The Powers and ID

[Caitlin]

With all the recent American controversy over the teaching of evolution in schools, it got me wondring- where would the Powers go? Are they to be classified under the umbrella of Intelligent Design, or are they something completely different? And do you think that the Powers would support Chuck and his theory of evolution?

[Melannen]

I *just* started reading chapter three of AWAB, and here it is:

"[The manual] just explained the science of it, of course. A wizard knows to look further
than mere science for explanations. The world was made, and none of these things
happen by accident. It was made by the Powers: not created in some abstract
sense, but made, stone by stone, as an artist makes, or a cook, or a craftsman -
with interest and care. The One, the only name that wizards have for that Power
which was senior to the Powers that Be, and everything else, like a good manager
had delegated many of its functions to the first-made creatures, the Powers
-which some people in the past had called gods, and others had called angels.
The Powers made different parts of the world, and became associated with them
simply because they loved them, as people who make tend to love what they've
made.

So, I would say, the Powers *are* Intelligent Design, but from the original meaning of the phrase, before it got co-opted by anti-evolution Biblical literalists: that the universe was created by Powers who loved it, but the Powers worked *with* science rather than against it in their creating. (Which always made sense to me: Why take the time to create everything manually when you could design a few subroutines {like, say, astrophysics and evolution} to do most of the boring stuff, and let you concentrate on tweaking the important details?)

Or, as I like to put it, "God doesn't play dice. God loads the dice."

(Hi! I'm new here. DD's books have influenced my religious thinking kind of a lot over the past ten years.)

[Vidur]

If you're wondering about plain evolution versus intelligent design versus any other theory of creation I highly recommend "The Science of Discworld" by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. There are three books in the series (T.S.O.D. I, II and III) and they combine the fiction of Discworld with hard science. The books discuss the limitations of our knowledge very frankly, make extrapolations while clearly stating that they could be completely wrong. Mind blowing stuff!! I'm in the middle of the second book and sometimes I get a headache just thinking about the implications of the facts they present.

[Gryphon]

Intelligent design is that evolution is too complex to happen naturally, therefore it must've been guided by a higher being of a godlike nature.

Intelligent design is the same as... thunder is so powerful! It has to have been the arrows thrown by some god or other. Scientific theories are built off a lot of research and observation. Intelligent design can't be proven one way or another; it's just faith. And to be blunt, faith isn't science.

[Lauren]

I agree with Vidur. In the YW universe it's sort of a combination of the two belief systems. That would take a whole separate book to explain it completely though. You think DD would ever consider it? Maybe like a Young Wizards Encyclopedia of All That Is.

....or something.

[Peter Murray]

A sort of Errantry Concordance, you mean?

Starting out as a set of webpages (well, a "wiki") and then turning into a book later?

I think DD would consider that, yes .