But the Bible-Belters, in their unsophisticated fundamentalist manner, recognise a threat, and they're right. The sophisticated reconciliation of evolution with God is a wishy-washy compromise, a cop-out. Why? Because evolution knocks an enormous hole in what otherwise might be the best argument yet devised for convincing people of the existence of God, and that is the `argument from design'.[1]

The universe is awesome in its size, astonishing in its intricacy. Every part of it fits neatly with every other part. Consider an ant, an anteater, an antirrhinum. Each is perfectly suited to its role (or 'purpose'). The ant exists to be eaten by anteaters, the anteater exists to eat ants, and the antirrhinum ... well, bees like it, and that's a good thing. Each organism shows clear evidence of `design', as if it had been made specifically to carry out some purpose. Ants are just the right size for anteaters' tongues to lick up, anteaters have long tongues to get into ants' nests. Antirrhinums are exactly the shape to

[1] So called because it starts from the phenomenon of design and deduces the existence of a cosmic designer. be pollinated by visiting bees. And if we observe design, then surely a designer can't be far away.

Many people find this argument compelling, especially when it is developed at length and in detail, and `designer' is given a capital `D'. But Darwin's `dangerous idea', as Daniel Dennett characterised it in his book with that title, puts a very big spoke into the wheel of cosmic design. It provides an alternative, very plausible, and apparently simple process, in which there is no role for design and no need for a designer. Darwin called that process `natural selection'; nowadays we call it `evolution'.

There are many aspects of evolution that scientists don't yet understand. The details behind Darwin's theory are still up for grabs, and every year brings new shifts of opinion as scientists try to improve their understanding.