastable, or false vacuum, state, it would continue to stretch these quantum fluctuations across the Universe — on all scales — for as long as you remained in that state. > > But this state does not last forever; there is a more stable state that the Universe will eventually find, just as a ball placed atop the hill above will eventually roll down into the valley below. When this happens, matter and energy spontaneously generate during the transition from the metastable state to the more stable state, through a process known as reheating. > > These quantum fluctuations — that were stretched across the Universe — now become regions where matter/energy is initially slightly more or less dense than it is on average. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/194 "2013-01-24T06:22:19Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > . . . Thermodynamics is as firmly gounded in experiment and observation as any scientific phenomenon has ever been . . . True…but not at the cosmological level, only at the level of stars and planets, and probably galaxies. The expansionary phase of the big bang obviously violates the laws of Thermodynamics. Space itself expanded vastly, and yet did not lose temperature to maintain a steady thermodynamic state. Cosmology works on different rules than laboratory physics. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/195 "2013-01-24T13:42:19Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > My own favorite example is sand dune ripples. Wind blows over sand: about as random as you could ask for. Yet what results are vast orderly fields of serried dunes, in long straight lines, evenly spaced, looking much as if a giant rake had been drawn through the sand. Japanese ornamental gardening on a very large scale! Good morning guys. To me, the system (sand dunes) is still acting randomly. It is only to the outside observer (us) that start perceiving an order to the system. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/196 "2013-01-24T13:53:51Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > It is only to the outside observer (us) that start perceiving an order to the system. Give an example of something in the universe that represents order, that is not simply a perception by an observer. ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/197 "2013-01-24T14:10:51Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Give an example of something in the universe that represents order, that is not simply a perception by an observer. When I think of sand dunes, the sand is just blowing from one place to another, it takes an outside observer to see an order to it. The sand dune itself does not see the actions as being orderly. You may think this is a warped argument, but by now I’m sure your starting to get use to some of my crazy arguments. Atheists are a real world example of a system (an individual) that sees their own thoughts as being orderly. I agree that there needs to be an observer, however, the key is whether the observer is within the system or outside the system. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/198 "2013-01-24T14:42:35Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > I agree that there needs to be an observer, however, the key is whether the observer is within the system or outside the system. Then I will rephrase the question: Name something, anything, in the universe that represents order, which is not simply a perception by an observer. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/199 "2013-01-24T14:55:41Z")
> [@pchaos](#): > > When I think of sand dunes, the sand is just blowing from one place to another, it takes an outside observer to see an order to it. The sand dune itself does not see the actions as being orderly. Then you are thinking about them incorrectly. Stop looking at the grains and look at the system. Sand dunes form ordered patterns spontaneously from unordered effects. Think of the materials that make up a crystal. They can be compared to the grains in a sand dune, and can form ordered shapes in exactly the same way. > [@](#): > > Atheists are a real world example of a system (an individual) that sees their own thoughts as being orderly. Um, just about everyone views thier own thoughts as being ordered. Why single out atheists? ---
**Author:** ![pchaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/258eb7/32.png) [@pchaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pchaos)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721/200 "2013-01-24T15:02:35Z")
Let me try a metaphor. Okay, let’s say we are the sand dune and God is the outside observer. Now since we are just grains of sand blowing to who knows where…also we don’t know beans about the universe because of our virtually non-existent minds…everything appears random. God is outside that system and says everything is forming a pretty pattern, it’s all going according to plan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-all-an-accident-or-did-an-intelligent/647721.md?page=11)