Evolution's Hand ~ CHAPTER 1 ~ "In the beginning.."

Cosmology is the subject of chapter one. Three important points are raised. Our universe had an origin, in what is known as the big bang, so that time itself had an origin. There was literally a time in our universe when there was no before. This is highly consistent with monotheistic claims that there was a beginning to everything including time itself. The universe began as a minute particle sized object and has been expanding and evolving physically ever since. This evolution has not been random at all. The actual values for the forces of physics had to be precisely what they are today if any kind of interesting results could emerge from evolution. The initial conditions were set so that the universe could evolve in a complex manner. This suggests that the physical evolution of the universe was brought about on purpose by an intelligent being. To add to this inference we note that the most inexplicable feature of modern science is the fact that it works. No obvious reason exists as to why the universe should be comprehensible at all. This leads to the inference that there is an overarching intelligence in the affairs of the universe. We have a strong inference that the universe was designed by an intelligent creator.

The section on cosmology serves an additional function. In it we can discern just how tightly controlled the initial conditions had to be for evolution to occur in the first place. This gives a general model for any evolutionary developments, particularly biological evolution which takes place on a time scale that is within the same order of magnitude as physical evolution. It would seem to be highly inconsistent to argue that the immense order achieved by biological evolution over the past four billion years was achieved with initial "settings" less precise than those that pertain to physical evolution. The obvious inference is that biological evolution had to have had at least the same level of stringent initial conditions as that of physical evolution. These initial conditions would of course be consistent with an intelligent creator and virtually nothing else. These initial settings appeared with the first organism close to four billion years ago. This organism was designed to evolve into the wide variety of living things we see on the earth today.