James Bond and the argument from design

*is scared of the word teleological*

So I'm just watching On Her Majesty's Secret Service (in which I am led to believe George Lazenby's "voice" is dubbed), and it occurs that me that, whilst it might be possible that some types of monkeys could have hit upon the same deadly ruse as Telly Savalas' Blofeld, i.e. triggering an avalanche by firing a noisy flare, very few would have been able to conceive of, or been able to achieve, Bond's means of escaping the avalanche: skiing, an activity that could only have been conceived of against nature.

We have not yet encountered any animals who ski, independently. To my knowledge, anyway. Without, it should not need to be said, coercion, and a great deal of training.

Or rather: picture a chimpanzee on a dry ski-slope. Suddenly the most ambitious of human aspirations becomes explicable.

Even fewer monkeys would have thought of filming it and showing it for fun, with a thrilling soundtrack. Never mind making a sack of cash while doing so.

Also: we are the only animal (*we have yet encountered*) who thought of bob-sleighing. Which means either that we *are* the great conscious observing, deciding intelligence that the strong anthropic principle required - nay! demanded - the universe should bring about. Or that we are a cosmological dead-end. I dunno...

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

Some nights when I can't sleep, I think about a story by Borges. My favourite story, probably; though, let's face it, us humans managed to tell some pretty good stories while we were here.

Also: The Great Wall of China, by Kafka. That makes me happy. As much as any such thing might be possible...

Cosmological constants you would change if you were a deity who fancied a laugh

3. All of them. And none of them. The strong anthropic principle is worryingly enticing. But wrong, I reckon.

For reasons I'll get back to later...

Tonight, I think, I might have made the worst decision I ever made.

And I thought about it, and thought about it; and I still think I was right. But I might have been wrong...

Cosmological constants you would change if you were a deity who fancied a laugh

2. Try switching about some of the constants in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That'd be even funnier than Frank Lampard crashing his zeppelin.

This is about the strangest news story ever, no?

Imagine Frank Lampard crashing his zeppelin into a tower block in Shepherds Bush, and you'd be nearly there...

(edit: thankfully the baseball hero appears to have been travelling with his passport, which was easily identifiable in the charred wreckage. This allowed the authorities to immediately dispel fears of a terrorist attack, and the worldwide hysteria which would have resulted. The forthcoming midterm elections will also be unaffected. Phew.)

Cosmological constants you would change if you were a deity who fancied a laugh

1. The relative volumes at which women and men can hear television programmes.

Flylife

As if the world doesn't have enough to worry about, now we have to put up with 120 foot-long bugs. That's 36.576 metres for those of you watching in metric.

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. And aren't Ads by Goooooogle useful...?

No, really, what is it all about?

Goodness, no wonder there's a dearth of kids studying science. Nothing to do with the perceived lack of glamour compared to, say, media studies. Fact is, there are hardly any questions left to answer.

Aren't we smart...?

Time becomes a loop

Of all of the posts I published on this website over the last couple of years, this is the most perplexing. Wish I could remember what was on my mind at the time...